Sharing Our Intellectual Traces: Narrative Reflections from Administrators of Professional, Technical, and Scientific Programs(Baywood's Technical Communications)

Administrators of academic professional and technical communication (PTSC) programs have long relied upon lore--stories of what works--to understand and communicate about the work of program administration. Stories are interesting, telling, engaging, and necessary. But a discipline focused primarily on stories, especially the ephemeral stories narrated at conferences and deliberated at department meetings, usually suffice primarily to solve immediate problems and address day-to-day concerns and activities. This edited collection captures some of those stories and layers them with theoretical perspectives and reflection, to enhance their usefulness to the PTSC program administration community at large. Like the ephemeral stories PTSC program administrators are accustomed to, the stories told in this volume are set within specific institutional contexts that reflect specific institutional challenges. They emphasize the intellectual traces--the debts the authors owe to those who have informed and transformed their administrative work. In so doing, this collection creates another conversation--albeit a robust, diverse, and theoretically informed one--around which program leaders might define or redefine their roles and re-envision their administrative work as the rich, complex, intellectual engagement that we find it to be. This volume asks authors to move beyond a notion of administration as an activity based solely in institutional details and processes. In so doing, they emphasize theory as they share their reflections on core administrative processes and significant moments in the histories of their associated programs, thereby affording opportunities for critical examination in conjunction with practical advice.

Table of Contents:
Foreword: Understanding the Power of Narrative in Shaping a Field Kirk St.Amant CHAPTER 1. Introduction: We Are the Stories We Tell Tracy Bridgeford, Karla Saari Kitalong, and Bill Williamson CHAPTER 2. Tracing the Intellectual Trajectories of Professional/ Technical/Scientific Communication: A Roundtable Perspective from Seven CPTSC Past Presidents Deborah Andrews, Stephen A. Bernhardt, Kelli Cargile Cook, Jeff Grabill, Bruce Maylath, Dan Riordan, and Stuart S. Selber CHAPTER 3. Program Assessment: A Passion and Palimpsest Nancy W. Coppola CHAPTER 4. Establishing an Outcomes Statement for Technical Communication K. Alex Ilyasova and Tracy Bridgeford CHAPTER 5. A Tale of Trust and Techne: Building Relationships and Building Programs James M. Dubinsky CHAPTER 6. Leaders Becoming Transformed Meg Morgan CHAPTER 7. The Challenges of Offering a Technical Writing Program in a 2-Year College Ritu Raju CHAPTER 8. Globalizing Technical Communication Programs: A Diachronic Perspective Laurence José CHAPTER 9. Users, Not Solutions, First: Problem-Solving for Program Administrators M. Ann Brady and Karla Saari Kitalong CHAPTER 10. Intersections Between a Technical Communication Program and an Engineering Department Julie Dyke Ford CHAPTER 11. Expertise in Professional Communication as a Catalyst of WAC/WID Administration Success Pavel Zemliansky CHAPTER 12: Curricular Challenges of Emphasis Degrees in Technical and Professional Communication Lisa Meloncon CHAPTER 13: Afterword: 40 Years of Stories from Technical Communication Program Administrators Karla Saari Kitalong Meet the Contributors Index

About the Author :
Tracy Bridgeford, Karla Saari Kitalong, Bill Williamson