Our 18th Annual Meeting in the Middle will take place in person from at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, February 9, 2024. Please see the CFP below for more information. You can register and submit a proposal to present using this Google Form and submit a payment by visiting this website and selecting the “BOGO” option.
Registration is $30 and, as in years past, this is a “Buy One/Get One” cost, covering two persons’ conference registration and membership in Carolinas WPA.
Call for Proposals: Carolinas Writing Program Administrators – Meeting in the Middle 2024
When: February 9, 2024, 10:00am EST (full schedule to come)
Where: UNC Charlotte, Dubois Center, 320 E 9th St., Charlotte, NC 28202
We cordially invite you to Carolinas WPA Meeting in the Middle Conference which will be held at UNCC’s uptown campus in Charlotte.
Keynote Presentation: “Then & Now”
Almost always, you need to know where you’ve been in order to know where you’re going. In 2023, Carolinas WPA celebrated twenty years of existence, twenty years of fostering mentorship, support, continuing education, allyship, and friendship for writing program centers, programs, instructors, and students. It’s been a long journey, and now is a good time to revisit our past in order to re-envision our future.
This call extends the work begun at Wildacres this past fall. Nestled in the cocoon of the Blue Ridge mountains, we considered what it means to renew ourselves in the context of our profession and explored how the places we abide change as we change. So then, how has Carolinas WPA changed over time and how can we ensure this space continues to be a place of invention, invigoration, and support?
We can think of none better to lead on this introspective look than Tracy Ann Morse and Wendy Sharer. They’re both a fundamental part of this organization. Drawing on their article, “The Affiliate as Mentoring Network: The Lasting Work of the Carolinas WPA,” which was co-written with Carolinas WPA co-founders Meg Morgan and Marsha Lee Baker and published in WPA: Writing Program Administration (2020), Tracy and Wendy will share a history of the organization and point to the many gaps it has filled for WPAs and writing instructors across North and South Carolina over its twenty-year history. They will also guide us in discussions about how the organization can grow and change to meet the current and future needs of members and their writing programs.
Keynote Speakers:
Tracy Ann Morse is the Director of Writing Foundations at East Carolina University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetoric and composition. Her research focuses on disability studies and writing program administration. Her recent work has been published in Composition Studies, WPA: Writing Program Administration, and College English. Along with Patti Poblete and Wendy Sharer, she currently edits the journal WPA: Writing Program Administration. She served as President of Carolinas WPA from 2015-2017.
Wendy Sharer teaches writing and rhetoric at East Carolina University and specializes in feminist rhetorics, the history of rhetoric, and writing program administration. Along with Tracy Ann Morse and Patti Poblete, she currently edits the journal WPA: Writing Program Administration. She is also the Immediate Past President of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition (CFSHRC). She has previously held the positions of Director of ECU’s Quality Enhancement Plan, “Write Where You Belong” and Director of Writing Foundations in the Department of English. Additionally, she has served as President of the Carolinas Writing Program Administrators (2009-2012), as a member of Executive Committees of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) and as the Associate Editor for Peitho (the peer-reviewed journal of the CFSHRC). Her current research project is a study of writing instruction in the camps of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s.
Conference Theme: In a post-pandemic world, the spaces and places where we learn and teach have drastically changed. Hybrid, in-person, synchronous online, asynchronous online – these modalities have extended the classroom in far-reaching ways, which necessitates new lenses in the profession we hold so dear.
How do we bring the lens of place, especially as place has changed so much, as a way of mindfulness in our teaching?
In order to move forward, we might have to deconstruct and reconstruct the blueprints of our classroom spaces. What is the essence of what we do? What pillars of our pedagogy stay essential, regardless of the evolving context; what changes are necessary? How has technology, new approaches to the work we do, and emerging research make us better teachers and administrators? How have our students, and their shifting experiences as learners, impacted the ways we approach our work as we attempt to create invitational spaces for teaching?
Carolinas WPA welcomes proposals that address this evolving landscape alongside the immovable foundations we squarely root into. We invite reflections of this topic, the sharing of ideas and insights that inspire us to process new visions of our classrooms.
We welcome proposals for traditional presentations, where presenters share pedagogies, ideas, experiences from the field. These individual or group/panel presentations are slated for 45-60 minutes total.
Returning this year will be roundtable discussion proposals–you might not have material to present in a traditional sense, but you might be interested in leading. , or at least starting, a conversation about a particular issue relating to this question. We’re planning to organize the day based on conceptual groupings for discussion.
To help with considerations for potential discussion concerns, we’ve provided a few broad topics/ideas, but you’re more than welcome to suggest your own. Roundtable discussions are expected to run for roughly 45-60 minutes.
- How can I incorporate location – where might I situate learning beyond my physical or digital classroom?
- “I’d like to create a more inviting LMS for my students and would love to share ideas!”
- “I’ve made the switch to upgrading, but hitting some road bumps. . I’d love to talk shop with others and trade strategies.”
Deadline: 11:59pm, January 31, 2024
We are excited to offer BOGO registration this year for all participants: $30 for two attendees: the registration fee for the paying applicant also covers the cost of annual membership dues for both attendees. To register for the conference, please complete this registration form (including the names of all registrants) AND THEN visit the following page, where you can select the “BOGO” registration for a pair of registrants: http://www.carolinaswpa.org/join-carolinas-wpa/. (If you are registering more than two persons, please be sure to submit a BOGO payment for each pair of registrants.)
Want to bring a TA or graduate student? We might have funds to offset or waive the registration fee. Please email bowerss@queens.edu to inquire about this offer.
More information about the event and the Carolinas WPA organization can be found at https://www.carolinaswpa.org; Questions about the event can be sent to Shawn Bowers at bowerss@queens.edu. Questions about registration/payment specifically can be sent to Kevin Brock at brockkm2@mailbox.sc.edu.