Submission Deadline: March 15, 2012

Conference Location: Albuquerque, NM

Conference Date: July 19-22, 2012

“Location, location, location! The Role of Technical and Professional Writing and Communication Programs Within or Alongside Writing Programs.” CWPA Conference. 7/19-22

The panel is being organized for this July’s Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) conference, which will be held in Albuquerque July 19-22.  In the interest of broadening discussions of the role of Technical Communication programs within larger Writing programs, the organizers hope to attract panelists whose insights, drawn from their own institutional experiences, would deepen this discussion.

Some topics might include:

• In the broader context of professional and technical communication and the teaching of multimedia and technical/business communication, how has your program carved its own niche at your institution?
• Has your TC program’s (or major’s) growth tracked alongside the growth of the Writing program at your institution?
• What unique challenges face TC faculty whose home is within English departments today?  If your TC program exists within an English department, does it also operate under the umbrella of a Writing/Composition/Rhetoric program?  What unique TC-program needs is it difficult to meet in this structure?
• If your TC major is housed in a department other than an English department and/or has no ties to your institution’s Writing program, how has this allowed for development and disciplinary clarity and/or what are the challenges or consequences of this arrangement?

Please send a 200-word narrative statement in response to one (or more) of the above questions by March 15th to Julianne Newmark (jnewmark@nmt.edu) or Julie Dyke Ford (jford@nmt.edu).  Also, please feel free to email with questions or ideas.