ABOUT THIS BOOK

The field of writing program administration has long been a space rich in metaphor. From plate-twirling to fire-extinguishing, parents to dungeon masters, and much more, the work of a WPA extends to horizons unknown. Responding to the constraints of austerity, Toward More Sustainable Metaphors of Writing Program Administration offers new lenses for established WPAs and provides aspiring and early career WPAs with a sense of the range of responsibilities and opportunities in their academic and professional spaces.

This volume presents twelve chapters that reclaim and revise established metaphors; offer new metaphors based on sustainable, relational, or emotional labor practices and phenomena; and reveal the improvisational, artisanal nature of WPA work. Chapters resonate across three sections. The first section focuses on organic relationships captured in phrases like “putting out fires” and "seeing forests for the trees” alongside unexpected comparisons to ground and light. The second describes institutional landscapes featuring generative juxtapositions such as the WPA as a labor activist or a mapper of emotional geography. And the third discusses performance crafts like improv comedy and artisanal making.

Toward More Sustainable Metaphors of Writing Program Administration offers new and revised ways of thinking and acting for WPAs, who are constantly negotiating the paradoxical demands of their work and continually striving to act ethically in conflicted, and even fraught, situations. It will inspire practicing, aspiring, and former WPAs working in a time of transformation by highlighting more sustainable ways of enacting WPA identity.

Contributors: Jacob Babb, John Belk, Katherine Daily O'Meara, Ryan J. Dippre, Douglas Hesse, Andrew Hollinger, Rona Kaufman, Cynthia D. Mwenja, Manny Piña, Scott Rogers, Robyn Tasaka, Alexis Teagarden, Christy I. Wenger, Lydia Wilkes

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Lydia Wilkes is assistant professor of English and writing program administrator at Auburn University. She studies intersections of rhetoric, violence, and writing in public spaces. She is coeditor of Rhetoric and Guns.

Lilian W. Mina is associate professor of English and the director of Freshman English at University of Alabama at Birmingham. She researches digital rhetoric, multilingual composition, and writing program administration. Her work has appeared in multiple journals and edited collections.

Patti Poblete is English faculty at South Puget Sound Community College. Her research focuses on composition pedagogy, writing program administration, and institutional rhetoric as mediated through social media.

REVIEWS

“These chapters are fun to read and are helpful conversations among bright, experienced colleagues.”
—Kristi Murray Costello, Old Dominion University

“The value of the collection rests in the range and quantity of different metaphors as well as the diversity of data used to argue for particular approaches. I found myself thinking about how I could apply each chapter to my own practices and am excited by the possibilities.”

—Bethany Davila, University of New Mexico

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Preface

Introduction: Sustaining Our Programs, Sustaining Ourselves

Section 1: Organic Relationships

1. From Putting Out Fires to Managing Fires: Lessons for WPAs from Indigenous Fire Managers

2. Seeing the Forest and the Trees: A Rhizomatic Metaphor for Writing Program Administration

3. Light and the Quantum Physics of WPA Work

4. Grounding WPA Work: A Phenomenology of Program Development as a Liminal WPA

Section 2: Institutional Landscapes

5. The WPA as Labor Activist

6. Learning, Representing, and Endorsing the Landscape: WPA as Cartographer

7. Approaching WPA Labor with Ahimsa: Mapping Emotional Geographies through Sustainable Leadership

8. Representing the Basement

9. Interlocking Circles

Section 3: Performance Crafts

10. The Affordances and Risks of Artisanal Production as a Metaphor for Writing Program Administration

11. "Building the Plane as We Fly It": Revising Our Thinking about Our First-Year Experience Program

12. I’m Just Playin’: Directing Writing Programs as Improv

Afterword: Sustaining What for Why?

Index

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