While at Penn State and Florida State, I have served in an administrative capacity in writing programs, digital studios, and writing centers. As an administrator, I strive to collaborate with local stakeholders to conduct data-driven programmatic assessment and support mentoring across levels. I believe effective administration requires responsiveness to changing contexts and attentiveness to the diverse needs of students, staff, and faculty.

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responsivity

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As the COVID-19 pandemic has made especially apparent, administrative work requires flexibility and adaptability. Working with the writing program and Digital English Studio concurrently in March 2020 allowed me to help facilitate the transition to fully online pedagogy. Even before the university pivoted to fully online instruction, our Digital English Studio team had prepared for this eventuality and had unit modules ready to transfer to writing course sites. As the graduate WPA for the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Penn State responsible for the spring semester first year writing curriculum, I developed three new versions of the final assignment and accompanying lesson plans to address the varied needs of instructors during the pandemic. COVID-19 has highlighted the diverse range of situations facing students and teachers, emphasizing the importance of designing for accessibility.

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Collaboration

For me, successful administration requires the collaboration of multiple stakeholders across varying academic and community contexts. In my graduate study at Penn State and Florida State, I have built such collaborations. For example, as a graduate WPA, my colleagues and I collaborated with programs across the university, including the Gender Equity Center, Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, and Counseling and Psychological Services, to support new graduate students and instructors during our week-long department orientation. In this role, I also worked with librarians and Media Commons staff to develop a new digital portfolio assignment supported by university technology resources. Similarly, when teaching the composition pedagogy practicum for new graduate instructors and instructional faculty, I developed connections with researchers in applied linguistics to enhance our class conversations on translingual pedagogy and multilingual students. In my work creating programming for Florida State’s celebration of the National Day of Writing, I have found that this collaborative ethos is vital for university and community partnerships.

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Assessment

My administrative experience has also given me insight into program and curriculum assessment. As a consultant at Penn State’s Digital English Studio, I participated in conversations about department-wide technology initiatives and worked to revise distance education curriculum according to best practices for online writing pedagogy. In my service work with the FSU Writing Center and Digital Studio committee, I helped track student engagement with writing tutors and the digital technologies offered in our studios and used these detailed annual reports to help determine where to develop new pedagogical resources. Our committee collaboratively authored a mission statement—a process I supported by creating a data visualization peer institutions’ writing center mission statements coded using the WPA Outcomes statement. 

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Mentoring

I view mentoring as an essential component of a strong writing program. To that end, I have served in the departmental mentoring program for new graduate students and the writing program’s teaching mentoring program. Additionally, as a graduate WPA, I also managed two undergraduate interns and created enriching professional experiences reflecting their specific career aspirations. I look forward to continuing these experiences in future administrative contexts.