In this phase of development planning, system designers focus on im- plementing their new developments. As Fiksel explains, stakeholder and com- munity involvement is especially important in this part of the process. As smart growth principle nine admonishes, “Strengthen and direct developments to- wards existing communities.” New initiatives cannot just envision an ideal com-
munity population but must measure their effects on existing populations and serve their needs as well. For example, at the start of our PTW program, which is a track in the English major, we accommodated many students who were in the middle of pursuing a degree in English literature. These students often did not take the prerequisite courses, such as the introductory technical writing course, with someone trained in PTW and therefore often required instruction in the basics of writing as a social act or in the use of computer applications that were new to them. Our position as part of the English department requires us to meet the needs of such crossover students in order to make the transition to our new program possible and foster its growth.
Focusing on existing communities also emphasizes building on what is strong in the preexisting environment. For example, as noted above, we as the first two tenure-track PTW specialists arrived in our program to find a strong in- terest in journalism among students and talented faculty available to teach those courses. Although this focus conflicted with our previous conceptions of what PTW is or should be due to our graduate school preparation, we recognized the importance of developing this aspect of our program because it provides a good foundation and student base for our program, and we both developed courses related to it. Additionally, building on such preexisting strengths helps us to avoid sprawl by trying to take the program in other directions too soon, thereby diluting already sparse human and technological resources.
Perhaps even more importantly than merely following smart growth principle two, “Making development decisions predictable, fair, and cost-effec- tive,” in the deployment of programmatic change and growth strategies, is in- forming stakeholders and community members that you are doing so through documentation of those efforts. Once a program coordinator position has been approved and one has been appointed, it is important for that person to record all administrative duties in order to provide a record and develop data for use in making arguments in favor of creating new positions or acquiring other re- sources. Some of the activities that might be logged include student contacts; formal and informal meetings with committee members, administrators, and prospective students; time spent in hiring and other staff decisions; comple- tion of requirement checks for certificate students; creation of new courses; and attendance at conferences and workshops to keep skills current. The program administrators should also record the minutes of all committee meetings and post them on the department website or through another semi-public venue in order to create transparency and keep all parties informed of programmatic concerns, developments, and decisions. In addition to record-keeping, it may be useful to hold open meetings of the advisory committee, advertise those meet- ings, and encourage input from any interested parties. A transparent system, to
most onlookers, is a trustworthy one and the more the program wins the trust and cultivates the interest of the community, the more sustainable and resilient it will become.
conclusion
The creation and maintenance of a resilient and sustainable professional and technical writing program asks for a particular emphasis on cooperation and interaction among stakeholders and community members. In addition to this priority, PTW program administrators often face the additional challenge of fostering an inclusive atmosphere in an indifferent or even hostile departmental environment. While professional and technical writing programs seek to find their places within their universities’ various departments and structures, we as program administrators can find within systems thinking strategies for linking our work to our larger communities and linking our larger communities to our work. Systems thinkers, stressing the crucial attributes of diversity, efficiency, adaptability, and cohesion, offer us a methodology for building and maintain- ing stronger programs that serve our constituencies in more and better ways. By “identifying system function and boundaries, establishing requirements, select- ing appropriate technologies, developing a system design, evaluating anticipated performance, and devising a practical means for system development” (Fiksel 5330), professional and technical writing program administrators can system- atically develop better programs and find new ways to conceptualize problems inherent in existing program structures. In addition, systems thinking privileges the relationships inherent in organizations and environments, the very relation- ships that can determine whether goals are reached, resources allocated, and initiatives approved.
Using a methodology from systems thinking, we have applied the principles of smart growth urban planning to PTW program administration. Considering programs and their environments as landscapes affords us a way to create and sustain diverse, efficient, adaptable, and cohesive programs. These principles are broad-based and inclusive, fostering collective understanding and cooperation from stakeholders and communities. In addition, smart growth principles, translated for program administration, can help us answer or even avoid altogether the accusation that professional and technical writing programs are the academic equivalent of urban sprawl. Tighter, stronger programs with transparent administration might even mean never again having to hear a long- time colleague ask, “What exactly is professional writing, anyway?” And if, by chance, the question were to arise again, smart growth principles and systems
thinking strategies would allow us to respond by inviting that colleague to par- ticipate in specific ways in our open, inclusive, and mutually beneficial academic community.
notes
1 As of December 2005, the breakdown of English majors was as follows: 112 in
professional writing, 91 in literature, 50 in teacher licensure, and 54 undeclared (email from the department chair, December 13, 2005).
2 Smart Growth America lists the same principles, although in a different order,
on their website (“How is Smart Growth Achieved?,” 2004).
3 We first purchased Techsmith’s Camtasia, which allows students to make vid-
eos of what appears on the computer screen that incorporate sound and other graphic elements. More recently we purchased Macromedia Director for our computer classroom. This software allows students to develop interactive mul- timedia movies that include other film clips, graphics and audio. We were only able to afford ten copies for classes of twenty, but such sharing can be viewed as a positive way to foster collaboration among students.
4 We currently use Macromedia Dreamweaver for web design and Adobe InDe-
sign for producing publications.
5 Drawing upon advice from professional writing faculty at other universities,
we are currently investigating the use of the Open Source Portfolio Initiative application, which we will have to house on off-campus server space, as our university’s IT department refuses to support installing open source applications on university servers.
works cited
Allen, Jo. “Compact Planning and Program Development: A New Planning Model for Growing Technical Communication Programs.” Models for Stra- tegic Program Development. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Annual Conference Proceedings. 19-20 Oct. 2000: 56-58. 12 May 2004. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Website: http://cptsc.org/conferences/conference2000/program2000/proceed- ings2000.html
Allen, Jo. “The Case Against Defining Technical Writing.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 4.2 (1990): 68-77.
Andrews, Deborah C., & Worley, Rebecca B. “A Networked Approach to Pro- gram Growth.” Managing Change and Growth in Technical and Scientific Com- munication. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication An- nual Conference Proceedings 11-13 Oct. 2001: 71. 12 May 2004. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Website: http://cptsc. org/conferences/proceedings2001/proceedings2001.html
Ben-Zadok, Efraim. “Growing Smart is Hard to Do.” Planning 69.9 (Oct. 2003): 32-35.
Blakeslee, Ann M. “The Case for an Integrated Approach to Program Develop- ment.” Models for Strategic Program Development. Council for Programs in Tech- nical and Scientific Communication Annual Conference Proceedings19-20 Oct. 2000: 24-25. 12 May 2004. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Website: http://cptsc.org/conferences/conference2000/pro- gram2000/proceedings2000.html
Blythe, Stuart. “The Value of Seeking Interdisciplinary Models for Smaller Profes- sional Writing Programs.” Models for Strategic Program Development. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Annual Conference Proceed- ings 19-20 Oct. 2000: 26. 12 May 2004. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Website: http://cptsc.org/conferences/confer- ence2000/program2000/proceedings2000.html
Bosley, Deborah S. “A Proposal for the Marriage of Technical Communication and WAC/WID.” Models for Strategic Program Development. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Annual Conference Proceedings 19-20 Oct. 2000: 72. 12 May 2004. Council for Programs in Technical and Scien- tific Communication Web site: http://cptsc.org/conferences/conference2000/ program2000/proceedings2000.html
Cooper, Marilyn M. “An Ecology of Writing.” College English 48 (1986): 364-75. Cooper, Marilyn M. “Foreword.” Ecocomposition: Theoretical and Pedagogical Ap- proaches. Ed. Christian R. Weisser and Sydney I. Dobrin. New York: SUNY Press, 2001. xi-xviii.
Davis, Marjorie T. “How the Institutional Home Affects a Program.” Models for Strategic Program Development. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Annual Conference Proceedings 19-20 Oct. 2000: 19-20. 12 May 2004. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Website: http://cptsc.org/conferences/conference2000/program2000/proceed- ings2000.html
Di Renzo, Anthony. “The Great Instauration: Restoring Professional and Techni- cal Writing to the Humanities.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communica- tion 32.1 (2002): 45-57.
Dobrin, David N. “What’s Technical about Technical Writing?” New Essays in Technical and Scientific Communication: Research, Theory, Practice. Ed. Paul V. Anderson, R. John Brockmann, and Carolyn R. Miller. Farmingdale: Bay- wood,1983. 227-250.
Dobrin, Sydney I., & Weisser, Christian. Natural Discourse: Toward Ecocomposi- tion. New York: SUNY Press, 2002.
Fiksel, Joseph. “Designing Resilient, Sustainable Systems.” Environmental Science and Technology 37.23 (Dec. 2003): 5330-5340.
Geller, Alyson. “Smart Growth: A Prescription for Livable Cities.” American Jour- nal of Public Health 93.9 (Sept. 2003): 1410-14.
Hocks, Mary E., Lopez, Elizabeth Sanders, and Grabill, Jeffrey T. “Praxis and institutional architecture: Designing an interdisciplinary professional writing program.” 12 May 2004. academic.writing1: http://wac.colostate.edu/aw/ar- ticles/hocks2000.htm
Lutz, Jean A. & Storms, C. Gilbert. “Introduction.” The Practice of Technical and Scientific Communication: Writing in Professional Contexts. Ed. Jean A. Lutz and C. Gilbert Storms. Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing, 1998. vii-xvi.
Rutter, Russell. “History, rhetoric, and humanism: Toward a more comprehensive definition of technical communication.” Journal of Technical Writing and Com- munication 21.2 (1991): 133-53.
Smart Growth America. “How is Smart Growth Achieved?” 2004. 12 May 2004. Smart Growth America website: http://smartgrowthamerica.org/sghowto.html Staley, Samuel R. “Markets, Smart Growth, and the Limits of Policy.” Smarter
Growth: Market-Based Strategies for Land-Use Planning in the 21st Century. Ed.
Randall G. Holcombe and Samuel R. Staley. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001. 201-217.
Sustainable Communities Network. “About Smart Growth.” 2004. 24 Febru- ary 2004. Smart Growth Online: http://www.smartgrowth.org/about/default. asp?res=80.
Sustainable Communities Network. “Encourage Community and Stakeholder Collaboration.” 2004. 24 February 2004. Smart Growth Online: http://www. smartgrowth.org/about/principles/principles.asp?prin=10&res=1024
Weiler, Michael, & Pearce, W. Barnett. “Ceremonial Discourse: The Rhetorical Ecology of the Reagan Administration.” Reagan and Public Discourse in Amer- ica. Ed. Michael Weiler and W. Barnett Pearce. Tuscaloosa: University of Ala- bama Press, 1992. 11-42.
When I was invited to direct our Professional Writing major, the first steps were clear: my PTW colleagues and I were to find students, promote the program, and develop a curriculum.1 Much of this work was informal and oc-
casional—conversations in the elevator with the dean, talk in the mailroom. My colleagues and I were surprised, however, at how much of our time and energy was devoted to writing, and writing that was not exactly scholarly. Our sub- ject-matter expertise played a much smaller role than our rhetorical ability: we learned quickly how to make a complex point simple, what points not to raise, and how to anticipate the niggling unasked questions of our readers. Functional writing, in prescribed genres, was how work got done: getting the program pro- posal to the bureaucratic center of our system in Albany, NY was a labyrinth in its own right, but then came the course proposal revisions, emails, funding requests, webpages, syllabi, memos, minutes, class-size projections, assignments, and the like, each of which serving as an “important lever” that allowed us to “advance our own interests and shape our meanings in relation to complex social systems” (Charles Bazerman 79).2 As Bazerman says elsewhere, these genres are
not cold and mechanical, but “forms of life, ways of being” (“Life,” 19). In other words, in a complex literate system such as a professional writing program, our ways of being—our behavior, our identity, our style—are strongly shaped by the way we engage with key administrative genres. In the pages that follow, I want to tell the story of our program’s evolution as embodied and enacted in our administrative writings, and I focus on the curriculum because it is the center of this web of genres. Although the curricular text we wrote is neither profound nor even very long, being nothing but a completely humorless and efficient page full of prerequisites and other technical paraphernalia, it defines the nature of our program and the way subsequent and linked genres are written. Once the cur- riculum is approved and published in the college catalog, we become animate.
As the center of this “web” of genres, the curriculum is often printed (or downloaded) to a page or two of the college catalog, and it serves as a semi-legal document that gives sequence, shape, unity, themes, and minimums to students, providing them with a loose road map for how they can complete a degree in un-
der four years. Most curricular systems are complex gerrymandered intellectual districts when it comes to course requirements—a minimum of two from category A and three from category B, but at least six all told, for instance—and this system serves as the program’s DNA, what potentially gives it life and order. Just as we ask people to spell out words when we want to really understand what is said, so too we look at a program’s curriculum in order to truly make sense of it. Many conventions are widely accepted: the sequence of courses in the curriculum is indicated by prerequisites and level indications (such as 300-level courses for juniors, etc). The courses, for all their richness, are usually written in deaden- ing bureaucratese, never read until necessary, and perhaps for those reasons the descriptions retain a sense of finality and authority, what Bazerman might refer to as a “reducible” genre (90), one that “exists only in its consequences.” And despite the reductive quality, this authority is something that faculty are likely to appreciate, especially after struggling two or three years to get courses through the system and into the catalog. Because curricula are written, they tend, over time, to appear factual, not contingent; purely practical, not theoretical; a firm answer to a set of fixed problems rather than a tacit question about how a pro- gram can best adapt and grow.
Yet these conventional assumptions are incomplete. The curriculum, while “reducible,” is a form of activity that engages dynamically with the other powerful genres common to a writing program. This case study examines the curriculum not in terms of the logic and technicalities of our graduation se- quences and requirements, or even the frustrations of finally getting the thing into print (though doing so did severely test our patience), but rather as a source of both continuity and change. In our experience, the curriculum is in fact less like a pronouncement from Zeus than a dialogue with Hermes, both the mes- senger and trickster, stabilizing and destabilizing our program. By learning to respond to this dynamic, we came to value our functional, administrative writ- ing; in turn, we came to understand better how programs mature and how writ- ing functions for members of a small community such as ours. The effect of our developing understanding and rhetorical savvy is not just that we became better at manipulating the administrative genres of our program—though I think we did—but also that we came to understand better how to sustain a small aca- demic community of “writers-in-training”—a category that includes ourselves. I am advocating that program designers do more than simply “expect the un- expected” or “remain flexible,” but rather that they intently look for places to take reasonable risks, and the curriculum is often the most important place in a writing program for that to happen. It is hoped that this narrative will help other program designers decide what a “reasonable” risk might be given their particular situations.
site
SUNY Cortland is a semi-rural, mainly tax-funded, solidly established branch of the State University of New York system. The division between the liberal and applied arts is especially sharp. A former “normal” (teacher-prep) school, we still carry the pre-professional major of Education as our largest con- tingent, followed closely by Recreation and Sports Management; “traditional” Arts and Science majors, those not in a professional track, take up only a third of most incoming freshman classes. Furthermore, many of our students are first- generation academics, perhaps not encouraged by family to entertain seemingly frivolous majors. We are not an endowment-rich school and must therefore work within a very tight and unpredictable state budget. There is little largess for experimentation; it is expected that any venture show a clear and positive relation between expenditures and results – an approach most students are likely to understand well.
For all these reasons, the college, like the culture at large, is pushed to understand success as a lack of error. The number of solecisms in gram- mar, usage and mechanics can be what determines “good writing.” Casual conversation can turn into a lament when the topic of student writing comes up, and too often “students nowadays can’t write” emerges as a commonplace marking the travails of teaching. Teaching writing is too often understood as remediation, an unfortunate prerequisite to the real content any course might offer, a way of displaying remembered knowledge, rather than as a process of making or discovering knowledge. Despite a dynamic and persuasive Compo- sition Program and WAC director, writing can function more as an inocula- tion against diseased prose than a way to join a community and tradition of inquiry.
We developed a writing practice in our PWR program that is often at odds with these conventions, and did so structurally. Our goal, most textually