New Writing Studies Department Launches in September

September will mark the birth of the newly formed Department of Writing Studies. This new department emerges from the recommendations of the Academic Task Force on Undergraduate Writing, an important part of President Bruininks’ strategic positioning of the U of M.

Professor Laura Gurak, current head of the Department of Rhetoric in the College of Agricultural, Food, and Natural Resource Sciences, has been named chair. The department brings together faculty, staff, and programs from composition, rhetoric, writing and technical communication.

The Department of Writing Studies’ mission includes

• providing first-year writing courses for all freshman on the Twin Cities campus. Starting fall semester 2007, all incoming Twin Cities campus freshmen will take at least one semester of writing;
• becoming home to the Center for Writing, with satellite locations on campus. The center will continue to provide both face-to-face and online student writing support;
• developing a writing enriched curriculum program, which will make writing a fundamental part of every U of M-Twin Cities undergraduate major.

The department recently received a great boost. The University has received a grant of nearly $1 million from the Bush Foundation to fund the writing enriched curriculum program.

The new department will be housed in Wesbrook Hall, starting fall 2007. (The Center for Writing’s main location will continue to be in Nicholson Hall.) It is anticipated in about three years that the writing studies department will move into Folwell Hall after the building receives a much-needed renovation. The department will join many of CLA’s language departments, such as French and Italian; German, Scandinavian and Dutch; Spanish and Portuguese; and Asian languages and literatures.