Developing a Writing Certificate Program

I admit it, I thought we could produce a proposal for an Academic Writing Certificate pretty quickly...and we did during the 2007-8 academic year. At the beginning of Fall 2008 we took our proposal to the English Instructional Council (EIC). Our proposal basically allowed students to take ENG101 and ENG102, take a few more writing courses and call it an academic certificate.
Because one of the other colleges had recently gone through some bad experiences with another academic certificate, the EIC sent the proposal back requesting two things:

• one more 200 level required course, and
• some capstone activity.

It took three full semesters for our Composition Committee to finally reemerge with a new proposal. We added a 200 level Workplace Writing course as well as a Portfolio Capstone requirement. Since the courses have to already be approved and in the course bank before a program can require them, we submitted the two course proposals during the Spring 2010 semester; both were approved by the end of the semester. And although the Writing Certificate Program proposal is officially submitted, we are now waiting for the district to revise it’s academic certificate proposal process.
One of the reasons the process slowed down is because we introduce more people into the process. During the Fall 2008 semester we also had hired on two more rhet/comp faculty members who were very excited about developing the writing certificate program and had definite ideas of their own. We ended up basically starting from scratch; however, had much more critical and reflective discussions and developed a more robust program proposal. I’ll admit that I still don’t necessarily agree that the required upper division level course for this certificate should be focused on workplace or professional writing; however, this process was all about negotiation for all of us on the committee.

Ultimately, I am very proud of the work of our committee and our resulting writing certificate program proposal and can’t wait for it to be approved so we can start advertising to students.

June 20 2010 | Posted in MCC