Negotiating Expertise: The Strategies Writing Program Administrators use to Mediate Disciplinary and Institutional Values

Abstract

A First Year Writing program is an academic unit that manages the curriculum, budget, teaching faculty, and other aspects of writing classes for first year students as part of a university's general education curriculum. Throughout their daily tasks, the directors of these programs must work with the requirements of their institution, must build relationships with their administrators and campus stakeholders, and must work within the mission and values of their institution. However, as higher education becomes increasingly corporatized, these institutional constraints are sometimes at odds with the research, best practices, and theories of language and learning that these program administrators know and use. In this dissertation, I explore the way these differences in institutional situation and research-based practice affect the writing program. After outlining the way these inputs interact within the writing program and create a condition of tension, I locate the specific strategies of Requesting, Enriching, Learning, Showcasing, Collaborating, and Aligning as value-based forms of action that program administrators take to navigate this tension in positive ways