The Howe Center for Writing Excellence and Howe Writing Across the Curriculum (HWAC) program is excited to welcome 10 new Miami faculty as Faculty Writing Fellows Program alumni.

This past fall, three groups of faculty from Sociology, Accountancy, and Project Dragonfly participated in the Howe Faculty Writing Fellows program hosted by the Howe Center for Writing Excellence. Participants met once a week throughout the course of the semester to explore opportunities to more effectively teach writing within the contexts of their program disciplines. Throughout the program, teams received support from Howe Writing Across the Curriculum staff and worked to promote deep learning through writing.

To learn more about what is possible through the Faculty Writing Fellows program, we encourage you to read more about each team’s project below. You can also read more about past team projects on HWAC’s website.

Faculty interested in reexamining the way in which they teach writing on both the course level and departmental level can apply to join the Summer and Fall 2024 Faculty Fellows Program. More information on the Faculty Writing Fellows program can be found on the HWAC website.

Accountancy

Faculty Team: Qing Burke, Po-Chang Chen, Jon Pyzoha

Accountancy faculty established threshold concepts for accountancy curriculum (including specific threshold concepts for generative AI), explored how generative AI is used in the accounting profession, and designed course projects that utilized generative AI to some degree. Additionally, they conducted a survey of accounting faculty and departmental use of generative AI, and drafted a departmental guiding principle on the use of generative AI for accountancy curriculum. Next steps include continuing to work with their departmental colleagues to create generative AI policies in their courses in accordance with threshold concepts.

Sociology

Faculty Team: Stephen Lippmann, Ron Bulanda, Will Charles, Jennifer Bulanda

Sociology faculty identified writing assignments for various SOC courses, as well as the writing genres and threshold concepts associated with each of them across course levels. Additionally, faculty developed ideas for alternative writing genres and assessments. Faculty found that the Fellows program offered a place for collaborative conversation and problem solving, and their next steps involve creating a Canvas site to house best practices and host open discussions on writing amongst colleagues.

Project Dragonfly

Faculty Team: Katie Feilen, Laura Abondano, Michelle Szydlowski

Project Dragonfly faculty focused their efforts on examining Conservation Science and Community, a foundational Master’s-level course for the program and a so-called “monster of a course,” according to students. Faculty broke down writing assignments and identified declarative and procedural knowledge for each, looking for opportunities to merge assignments and redefine student learning outcomes. The Project Dragonfly work group plans to continue their work finalizing the merging of assignments based on commonalities, as well as building worksheets to act as guides for program instructors. They will also revisit the student learning outcomes for Conservation Science and Community and how they connect to the program’s threshold concepts.