In this interview, Christopher Basgier, Director of University Writing at Auburn, and Heather Falconer, Associate Professor at the University of Maine, discuss their perspectives on WAC, their development as WAC scholars and program directors, and the future of WAC and writing studies. The conversation took place on July 7, 2025.
About Christopher Basgier and Heather Falconer
Christopher Basgier is Director of University Writing at Auburn, which won the 2025 Award for Exemplary Enduring WAC Program. He consults with departments about integrating writing and high-impact practices throughout undergraduate and graduate curricula. His research, which spans writing across the curriculum, writing centers, genre, threshold concepts, and digital rhetoric, has appeared in venues including Across the Disciplines, College Composition and Communication, Composition Forum, Studies in Higher Education, The WAC Journal, and The Writing Center Journal. He is active in national organizations like the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and the WAC Clearinghouse, and he is a founding member of the RhetAI Coalition.
As a Writing Studies scholar, Heather Falconer is deeply committed to work and inquiry that serves a larger purpose. Primarily, this larger purpose has been educational and disciplinary reform as it relates to inequity. Falconer’s research focuses on the intersections of culture, discipline, and pedagogy, with a special emphasis on discursive identity development and disciplinary enculturation.
Recent research projects have involved participatory action research with neurodivergent students to explore their experience learning college-level reading and writing skills, as well as a project aligning core concepts from first-year composition to other courses in the undergraduate curriculum. This Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) research considers self-efficacy and performance with writing as it relates to knowledge transfer.
Falconer earned her doctorate at Northeastern University, a Master’s of Letters (MLitt) from the University of Glasgow, and a Master’s of Fine Arts (MFA) from Emerson College. In addition to teaching, she is an Associate Publisher with The WAC Clearinghouse, Incoming Chair for the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum, and serves on multiple editorial boards.
Credits
Video Production: Mike Palmquist and Zakery R. Muñoz
Closed Caption Editing: Camaryn Wheeler
Additional credits are provided at the end of the video.
