From April 7-10, CCCC held its annual conference this year through remote channels, another conference to contend with the pandemic this way. Other conferences, like the Society for Disability Studies Conference, have been adapting themselves for virtual access for over a year now, a norm that is increasingly becoming more and more an unspoken expectation.
Regardless, conferences continue to be held and scholars continue to attend, including some from WRD. This year Dr. Erin Workman and Dr. Pete Vandenberg, along with WRD alumni Maddy Crozier and Deyana Atanasova, attended and presented research in their panel “They Said It: An Institutional Ethnography of Writing Practices in Our University.” We reached out to Dr. Workman to learn what they presented and what CCCC was like this year.
Could you talk a little about the work you presented? What kind of research have you been up to lately?
My co-panelists—Pete Vandenberg, Maddy Crozier, and recently graduated professional writing minor Deyana Atanasova—and I gave a panel presentation entitled, “They Said It: An Institutional Ethnography of Writing Practices in Our University.” This multi-stage study, which began in March 2018, has focused on uncovering conceptions of writing held by various university stakeholders and identifying where in the university writing is currently recognized, valued, and supported, and the individuals and institutional structures that determine where, how, and what writing means. Each of our talks focused on initial findings from data analysis across all three stages while also foregrounding our individual standpoints and the ways in which these standpoints shaped our analysis.
My presentation, “(Re)Writing Institutional Relationships: A WPA ‘Looks Up’ from First-Year Writing,” provided necessary context about our institutional site and research design, defined institutional ethnography as a methodology, and offered three takeaways from the project that have productively informed my administrative work as Director of First-Year Writing. Deyana’s presentation, “Student as Researcher: An Undergraduate’s Standpoint in Research Design,” followed mine and focused on the process of transcribing, coding, and analyzing data; acknowledging where and how writing is defined throughout DePaul; and unpacking her standpoint as an undergraduate student researcher. Maddy’s presentation, “Mapping Conceptions of Writing Across Our University,” built upon the data analysis Deyana presented, going into more depth about coding and analyzing participants’ “definitions of writing.” Pete’s talk, “The Tacit WPA: Uncovering Standpoints in University Administration,” outlined his argument that all university administrators function as tacit WPAs using findings from the administrator interviews we conducted April – May 2020.
Currently, Pete, Maddy, and I have a co-authored chapter under submission to an edited collection on Institutional Ethnography as Practice, and, with Deyana, we also plan to develop an article manuscript that builds on our Cs presentations.
Do you have anything to say about how CCCC has adapted the conference to the virus?
Conference planning is very difficult, time consuming work under routine conditions, and the complications arising from moving a conference online make it that much harder. After Cs canceled the March 2020 conference, I was happy to hear that they would be hosting the April 2021 conference virtually. However, the movement to a conference platform necessitated considerable concision to the initial conference program, meaning that many, many folx who were initially accepted to Cs were later removed from the program. To mimic the kinds of informal interactions that take place at conferences, the conference platform had a variety of “lounge” and “networking” spaces available, but I limited my engagement to panel presentations and the two keynote addresses.
Insofar as conference organizers required ADA compliance for all presentations, the talks were, in theory, more accessible than what they may have been, and further, the virtual platform opened up possibilities for attendance to folx who may otherwise not have been able to attend in person. Finally, because all synchronous presentations were recorded and all recordings are available through May 30th, I’m excited to be able to engage with more talks than I ever could in person.
Were there any noteworthy sessions that you attended, anything that piqued your curiosity?
Because the complete archive is available through the end of May, I still have much conference exploration to do, and there are many panels that I look forward to watching when I have a spare hour here and there.
In terms of what I have already viewed, I would say that the most memorable session for me was dr. vay’s keynote address, “Say They Name in Black English: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Aura Rosser, Trayvon Martin, and the Need to Move Away from Writing to Literacies in CCCC and Rhetoric and Composition.” Emphatically stating that “effective rhetoric is about persuasion and performance; in other words, action,” aligning his talk with the five demands for Black Linguistic Justice, and situating his work in conversation with Pulitzer winning playwright August Wilson’s work, dr. vay offers four principles of performance-rhetoric, performance-composition, stating:
“These principles include a critique of what we commonly refer to as writing studies, as I demand that the field immediately correct its course on two matters: (1) Place Black linguistic and rhetorical practices at the center of academic study and teaching of language, writing, and communication, and (2) relatedly, train first-year writing instructors how to help Black English speakers cultivate the relationship between speech and writing.”
dr. vay goes on to name and describe the four principles as follows: The Black personal is political and academic; Get with the Black and Brown program; Place Black Language in the center; Say they name in Black English.
To accomplish the two matters of centering Black linguistic and rhetorical practices and training first-year writing instructors how to help Black English speakers, dr. vay has written a textbook, This Ain’t Yesterday’s Literacy: Culture and Education After George Floyd, published in December 2020 with Fountainhead Press, the same publishing company that I have partnered with to develop a custom, student-facing FYW Program Handbook for DePaul’s FYW Program. As FYW admin continues the work of developing our custom textbook, we will explore the possibility of linking our efforts with dr. vay’s textbook, developing DPU-specific content in conversation with This Ain’t Yesterday’s Literacy.