Faculty Resources

Welcome Faculty!

ON THIS PAGE YOU WILL FIND
SBA plan for integrating writing into its curriculum	Comments from faculty who have worked with the HWI	New writing tips from the Howe Writing Initiative!
Writing tips from the SBA faculty	Guest faculty column Tim Melley, English	Tips for Writing Business Letters by Anne Lawton

What the Howe Writing Initiative can do for faculty:
The Howe Writing Initiative is intended primarily as a resource for faculty in RTFSBA. The faculty should be applauded for supporting this professorship and this initiative, particularly for supporting the plan for Integrating Writing into the SBA Curriculum. I know of very few universities, let alone schools of business, who have put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, by instituting a college-wide initiative in communication.

On the surface, this task should be easy; no one argues about the importance of good writing, the centrality of communications skills and rhetorical savvy to success. Everyone also seems to know precisely what good writing is, including the SBA faculty. Faculty worries about student writing are genuine and sophisticated: there are the age-old complaints about spelling, grammar and correctness, or course, but faculty also want their students to demonstrate the ability to read critically and produce effective arguments, to prioritize information, to relate generalities and specifics, to tailor information and argument to particular audiences.

However, people disagree about how to achieve these goals. The HWI does not offer one model of integrating writing into all SBA courses, much less one model or what "good" writing might be; instead, its plan is to work from individual, disciplinary contexts and then to describe for faculty what kind of writing is actually going on across SBA departments, what pedagogical strategies faculty are using, and how student writing and the teaching of writing might improve across all departments and levels of the curriculum.

There are several ways that the Howe Writing Team's can share their experience and expertise:

The Howe team can serve as on-call consultants for writing issues and problems: we can offer suggestions about writing assignments, review students papers, attend classes, offer advice about responding to and evaluating writing, and in general advise faculty on the kinds, purposes, audiences, and amounts of writing in particular courses, majors, programs.
The Howe team can work with particular faculty and groups of faculty on particular courses: sitting in on classes (for the entire semester or part of the course), making suggestions about the relationship of writing to disciplinary learning, reviewing the place of writing assignments in the course(s), making presentations, and in general serving as consulting to the course or program.
The Howe team will be involved in studying writing in SBA and beyond and in suggesting strategies for improving the teaching of writing and the writing of SBA students. The Howe Professor will continue to work with the Committee on Written and Oral communication to implement the plan for Integrating Writing into the SBA Curriculum. The HWI Team will begin in 1997-1998 to be available to departments as they develop their writing plans. The Howe Professor will distribute regular reports to SBA faculty about writing in the School, as well as writing in business and industry. See Kate's Column.
The Howe team is also interested in facilitating and collaborating on research into writing and disciplinary learning. See our research pages. Is there a question about student or professional writing you'd like to investigate? Let us know.
The Howe team also wants to provides a site for ongoing discussions among faculty about teaching, assigning, responding to,and evaluating student writing. Watch this site for more information.

What Faculty can do for the Howe Writing Initiative:

None of this will work or make any difference without the RTFSBA faculty. The lists of activities above are offered as suggestions, ways that the HWI team has begun to work with faculty, not as rigid parameters that might limit the collaborative work that this initiative offers. Therefore, the HWI team would like to know what you want and need. We solicit your advice about how to make the HWI most helpful to SBA faculty and students.

Please tell us what you need. The questions below suggest some of the issues we're curious about. Send questions or comments to the Howe Writing Team at ronaldkj@miavx1.muohio.edu.
- What's the biggest problem you face in terms of assigning writing in your classes?
- What do you think is the biggest problem with student writing?
- What would you like to know more about?
- What's your best writing assignment?
- What's your worst writing assignment?
- What keeps your from assigning writing in your classes?
- What prompts you to assign writing in your classes?
- How important is good writing in your discipline?
- How closely does the writing you assign to students match the professional writing in your discipline, either academically or in the workplace?
- What would you like help with?
  
  Coming Soon:

WHERE TO NEXT?
About WAC	About the Howe Initiative	Student Resources
SBA Faculty	Business Professionals	English Faculty