Writing Program Building in a Compromised Space - Relative Agency in a Small College in a Public University System

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by awa

Program profile analyzing how WPAs at York College (CUNY) shaped a writing program amid externally imposed curricular and institutional changes. It links the end of remediation at senior colleges (1999) and the shift toward university-wide WAC, then tracks later general education reforms beginning in 2013 through Pathways. Using relative agency, the profile explains how program leaders adapt by preserving core elements, leveraging campus positioning, and employing institution-specific language to frame proposals and reduce erosion.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Program context and timeline (1999-2012)

Policy shifts shaping writing development

Relative agency as a leadership framework

Local language, keywords, and program alignment

Composition Forum 29, Spring 2014 [http://compositionforum.com/issue/29/](http://compositionforum.com/issue/29/) Writing Program Building in a Compromised Space: Relative Agency in a Small College in a Public University System [[http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=compforum](http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=compforum)] Michael J. Cripps and Heather M. Robinson Abstract: This program profile examines efforts by WPAs at York College, a senior college in the CUNY system, to adapt to externally imposed changes and develop a locally meaningful writing program. 1999 marked the end of remediation at four-year (senior) colleges in The City University of New York. The elimination of developmental writing at CUNY’s senior colleges was accompanied by a university-wide mandate for WAC. Fall 2013 marked the start of a universitywide set of general education requirements that will partially eclipse existing local requirements. Between these two bookends, WPAs—drawing on a mindset of relative agency and informed by an awareness of the curricular and institutional positioning of writing—carried out local efforts to build a more effective and coherent program. Every educational reform [is] the product of a series of complex, contradictory, compromised and contingent solutions whose permanence is never assured.…By attending to the play between the policy statements and the enacted pedagogical practices of the administrators, curricular planners, teachers, and students, one finds a place where individuals acting alone and collectively have an opportunity to express their agency, albeit in the highly restricted realm of relative freedom.(Richard E. Miller, As If Learning Mattered, 8) Writing programs must adapt to externally imposed changes and seek creative solutions to internal challenges in order to remain relevant in their local contexts. Effective, enduring programs locate ways to retain core elements in times of externally imposed change, to take advantage of opportunities to strengthen their presence on campus, and to address internal weaknesses. Viewed from this perspective, a writing program is an institution always in motion, an ever-adapting structure that organizes a set of graduation requirements, develops and assesses writing curricula, offers faculty development, provides student support, and represents writing matters to the academic community of which it is a member. This program profile traces the movement of writing at York College, a senior (four-year) college in the City University of New York (CUNY) system, over a thirteen-year period from 1999-2012. We have chosen this period because it is bookended by two major CUNY-wide curricular changes: the end of remediation at CUNY’s senior colleges in 1999, a mandate that also required each CUNY college to develop a WAC program; and the development of a common General Education core—“The Pathways to Degree Completion Initiative”(Pathways)—for the university’s 19 campuses, which officially began in June 2011 and was implemented across CUNY’s colleges in Fall 2013 (CUNY,“Pathways to Degree Completion”) . Pathways requires all CUNY students to complete a 30-credit core curriculum, with an additional 12 credits to be completed at the senior colleges. The courses that fulfill the core requirements are all 3 credits, and share common learning objectives (decided upon at the University level) and thus are to be counted as being automatically equivalent throughout the university system. In 1999, the end of remediation at CUNY triggered the development of Writing Across the Curriculum Programs across the university and helped to shape key structures for writing at York College. Now in place for more than a decade, at least some of these writing structures are certain to endure long after the Pathwaysinitiative is fully implemented. Between these two university-wide changes exist many externally imposed and internally generated adjustments to wr

FAQs

What major institutional changes bracket the program’s thirteen-year focus?

The study is bookended by the end of remediation at CUNY senior colleges in 1999 (along with a WAC mandate) and the development and implementation of the Pathways to Degree Completion General Education core beginning in 2011/2013.

How does the concept of “relative agency” guide writing program development?

It emphasizes WPAs understanding how writing is positioned within the institution, using that positioning to find allies and constituencies, and using institution-specific language to frame proposals and respond to external pressures.

Why does preserving “core elements” matter during externally imposed change?

Effective programs stay relevant by finding ways to retain essential components, strengthen their campus presence, and address internal weaknesses while reforms threaten existing gains.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by awa