The sustainable and transformative WAC website provides an overview of building sustainable WAC programs based on the work of Michelle Crow (formerly Cox), Jeffrey Galin, and Dan Melzer. In addition to providing the principles, strategies, tactics, and methodology of the Whole Systems Approach (WSA) that program leaders can use to build programs, this site also provides resources for building sustainable WAC programs, a broad bibliography of works that address these issues, ongoing research, and opportunities to connect with other program administrators to discuss sustainable programs. We have also undertaken a longitudinal study of five WAC programs (Sustainable WAC Consortium) that have utilized the whole systems approach to build their programs and will share our findings here.

The goals of this website are to:

  1. Provide a clearinghouse for WSA approaches
  2. Provide more tools and resources
  3. Update the WSA, particularly tactics
  4. Report on research on the WSA
  5. Expand the WSA to broader audiences
  6. Provide additional resources to supplement what has been published
  7. Encourage ongoing conversation about the WSA.

You are invited to contact us at info@sustainablewac.org and to join the Sustainable and Transformative WAC Facebook group.

Sustainable WAC Book Cover

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Sustainable WAC: A Whole Systems Approach to Launching and Developing Writing Across the Curriculum Programs

by Michelle Cox, Jeffrey R. Galin, and Dan Melzer

A 2008 survey of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programs found that nearly half of those identified in a 1987 survey no longer existed twenty years later, pointing to a need for an approach to WAC administration that leads to programs that persist over time. In Sustainable WAC, current or former WAC program directors Michelle Cox, Jeffrey R. Galin, and Dan Melzer introduce a theoretical framework for WAC program development that takes into account the diverse contexts of today’s institutions of higher education, aids WAC program directors in thinking strategically as they develop programs, and integrates a focus on program sustainability.

Informed by theories that illuminate transformative change within systems–complexity, systems, social network, resilience, and sustainable development theories–and illustrated with vignettes by WAC directors across the country, this book lays out principles, strategies, and tactics to help WAC program directors launch, relaunch, or reinvigorate programs within the complicated systems of today’s colleges and universities.

Acknowledging that every WAC program grows out of a specific institutional context and grassroots movement, this book is a must-read for everyone currently involved in a WAC program or interested in exploring the possibility of one at their college or university.

Meet the Authors

Michelle Trillium Crow
John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines
Cornell University
mtc225@cornell.edu
Profile  
Jeffrey Galin
University Center for Excellence in Writing | Writing Across the Curriculum
Florida Atlantic University
jgalin@fau.edu
Profile  
Daniel Melzer
University Writing Program
University of California, Davis
dlmelzer@ucdavis.edu
Profile