Program Profile—
Program: Fairfield University’s Core Writing Program
Institution: Fairfield University
Administrative Team:
- Dr. Kim Gunter, Director
- Dr. Rachel Robinson-Zetzer, Assistant Director
Year Started: Fall 2017 (revision to Core Writing, under Gunter’s direction)
Program Website: https://fairfieldcorewriting.org/
Fairfield University’s Core Writing program emerged in concert with the university’s Core revision, the first such curricular revision in nearly 50 years and one that precipitated a sea change in Fairfield’s culture of writing. Since the arrival of Director Kim Gunter in Fall 2017, the Fairfield Core Writing program has transformed: instead of a two-course, one-year writing program with a stale curriculum, students now complete a first-year introduction to the discipline of Rhetoric and Composition. Students then follow this course with three additional WAC- or WID-designated classes. Moreover, since Core Writing developed and leads both first-year and WAC/WID curricula, we have the opportunity to forward students’ transfer of writing knowledges by leading substantial professional development for both our first-year composition and our cross-disciplinary colleagues, resulting in remarkable coherence of writing pedagogy across the campus. In only five years, we have completed an overhaul of our entire curriculum, completed the first formal assessments in anyone’s memory, launched a powerful professional development initiative, made strategic partnerships, and built a growing upper-division Rhetoric and Professional Writing curriculum, due to students’ excited engagement with the field.