News

Job Opportunity: Concordia University, Department of English

Rachael Cayley

The Concordia University Department of English invites applications for an Extended Term Appointment (ETA) at the rank of Lecturer in Composition and Professional Writing. This probationary continuing position is a cross-appointment with the Centre for Engineering in Society. A doctorate is necessary as well as university teaching experience in these fields. The renewable appointment is initially for three years. The successful candidate will be eligible for a Faculty professional development stipend.

The mandate of an ETA is teaching and service; the latter is to the primary unit of English. The paramount service is as Coordinator of the department’s Composition program and its Professional Writing Minor. Teaching duties across the primary and secondary units will entail courses in Composition, Professional Writing, and Technical Writing.

The annual course allotment for an ETA is seven (21 credits), with concomitant course remission for coordination of the English programs. Service experience and demonstrated teaching effectiveness in the relevant areas will determine the ranking of applicants.

Applications should include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, teaching statement, evidence of teaching proficiency, and three letters of reference. Please submit electronic applications only. All applications or inquiries should be sent to Dr. Andre Furlani, Chair, Department of English, Concordia University.

Subject to budgetary approval, the position begins on June 1, 2018. Review of applications will continue until the position is filled. Applications should reach the Department of English no later than 11 December 2017.

 

 

Job Opportunity: University of the Fraser Valley, Department of Communications

Rachael Cayley

The Communications Department at the University of the Fraser Valley invites applications for two full-time, tenure-track positions in professional communications. UFV’s Communications is an applied program that emphasizes professional writing, speaking, and other communication practices. The candidate must have a minimum of three years’ teaching experience in professional communications, which includes applied writing, public speaking, team communication, and social media. Teaching and/or industry experience is also required in (1) social media and digital communication strategies (posting #2017.187) or (2) public relations or a similar field (posting #2017.188). Full posting details can be found here: see posting #2017.187 and/ or #2017.188.

Candidates must submit a curriculum vitae; evidence of teaching excellence (student evaluations if available), and one-page statement of teaching philosophy plus examples of innovative approaches to teaching and course design if available. Three letters of reference will be required prior to being interviewed.

The Selection Advisory Committee will begin reviewing applications on December 11, 2017; however, the positions will remain open until filled.

Call for Proposals: Corpus & Repository of Writing

Rachael Cayley

The Corpus & Repository of Writing (Crow) team is pleased to share a call for proposals for “Writing Research Without Walls: A Symposium for Interdisciplinary Writing and Collaboration.” The symposium will take place at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN on October 4-6, 2018. The plenary speakers will be Dr. Shondel Nero, Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning, New York University, and Dr. Susan M. Conrad, Professor of Applied Linguistics, Portland State University.

This symposium will feature empirical interdisciplinary writing research with focuses on technology and undergraduate research. They welcome both scholars studying undergraduate writing and undergraduate students conducting research in writing studies.  Students and scholars from applied linguistics, rhetoric and composition, second language writing, corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, and technical communication are encouraged to submit.

For this symposium, Crow invites proposal submissions for individual papers, posters, panel presentations, work in progress (WIP), workshops, and media installations. All proposals submitted should clearly engage with data-driven research (quantitative and/or qualitative approaches). We highly encourage those interested in the interdisciplinary and collaborative frameworks that Crow values to submit proposals. All submissions—even those that are WIP—should clearly articulate their research methods. Writing scholars at all levels in the university (tenured/tenure-track professors, adjunct professors/lecturers, graduate students, and undergraduate students) are encouraged to apply.

All proposals must be submitted by February 1, 2018, and applicants will be notified about acceptance decisions by March 15, 2018. The full call for proposals can be found here.

 

Call for Papers: 2018 CWCA Conference

Rachael Cayley

2018 CWCA Conference Call for Papers

Politics and the Writing Centre: Inquiry, Knowledge, Dialogue and Action

Deadline: Submit your proposals by 11:59pm (EST) Monday, January 15, 2018 (Please note that this is a FIRM deadline, and will NOT be extended.)

Where: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon

When: May 24-25, 2018

Keynote: Dr. Sheelah McLean

Plenary: Jack Saddleback

In Canada, a recent focus on reconciliation and Indigenization are revitalizing conversations around anti-oppression pedagogy (Kumashiro, 2000), a series of approaches which focus on how traditional educational systems and practices reinforce existing hierarchies and contribute to the disenfranchisement of marginalized students. Nationally and internationally, post-secondary institutions are seeing students affected by the rising tide of extremist right-wing politics and dubious news sources, calling for renewed attention to social justice and literacy-building.

An International Writing Centres Association (IWCA) position statement states that writing centres are particularly well positioned to “uphold students’ rights, as we work in the everyday-ness of literacy” (as cited in Godbee & Olson, 2014). As Nancy Grimm (2009) said in her IWCA keynote, “Although some might claim that the work of a writing center is ‘just’ to teach writing, the teaching of writing is never a neutral endeavor; it is never devoid of political motivations or outcomes.”

At the 2018 CWCA conference, we invite you to join us to exchange knowledge, share challenges, and ask questions about the ways our teaching and tutoring can and should engage in anti-oppressive educational practices.

Keynote speaker Dr. Sheelah McLean — a founder of the Idle No More movement and recipient of the Carol Gellar Human Rights Award (2013) — will discuss anti-racist, anti-oppressive educational practices. Closing plenary speaker Jack Saddleback will discuss the topic of resilience, drawing on his personal experiences with mental health activism, student politics, and gender and sexual diversity.

Presentation Options:

Whether or not your idea, pedagogy or research addresses the conference theme directly, consider the following options:

  1. Pedagogical practice for roundtable discussion. 30 minutes. Roundtable session on a writing centre pedagogy or practice. Round table facilitators lead 30 minutes of engaged discussion. Describe your pedagogical practice and at least three questions to stimulate discussion.
  2. Research presentation. 20-minutes. Report on a study—quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, action research, reflective—or a pedagogical innovation. Reports will be grouped into panels of 2 or 3.
  3. Interactive workshop. 45 minutes. Do you have a pedagogical practice or innovation that you want participants to experience? Describe your practice or innovation, the overall structure of the session, and how you will actively engage the audience.
  4. Panel discussion. 45 minutes. Are you having an interesting—and maybe controversial—discussion with colleagues around an issue? Share your conversation and engage others by putting together a panel or debate. Plan at least 15 minutes for Q&A.
  5. Poster Presentation. Posters are ideally suited for sharing results of a study where a picture (table, chart, graph, photographs, infographic, or word cloud) is worth a thousand words. They allow for individual conversations, and can be repurposed after the conference. This year, the plan is to combine them with cocktails and snacks.

Note: When submitting your proposal, you will be asked to indicate which of the following streams your proposal fits (you may choose more than one):

  • Tutor Training
  • Peer Tutor Presentation
  • General Tutoring Practices and Approaches
  • Working with Multilingual Writers
  • Working with Graduate Student Writers
  • Creative Responses to Administrative Challenges
  • RAD or Data-Driven Research
  • Writing Centre Programming
  • Online Tutoring or Support
  • Institutional and Cross-institutional Partnerships and Collaborations
  • Decolonizing and Indigenizing the Writing Centre

Questions to get you thinking:

  • Responding to the times: How do national and international politics affect writing centre staff, faculty, and student learners? How can writing centres respond? How do we help students work through and resist harmful rhetorics and discourses?
  • Safe and accessible spaces: How are writing centres improving access and creating safe spaces for all students, including older, international, multilingual, first-generation, Indigenous, LGBTQ, and students with disabilities? How does decolonization support all students? Is the writing centre as “neutral” space a myth? How are we improving access to distance or commuter students, in person or online?
  • Partnerships for change: What do successful partnerships with other units—on or off campus—look like, and how can they extend or support writing centre work?
  • Experiential learning, community outreach and community-based research: What initiatives connect the writing centre and the larger community, and what effects have they had?
  • Changing educational inequities: How are writing centres, with our front-line, one-to-one contact with students, in a privileged position to effect change? What are the risks, to ourselves and our centres, of leading or supporting change? How can our hiring and training practices effect change?
  • Allying and learning: How are writing centres allying and learning from colleagues in other disciplines as we face continuing and emerging inequities? How can we support and learn specifically from Indigenous faculty, TAs, tutors, students?
  • Care for ourselves and our students: How do our current practices foster resilience and a growth mindset? What are writing centres doing that contributes to a healthy campus?

Proposals must be submitted through our online submission form.

Email submissions will not be accepted.

Any individual presenter may be included on up to two (2) proposals, but at least one of the proposals must be for a group presentation (3-5 presenters) or a round-table.

Questions about conference proposals can be directed to CWCA Vice-President, Sarah King.

Presenters will be notified by email concerning the status of their proposal(s) by February 23, 2018.

References

Godbee, B., & Olson, B. (2014). “Readings for racial justice: A project of the IWCA SIG on antiracism activism.” Antiracism and LGBTQ SIG Resources. International Writing Centers Association. Retrieved from http://epublications.marquette.edu/english_fac/344/

Grimm, N. M. (2009). “New conceptual frameworks for writing center work.” The Writing Center Journal 29(2), 11-27.

Kumashiro, K. (2000). “Toward a Theory of Anti-Oppressive Education.” Review of Educational Research70(1), 25-53.

Call for Proposals: Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric

Rachael Cayley

RhetCanada (Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric/CSSR) invites scholars and students of rhetoric to submit proposals for presentations at its annual conference.

Location: Canadian Federation of Social Sciences and Humanities’ Congress 2018, University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Dates: May 27 – 29, 2018

Special Session Theme: “That’s not rhetoric!” “Yes, it is.”

Proposal Submission Date: January 13, 2018

Submission: Send your proposal to Dr. Tania S. Smith, RhetCanada/CSSR President, Department of Communication, Media and Film, University of Calgary.

The exchange that comprises our 2018 special sessions topic invites participants to discuss and debate the borders of our definitions of rhetoric and what they mean to the way we see the world and speak, write, and act within it.

What are the implications of considering rhetoric as queen of the liberal arts and as mere or empty rhetoric? Is rhetoric’s true home in public discourse, and is it broadly inclusive of genres and media, such as conversation, architecture, graffiti, blogs, and games? Does rhetoric still exist and potentially wield power where it is not named? What do we gain and lose when seeing the world from a “rhetorical” perspective?

Proposals for conference papers are not limited to the topic of the special session theme. The society welcomes papers on all aspects of rhetoric, in English or French. We foster dialogue among scholars from diverse disciplines and professions who are interested in rhetoric. We welcome not only mainstream rhetorical scholarship, but also “rhetoric in/and” a wide variety of domains or disciplines and through interdisciplinary frameworks.

See the full Call for Proposals and instructions here.

♦

RhétCanada (Société Canadienne pour l’Étude de la Rhétorique / SCÉR) invite ses membres à soumettre des propositions de communication pour son Colloque annuel.

Lieu: le Congrès 2018 de la Fédération Canadienne des Sciences Humaines, Université de Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Dates: les 27 – 29 mai, 2018

Session thématique : “Ce n’est pas de la rhétorique. Mais si!”

Notre session thématique de 2018 invite les participants à discuter et à débattre des limites de nos définitions de la rhétorique et de ce qu’elles signifient pour la manière dont vous voyons le monde, dont nous parlons, écrivons et agissons au sein de celui-ci.

Quelles sont les implications de considérer la rhétorique comme la reine des humanités, de parler de pure rhétorique ou de rhétorique vide ? Le lieu propre de la rhétorique est-il le discours public, est-elle plus largement incluse dans les genres d’expression et les médias, comme la simple conversation, les tweets, l’architecture et les graffiti ? La rhétorique existe-t-elle toujours et exerce-t-elle potentiellement son pouvoir là où elle n’est pas nommée ? Que gagnons et perdons-nous en voyant le monde à travers une perspective « rhétorique » ?

Les propositions de communication ne sont pas limitées au seul sujet de la session thématique. Les propositions relatives à tous les aspects de la rhétorique sont bienvenues, en français ou en anglais. Nous favorisons le dialogue entre les chercheurs qui, venus de disciplines et de contextes professionnels variés, s’intéressent à la rhétorique (au sens le plus large). Notre but n’est pas seulement d’accueillir le courant dominant de la recherche en rhétorique, mais bien d’encourager l’exploration de la « rhétorique dans et à travers » une grande variété de domaines ou de disciplines, et suivant des méthodes et des cadres interdisciplinaires extrêmement divers.

Voir le CFP complet à https://app.box.com/v/RhetCanada-CFP2018

Les propositions de communication doivent être adressées d’ici le 13 janvier 2018 à Dr. Tania S. Smith, Présidente de la SCÉR, Department of Communication, Media and Film, Université de Calgary, AB, Canada : smit@ucalgary.ca.