Original_To:  BITNET%"mbu-l@ttuvm1.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 21:33:00 EDT
From:         "Composition Digest (Robert Royar,
              Moderator)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Subject:      (Fwd: *C&CD*) RE: RE: Splitting comp from eng (7)

Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 20:00:54 EDT
From:         IN%"RobertRoyar@Delphi.com" Robert Royar (C&CD Moderator)
Message-Id:   <1992Sep11.200054.1.Grendel.Lair@Cratylus>
Subject:      RE: RE: Splitting comp from eng (7)
Reply-to:     IN%"R0MILL01@ULKYVX.LOUISVILLE.EDU"  C&CD
Organization: Cratylus Educational Software

Nancy, John, and all others in the battle

In my postings I was not really attempting or intending to respond to the
problems at UT Austin.  I was, however, attempting to articulate a stance
in defense of my own tenuous position as a comp person in a department that
when I ask for departmental support to set up pilot projects and to perform
some "empirical" research I'm told

  1. you really need training to do that and you're just an English teacher
     (that chair's gone for now) or
  2. why don't you get together an article on Chaucer (the new chair)

These are the realities for my east coast existence.  As far as the
gruesome policing that went on in Texas last year--I can believe it.  But
that battle is not to be fought here--a school where not taking a
multicultural approasch would be scrutinized.  And that's one thing that
keeps me here--the real diversity.  I certainly don't want us to lose
another faculty member.  We're down by six members from what we were when I
got here in 88, seven if you count the one member who after being promoted
to dean and fighting those battles took a more peaceful position upstate.
But the focus of the lit faculty here does tend to be on the library
research they can accomplish in the summer and on their lit classes, and
the discussion does tend to center on that research.

There is very little push among the tenured ranks to reach out to other
departments (behavioral sciences, communication arts, instructional
technology) to develop innovative instructional techniques and to learn
from their experiences (and yes I believe they too would benefit).  The one
exception (M. Kremers a rhetorician by degree) reached so far he was
promoted to chair of another department.  The drama teacher (who
practically built that program), has been working very hard to forge
connections with the tv production department--but that work has gone
virtually unheralded (I believe because it's thought to take time away from
his "serious" research in a quest for tenure).  By the way as far as I know
he's the only one in our English faculty who regularly reads this list.
Our only other active reader manages the Academic Computer Labs and is a
physics teacher--but he's very interested in promoting K-12 education and
telecom so his interest in this list (the only national one we get) makes
sense (see also  Jim Porter <jporter@MACE.CC.PURDUE.EDU>, Fri, 11 Sep 1992
11:47:16 EST).

But this semester we discovered that the comp coordinator's position has
been abolished, partly because of budgetary problems but also because there
is a strong perception from above the chair on down that comp is just that
grunt work we do because we have to.  I've actually had department members
stare open mouthed when they hear me say I'd rather teach the writing course
than the literature courses.  One followed the incredulous look with a
remark that "Well, I guess the classes are smaller." We just got approval to
add an English major and an English ed major.  But will there be one course
taught in linguistics, or language history, or writing pedagogy? NO!
(despite recommendations to the contrary by the two rehet and rhet/comp
faculty members).

We will be training teachers to go into their High school english classes
and teach English without training in either writing theory or models of
writing-based classroom practice--and not because we lack qualified
faculty--but because the faculty in the majority never had to take such
courses and seem unable or unwilling to conceive of their value.  So at
this site it would be very beneficial for comp to be a separate discipline
with its own agenda and budgets.

 -- Robert Royar (RobertRoyar@Delphi.com) New York Institute of Technology

------------------------------
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU