Presented to the Two-Year College English Association-Southwest Annual Conference October 19-21, 2000
Approved
October 21, 2000
Dallas, Texas
No institution of higher learning has been more democratic than America’s community colleges. No level of higher education can boast as long a record of serving academic and vocational needs, of enriching the intellectual climate, and of encouraging the lifelong love of learning in local communities as Americas community colleges. No level of higher education has been more welcoming to the poor, to minorities, to women, to returning older students, to immigrants and their grown children, and to the educationally underprepared than Americas community colleges.
A GREAT DANGER NOW THREATENS THE SUSTAINED RECORD OF ACCOMPLISHMENT OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY COLLEGES.
Whereas a sensitivity to the nuances of language is essential to the mind and whereas this sensitivity to language and its uses is most directly studied in writing-intensive courses, that which threatens the quality of instruction in the writing classroom likewise threatens the intellectual competencies which undergird the very idea of higher education. Throughout the Two-Year College English Associations Southwest Region (Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana) administrative policies are now in place which endanger the high quality of writing instruction deserved by community college students and which erode the quality of the professional and personal lives of those who teach writing.
For more than 40 years research in the teaching of English and archived by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), of which the Two-Year College English Association (TYCA) is the community college affiliate, has documented best practices and recommends no more than 20 students per college level writing course and 15 students per developmental writing course. Recognizing that community college instructors give priority to teaching over research and publication, TYCA-Southwest further lists as a best practice a total of no more than 100 students per writing teacher.
A few examples of currently existing policies in the region that shortchange students and teachers, as reported by members in good standing of TYCA-Southwest, are:
Full-time course loads of 7 classes per full-time instructor.
Class sizes of 30 and even 35 or more students in college writing courses.
Class sizes of 25 and even 30 or more in remedial writing courses.
Part-time faculty teaching as much as 70% and even 80% of all writing courses.
Colleges where 100% of all remedial writing courses are taught by part-time faculty.
POSITION STATEMENTS
Therefore, the membership of the Two-Year College English Association-Southwest Region (TYCA-SW) does endorse the following three position statements, which will be listed for public and professional appraisal on its website. The names of all institutions that have in place policies that match the best practices, as self-reported by TYCA-Southwest membership, will also be listed on the website under each statement. Faculty and recent graduates with advanced degrees seeking jobs will now have easy access to the names of those institutions which have committed themselves to excellence in the teaching of writing by implementing the best practices in the writing classroom:
Position Statement #1
Faculty members must be given adequate time to fulfill their responsibilities to their students, their departments, their institutions, their profession, their communities, and to themselves. Without that time, teachers cannot teach effectively. Overcrowding the writing classroom creates the conditions of failure–for instructors as well as for students. Students write less and learn less; the amount of time available per student and per paper is reduced; learning is subverted.
When a writing instructor spends 20 minutes reading, analyzing, and responding to each paper for a class of 20 students, the teacher needs 400 minutes to complete these processes for that one assignment in just that one course alone. Effective instruction usually has the students writing every day with the instructor responding to five or more formal pieces of writing during a course. Looking at overcrowding another way, a typical 50 minute class period with 20 students allows for 22 minutes per student in college level courses and a little over 3 minutes per student in remedial courses (15 students). Furthermore, the full membership of TYCA-Southwest recommends that full-time instructors teach no more than five classes per term.
To ensure the optimum condition for the kind of one-on-one teaching required in first-year writing courses and to facilitate individual attention for each new writer at the beginning of his or her college career, TYCA-Southwest fully supports limiting the total number of students in the course load for teachers of first-year writing courses to 100 or less each semester.
The following colleges in the region are commended for engaging in best practices by adhering to the policies and practices as described in the above Position Statement. The “best practices” designation comes as self-reported by a member of TYCA-Southwest at the listed college.
College of the Mainland [TX]
Position Statement #2
Faculty have an ethical obligation to remain abreast of current developments in their discipline, most especially in regard to pedagogical matters concerning the teaching of writing. Faculty likewise have a duty to participate in the professional life of their discipline. Bringing in outside facilitators, while often valuable, cannot substitute for the kinds of professional exchange that occurs when faculty gather with professionals from beyond state and regional boundaries. Students benefit most when they learn from faculty who remain vigorously involved in the concerns of their profession. Colleges have a responsibility to allocate funding sufficient to pay for registration and travel by faculty to at least one professional development conference per year.
The following colleges in the region are commended for engaging in best practices by adhering to the policies and practices as described in the above Position Statement. The “best practices” designation comes as self-reported by a member of TYCA-Southwest at the listed college.
Position Statement #3
Part-time faculty contribute immensely to their institutions as a whole and to their students in particular, often by drawing upon Areal world experiences where good writing skills mean the difference between failure and success. In a 16 week long course meeting three times per week, and assuming that an instructor puts in three hours per hour in class of planning lessons, selecting reading assignments, and reading and responding to student writing, a part-time writing instructor with a Masters degree being paid $1,800 actually earns less than $10 per hour. Overcrowded classrooms exacerbate the problem further, with the teaching of ESL or remedial writing being even more labor intensive still.
A lack of fair pay, of office space, of access to professional development, and of input in departmental and institutional concerns for part-time English teachers are common practices at many institutions. Additionally, a high ratio of part-time to full-time personnel burdens those few full-time faculty charged with fulfilling institutional duties and places the reputation of the college itself in the hands of faculty whose primary professional responsibilities often remain to places outside the college. Furthermore, by their very nature developmental writing classes have the least prepared students and are comprised largely of students who come from backgrounds where standard English is not spoken; yet developmental classes are relegated disproportionately to part-time instructors.
TYCA-Southwest recommends that full-time faculty teach at least 70% of course offerings. TYCA-Southwest also recommends that when part-time faculty are hired, wages of at least $2,200 per three-hour course, access to office space in which to prepare for class and meet with students, and additional payment for office hours kept in accordance with the department policies of each institution shall be put in place. Additionally, if students are to be well-served, part-time faculty likewise need some access to professional development activities and training provided by the college.
The following colleges in the region are commended for engaging in best practices by adhering to the policies and practices as described in the above Position Statement. The “best practices” designation comes as self-reported by a member of TYCA-Southwest at the listed college.