<p>The issue is not whether the Writing Associates program is an integral part of every Swarthmore student’s experience (comparing it to some hypothetical ideal). The issue is how the Swarthmore Writing Associates program compares to the offerings at other peer colleges and universities (comparing it to the real world). When you make a real-world comparison, it is very clear that the Swarthmore Writing Associates program is quantifiable strength of Swarthmore College and a nationally-recognized model for the type of program that is currently a hot-button action item in every accrediation review and academic selft-study. Academic graybeards are very concerned that colleges are failing to produce students who can write. Swarthmore’s direct peers are getting cited in their accreditation review reports for needing to address substandard writing programs and instruction. Until they hired one interim position last year (in response to the accrediation report citation), Williams College had not had a single staff member assigned to teaching writing or the writing program for several years. Their writing peers were getting zero training or institutional support – basically being hung out to dry. Compare to Swarthmore where writing associates benefit from a graduate level course in writing pedagogy and the support of two faculty members exclusively assigned to the writing program. Amherst has two professors doing the writing center as a part-time gig (again in response to citations in the accreditation process) and a grand total of 14 writing tutors – compared to 65 at Swarthmore. These are real differences in real programs that impact real students.</p>
<p>By your logic, we shouldn’t consider the Honors Program a defining strength of Swarthmore College, because two-thirds of Swarthmore students major in course and don’t do honors. </p>
<p>Yet, both the Writing Associates program and the Honors program are major initiatives at Swarthmore with long histories, each with a sizeable quarter million dollar a year price tag. Both are significantly interwoven into the curriculum (25 courses a semester are WA’d; honors seminars have led to a style of teaching across the curriculum) and both directly impact a full third to half of the students at any given time. The fact that many of those students are “forced” to get papers WA’d is a fundamental characteristic of the Swarthmore (and the Brown) WAC program and a key reason that Swarthmore’s writing program is a national model. The whole point is that writing instruction is both integrated into and a mandatory part of the curriculum across many departments. I believe a case can be made that these programs ARE integral, differentiating components of a Swarthmore education, in some ways even for the students who choose not to use them on an ongoing basis. The vast majority of colleges and universities have zero writing instruction beyond an intro composition course. Or, forget the students on the receiving end and consider just the value of the WA program to the 6% of the student body that takes the WA course each year and gains real-world experience in writing review. By any measure, that is a major extracurricular endeavor of the college, one certainly on par in terms of impact to the widely touted War News Radio (another defining strength of Swarthmore).</p>
<p>BTW, Swarthmore is now leading a national project to implement formal mentoring and study groups in the sciences. They have just received the second major Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant to further develop these intiatives started a few years ago and I understand they’ve recently recruited Williams to participate in a research project to measure statistical peformance of these types of innovative programs over time (retention rates in the sciences, etc.).</p>