Cornell Consortium for Writing in the Disciplines

The 2006 Consortium has been cancelled.

Goals

Established in 1997 with the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Cornell Consortium offers a national and international forum for the study and development of discipline-based approaches to the teaching of undergraduate writing at all levels of the curriculum. Drawing on the resources of Cornell’s Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, the Consortium aims to facilitate in-depth, productive dialogue about writing in the disciplines among participants from universities and colleges, both public and private. In its seven years, participating schools have included:

American University of Paris; Anglia Polytechnic (UK); Appalachian College Association; Arizona State University West; California State University, Monterey Bay; Clemson; Davidson College; Duke; Dull Knife Memorial College; Florida A&M; Georgetown; John’s Hopkins; Loyola College in Maryland; Miami-Dade College; National University of Singapore; New School; Princeton; Northeastern; Open University/Cambridge (UK); Queen Mary College (UK); Rice; Simon Fraser University (Canada); Southwestern University; State University of New York, Oswego; Temple; University of Groningen (Netherlands); University of Houston; University of Kassel (Germany); University of Michigan; University of Missouri, Columbia; University of Maine-Farmington; University of New Hampshire; University of Rochester; University of Virginia; and Wellesley College.

As the range and diversity of these schools indicates, the Consortium seeks to bring faculty and administrators together in a common forum representing the full spectrum of opportunities available to students and faculty throughout higher education, both nationally and internationally.

Methods

The Consortium offers an intimate setting, typically involving two or three representatives each from no more than nine or ten colleges and universities annually, within which to explore the benefits and challenges of discipline-specific approaches to the teaching of writing and the potential of such writing-intensive approaches to enhance learning throughout the curriculum. In advance of each annual meeting, each participating school provides a narrative account of the recent history and current relationship of writing and learning within its local institutional context, a sense of that school’s objectives in participating in the Consortium, and a set of questions on which the annual meeting’s primary concerns and themes will be based. Participants from each institution work closely with representatives from other participating schools, with nationally-recognized external consultants, and with Knight Institute faculty and administrators. For three days near the end of June in the conference facilities of the Statler Hotel, centrally located on the Cornell campus, participants convene in larger and smaller groups, make and hear presentations, gather in small work sessions, and meet informally for continued conversation to learn from each other, provide assistance and information, and explore ideas and initiatives to take back to their home institutions.

To assure meaningful collaboration over time, each institution normally participates in the Consortium for two years, sending to Cornell each June a team of three representatives–a faculty member from a particular discipline, a writing program administrator, and a college- or university-level administrator. Each institution writes a preliminary report for distribution at the June meeting and a progress report after the meeting. Knight Institute administrators and Cornell faculty are available for follow-up visits to the campuses of participating schools.

Consortium archives: [2000] [2001] [2002] [2003] [2004] [2005] [2006]