The Howe Center for Writing Excellence and Howe Writing Across the Curriculum (HWAC) program are thrilled to welcome 13 new Miami faculty members as Faculty Writing Fellows Program alumni.

Four groups of faculty from the Art, Mathematics, Chemical Engineering, and Gerontology departments took the opportunity to reexamine how writing can support the teaching of disciplinary threshold concepts within their programs. Teams sought to revise course curriculum, restructure courses to meet Advanced Writing requirements, and create entirely new courses.

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 Fall 2024 Faculty Fellows Program. More information on the Faculty Writing Fellows program can be found on the HWAC website.

Art, Architecture, Arts Mgmt, Studio Art

Faculty Team: Dilge Dilsiz, May Khalife, Joel Armor

Interdisciplinary teaching modules/resources for threshold concepts of art.

The team identified the following threshold concepts

• Art is a process;
• Art is collaborative and social; and
• Art/Design engages us to reconsider ways of thinking and solving problems by building on existing precedents.

As specific areas of concentration each team member is tasked with a focus on research, reflection, and presentation in areas where overlap occurs within their respective fields. Initially, they aim to create individualized modules within their own disciplines with the idea to expand into other corresponding departments.

The next step will be the creation of the modules and their implementation in their courses. They will provide guidelines to better incorporate these forms of writing in art and design courses.

Mathematics

Faculty Team: Ebrahim Sarabi, Alim Sukhtayev, Anna Ghazaryan

Design an assessment plan for a new degree to reflect the importance of the written communication skills.

Chemical Engineering

Faculty Team: Jason Boock, Jason Berberich, Cathy Almquist, Doug Coffin

Embedding writing across the courses in their major to satisfy the Advanced Writing requirement.

Next steps include:

• Develop a writing guide for faculty and students that also demonstrates how and why we are incorporating writing into our curriculum
• Facilitate the incorporation of learning-to-write and writing-to-learn assignments in CPB courses.

Gerontology (Implementation Science)

Faculty Team:  Heather Menne, Katy Abbott, Saruna Ghimire

Create assignments for new graduate-level interdisciplinary course in Implementation Science.

Drafted 12 assignments for the course. These assignments include discussion board posts, one-pagers, reflection papers, and peer-reviews.