Colleagues, Thank you for your responses to my inquiry about the feasibility of Brock University's new first-year courses. In a meeting this week, I conveyed your responses to some of my English dept colleagues here, and your voices were helpful in raising some difficult issues. Brock's English dept took on the project of creating a writing program with good will but without being given much chance of preparation, and now it's learning the hard way about how writing is taught and managed. Given the vulnerable positions of many writing courses and programs, perhaps especially those in Canada, I appreciate how a listserv such as ours can act as a counterweight to some of the naivete out there about writing. Brock is the second Canadian university I've taught at in my young career in which writing is managed or strongly influenced by people / departments without comp/rhet backgrounds. It can take much hard work, especially for those of us in new positions isolated from other comp/rhet colleagues, to bring around our more powerful, tenured bosses and administrators (and, for that matter, even my TAs!). I sometimes envy the strong American tradition of freshman comp--at least it seems to give American administrators a workable (though underfunded) model of how writing can be organized. Canada could do with such a tradition. All the best, John /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// John B. Killoran, PhD Assistant Professor Dept. of English Language and Literature Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1 Canada (905) 688-5550 ext.3886 [log in to unmask] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to [log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties, write to Russ Hunt at [log in to unmask] For the list archives and information about the organization, the annual conference, and publications, go to the Inkshed Web site at http://www.StThomasU.ca/inkshed/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-