THE CEA FORUM - Winter/Spring 2013 - Launching Curricular Reform in First-Year Composition: Navigating the Terrain between Buy-in and Burnout

Oct 15, 2026

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A reflective essay for CEA forum readers examines how first-year composition program administrators confront “burnout” when initiating curricular reform. It explains how resistance grows from institutional power dynamics, the low status of WPA labor, limits on unilateral authority, and the difficulty of building stakeholder buy-in. Drawing on rhetorical kairos and the author’s experience pursuing an Academic Transformation Project grant, the piece offers practical guidance on timing change, piloting reforms, and sustaining meaningful momentum without exhausting the WPA.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages23

Reading Time58 min

AccessFree to download

Launching Curricular Reform in First-Year Composition

Navigating Buy-in and Burnout as a WPA

Resistance: Power, Status, Collaboration, and Consensus

Tip #1: Strike While the Iron is Hot, but Know When to Let Things Simmer

THE CEA FORUM Winter/Spring 2013 Launching Curricular Reform in First-Year Composition: Navigating the Terrain between Buy-in and Burnout Andrea Deacon University of Wisconsin-Stout Recently, I was attempting to describe my duties as a first-year composition director (often referred to as a WPA, or writing program administrator) to a colleague in another department. In order to describe the diverse, varied—and often chaotic—nature of my work, I was trying to think of apt metaphors which would best capture my experience. It struck me that many of the metaphors I kept coming back to had to do with fire. For example, WPAs often attempt to “light fires” under instructors to encourage them to revise or improve their pedagogy and classroom performance. Equally, WPAs are often asked to put out fires, like when an upset student comes to us to complain about an instructor, or a campus administrator tells us we need to (often immediately) develop a plan to increase the pass rate in our first-year courses. Ultimately, at the risk of stretching this metaphor too far, all of this playing with fire can leave a WPA burning the candle at both ends. This potential “burnout” too often prevents otherwise talented WPAs from enjoying their work and creating meaningful change in the composition programs they’recharged to develop and oversee. One of the most taxing duties of a WPA, and one that is likely to cause the most burnout, is initiating curricular reform, an initiative often met with pushback and resistance. Within the literature on curriculum reform in first-year composition, this resistance seems to arise from a THE CEA FORUM Winter/Spring 2013 complex web of issues related to institutional power, status, and collaboration. First, as Richard McNabb explains, on many campuses, writing is viewed as a “skills-based subject” and therefore its administration is “not considered intellectual work”(65) . Second, because of the low status of WPA work, the authority and expertise of the WPA—when it comes to curricular reform—is often challenged or contested. Relatedly, WPAs, regardless of their background, training, or expertise, often cannot unilaterally institute change, but must collaborate with a diverse mix of colleagues to both develop and enact new curriculum or programmatic efforts. Finally, complicating such matters of collaboration is the tricky issue of buy-in: settling on a common vision of first-year composition that all stakeholders can agree upon. As WPA Erin O’Neill puts it, when reflecting on her own experience working with departmental colleagues to launch curricular reform,“I soon realized that…consensus with respect to what was best for our freshman writing program was simply impossible”(75) . O’Neill’s experience is common among many WPAs; as compositionist Patti Kurtz points out, WPAs often face the most resistance from within their own departments, a place where, on the face ofit at least, they “expect the most support”(61). Despite many of these daunting challenges, however, curricular reform need not be an exercise in futility or insurmountable frustration. Weaving my own recent experience—the good, the bad, and the ugly—with existing literature on the topic, I will offer WPAs some advice for navigating that often tricky terrain between getting buy-in and getting burned out when launching curricular change. THE CEA FORUM Winter/Spring 2013 Tip \#1: Strike While the Iron is Hot, but Know When to Let Things Simmer Most of us who teach rhetoric are familiar with the concept of kairos, an ancient rhetorical term which refers to the “right” or opportune moment. Jerry Blitefield argues, though, that “kairos is more than a vital rhetorical term: it is quintessentially a term of ethical agency. Matters of right timing and due measure, or any of their offshoots, imply a doer poised at the rhetorical crossroads of doing”(70) . When it comes to launching curricular reform, kairos is everything to a WPA. In my

FAQs

Why is curricular reform often linked to WPA burnout?

Because reform initiatives commonly meet resistance rooted in institutional power, the low status of WPA work, and the need to collaborate across stakeholders. The effort required to secure buy-in can also stall progress and intensify exhaustion.

What forms of resistance appear in the literature on first-year composition curriculum reform?

Resistance arises from the perception that writing is non-intellectual “skills-based” work, from challenged authority due to WPA status, from limitations on unilateral decision-making, and from the difficulty of reaching consensus on a shared vision for freshman writing.

How does the author use the rhetorical concept of kairos to guide reform efforts?

Kairos is presented as the opportune moment for ethical rhetorical action. The author describes waiting for the right kairotic moment and then pursuing an Academic Transformation Project grant to pilot curricular changes before bringing them to the whole department.

Oct 15, 2026

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