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I'm looking forward to the answers to Phyllis's questions.  I can add some
information about her number 2 below:
 
 
> 2.  Roger mentions in his book that there were,at the time of his study,
> only 4 of the 54 English Univs in Canada that had WAC programs..well he
> actually says that require students to take "writing -intensive" courses. I
> ssume these were York and Laurentian, and maybe Waterloo? What others are
> there in Canada? I'd especially like to know if there are any that have a
> Writing Program Administrator who co-ordinates the whole WACc or WID
> program, who is a tenured or tenure -track faculty member.  That's the
> model I'd like to see here."
 
I'm not sure which of the 54 universities Roger had in mind, but I think that
Phyllis's guess that York is among them is incorrect.  York does have
"writing intensive courses":  at its Atkinson College there's English 1400
and a number discipline "writing intensives"  and in the Faculty of Arts 80%
of approximately 100 College Courses are writing intensive or otherwise
"critical skills" intensive--but students are not "required" --Grave's
criteria above--to take them.  In fact, most of these are by York's standards
now very small courses (25 students).  In the current economic situation,
there's no chance that therew will be enough of these to make them
required--in fact, there's a much greater danger that the number will be
reduced.
 
On the issue of the scope of the programs and the status of the co-ordinator
at York.  The two most developed programs are at Atkinson College, where
Leslie Sanders co-ordinates the whole--but with too little release time from
other responsibilites--and I'll leave Leslie to say more about her program.
 However, just to respond to the isse of status, she is fully tenured.
In Arts, Ron Sheese, a tenured faculty member originally from Psychology, is
Director of the Centre for Academic Writing and also directs the critical
skills program which operates mainly through the College Courses mentioned
above.
 
James
 
--
James Brown
Assistant Secretary of the University
York University Secretariat
S883 Ross  736-5012
 
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