Introduction to the Whole Systems Approach

According to a 2009 survey, over fifty percent of WAC programs fail to survive (Thaiss & Porter, 2010, p. 588). To address this problem, we have theorized a Whole Systems Approach (WSA) for developing sustainable and transformative WAC programs that provides a framework, methodology, set of principles, strategies, and tactics for program development. We derived this approach from complexity theories, including systems, social network, resilience, and sustainable development theories. We describe this approach in detail in our book Sustainable WAC: A Whole Systems Approach to Launching and Developing WAC Programs (2018). 

The WSA provides a theoretical framework, a methodology, and a set of principles, strategies, and tactics for making change to campus cultures of writing and for building programs that are integrated, highly visible, and sustainable. In this section of the website, we present an overview of the principles that inform the WSA, the WSA methodology for developing sustainable WAC programs, and strategies associated with each stage of the methodology. We also share examples of materials related to the WSA such as mission statements, network maps, and sustainability indicators.

PrinciplesMethodologyStrategiesMaterials

The WSA principles for developing sustainable and transformative WAC programs were inspired by approaches to global sustainable development articulated in the Bellagio principles. They provide a theoretical underpinning for the methodology and strategies of the WSA. These principles are informed by various theories of complexity, including sustainable development theory, systems theory, social network theory, and resilience thinking. We describe these theories and their relevance for developing WAC programs in more detail in Sustainable WAC.

  1. Wholeness: understanding a WAC program as a significant intervention within a complex system with competing ideologies and many levels, actors, and practices
  2. Broad participation: engaging stakeholders from all levels of the institution to help plan, approve, implement, and assess program goals, outcomes, and projects
  3. Transformational change: identifying points of leverage for introducing change to the university system at multiple levels, including changes in ideologies and practices as they relate to writing culture
  4. Resilience: adapting to program challenges, maintaining self-organizing practices, and increasing the capacity for learning and adaptation to sustain desirable pathways for development
  5. Equity: working to minimize disparities in current and future generations of WAC faculty and student writers
  6. Leadership: identifying leadership that can serve as the hub for the program, with the authority on campus to lead a cohesive effort of planning, launching, developing, and assessing WAC
  7. Systematic development: building a WAC program incrementally over time with a clear mission and prioritized goals
  8. Integration: building program components that synchronize with national and local mandates, integrate into existing structures and practices, and facilitate collaborative campus relationships
  9. Visibility: ensuring that program development, assessment, and change are transparent, regular, and public as well as promoting program events and successes through multiple means of reporting
  10. Feedback: identifying indicators and repeated measures to reveal trends, stimulate recursive and adaptive change, promote collective learning and feedback for decision-making, and determine whether a WAC program is in balance and whether individual WAC projects are sustainable and achieving their goals

The WSA methodology puts the WSA principles into praxis. The methodology is an iterative and participatory cycle to establish sustainable WAC programs and initiatives and make institutional change. The WSA methodology is adapted from the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy (FSDS) model, developed to implement a national strategy for sustainable development in Canada (Environment Canada, 2013) and the “Imagine approach” developed by Bell & Morse for creating sustainability indicators (2008). 

Sustainable WAC Methodology figure 1

At each phase of the WSA there are strategies WAC directors can use to help turn principles and process into practice and projects. These strategies can work in a variety of institutional contexts, although the specific tactics used to enact these strategies will be context specific. The WSA approach provides fifteen strategies to help WAC directors build sustainable programs and make transformational change.

Understanding the Institutional Landscape

  1. Determine the campus mood. “Campus mood” refers to the overall readiness of an institution for increased commitment to student writing across the curriculum. Determining the campus mood is a mix of collecting data, talking to stakeholders, reflecting on current writing practices across university contexts, and identifying points of conflict and agreement about possible WAC program models.
  2. Understand the system in order to focus on points of interactivity and leverage. Institutions of higher education have connectivity through a variety of network nodes and hubs (such as academic senates) and also segregation (the siloed structure of departments and colleges). To locate points of leverage and connectivity where even a small influence or change could have wide-ranging effects throughout the system, it is beneficial to map out the facets of institutional complexities.
  3. Understand the ideologies that inform the campus culture of writing. These ideologies are the assumptions about writing on the campus, which are reflected in–and reinforced by–processes, practices, and programs. A WAC director that simply builds new programs without addressing underlying faculty ideologies on writing runs the risk of those ideologies undermining the WAC program’s goals.

Planning a Program

  1. Involve multiple stakeholders in the system. Building sustainable WAC programs that have a high level of connectivity and influence across the institution requires the involvement of multiple stakeholders across the system. Curricular change is university-wide, so buy-in and influence are essential.
  2. Work towards positioning the WAC program for greater interconnectivity and leverage in the institution. WAC programs that do not fully integrate into existing institutional structures are rarely sustainable. From their inception, WAC programs should aim to be a hub within the network and not just a node, or to at least connect to hubs.
  3. Consider the impact of WAC on faculty and student equity. Achieving equity and minimizing disparities in current and future generations is a key component of sustainability. How WAC affects the students the program serves, and the faculty that it implicates, should be considered in the early stages of program development.
  4. Set a mission, goals, and SIs. WAC programs often grow organically from an initial workshop or retreat, or develop in fits and starts as a director experiments with different projects or reacts to different needs. However, a WAC program that sets a mission statement, goals, and outcomes during the development phase will be more coherent and goal-driven, and thus more likely to have a more significant system-wide effect. These outcomes include the identification of sustainability indicators used to assess program viability and longevity.

Developing Projects and Making Reforms

  1. Maximize program sustainability through project-based development. Planning for a sustainable WAC program requires an intentional project-based approach to translate program outcomes into action. In WAC programs, example projects include writing intensive initiatives, writing fellows programs, and faculty development retreats. Taken together, a set of projects is used systematically to fulfill the WAC program mission.
  2. Make reforms at both the micro and the systems levels. In WAC programs, work at the micro-level (i.e. consulting with individual faculty) and working at the systems level (i.e. working with a department to create a departmental writing assessment plan) are both important for the development and sustainability of a program, and need to be balanced so for the program to maximize program impact.
  3. Plan for gradual rather than rapid reforms to the system. WAC programs seek to shift the culture of writing at the institution, and this kind of change happens slowly and incrementally. Thinking that sustainable change will happen quickly will only lead to frustration on the part of the WAC director and perhaps those to whom the WAC director reports.
  4. Deal with obstacles to program or project development systematically. To handle the challenges that inevitably come up when developing a WAC program, a systems approach is needed, in which the director doesn’t perceive the challenges as personal or insurmountable, but as emerging from ideologies or mechanisms within the system that can be overcome through a systematic approach.

Leading for Sustainability

  1. Communicate regularly and at all levels of the system to keep the program visible. In order to be seen as part of the fabric of the institution, WAC programs need to stay visible through good PR, partnering with highly visible partners, and reminding other units of the relevance of the WAC program.
  2. Be aware of systems beyond your institution and connect to those that are beneficial to the WAC program. Systems beyond your institution include disciplinary accrediting bodies, WAC organizations, position statements, and organizations outside of writing (i.e. CUR). These systems affect a campus culture of writing and may provide needed leverage for a WAC program.
  3. Assess and revise the WAC program. Systems tend toward segregation and stagnation, and WAC programs are susceptible to becoming static if feedback loops in the form of assessment activities aren’t built into the program. In addition to the typical forms of WAC program assessment, the whole systems approach suggests the tracking of indicators of success and distress, an approach that can help a WAC director better build on success and anticipate problems before they materialize.
  4. Create a plan for sustainable leadership. A WAC program is only as sustainable as its leadership. Given the ever-expanding nature of a WAC program, the director needs to balance commitments to avoid burnout and maximize efforts, as well as consider distributing WAC leadership roles, and creating a plan for the succession of leadership.

Mission Statement for FAU WAC Program

Mission and goals statement for the Florida Atlantic University WAC Program. This document also contains the full set of sustainability indicators that FAU developed to track its WAC program annually.

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Mock data for WAC program creation

This mock data was drawn from FAU’s WAC program based on three years of derived data. Since FAU has only completed one year of the SI tracking process, we do not have actual data from 2014-2016; however this data reflects what the program looked like during this period of time. This data enables us to demonstrate the Excel template for creating amoeba graphs to track SIs.

Mock radar chart for WI for Fall 2016

This sample radar chart represents the status of FAU’s WAC program for fall of 2016.

Mock radar chart for WI Program for Fall 2014

This sample radar chart represents the status of FAU’s WAC program for fall of 2014.

Excel template for developing sustainablity indicators

We provide this Excel template for any program that wants to create their own radar charts by replacing our language with their own and selecting the new data range to display the new charts. Some minor resizing will likely be necessary. We recommend that each program goal (project) be represented in its own radar graph. A program may also choose to create a radar chart to represent the program overall. For guidance on developing radar charts to track sustainability indicators, see Cox, Galin, & Melzer, 2018; Cox & Galin 2019; and Peters, 2019.

Excel File

California State University, Chico Network Map

Network map of writing at California State University, Chico

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Fort Hays State University Mission Statement

Mission and goals statement for the Fort Hays State University WAC Program

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Fort Hays State University Sustainability Indicators

Draft of Sustainability Indicators for the WAC program at Fort Hays State University

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Indiana University, Bloomington Network Map

Network map of writing at Indiana University, Bloomington

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Indiana University, Bloomington Post Consultation Survey

Survey for faculty after receiving a consultation with the WAC program from IU Bloomington

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Indiana University, Bloomington Strategic Plan

Strategic plan for the WAC program at Indiana University, Bloomington

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Indiana University, Bloomington SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis for the Indiana University, Bloomington WAC program

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University of New Mexico Faculty Survey

Survey for faculty about undergraduate writing across the curriculum from the WAC program at the University of New Mexico

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2018 CCCC workshop handout

This handout was distributed at the 2018 CCCC WSA workshop that was led by Cox, Galin, and Melzer. It includes the principles, methodology, strategies, and bibliography for the WSA.

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Anthrosphere framework for sustainable development theory

The anthrosphere model was introduced by Hardi and Zdan (1997) and extended by Bossel (1999). Their model focuses on three major systems, two of which include subsystems: the human system (comprised of individual development, the social system, and the government system), the support system (comprised of the economic system and infrastructure system), and natural system. These systems are outlined in this figure, which Jeff Galin adapted from Bossel (1999, p. 18) to reflect WAC concerns. Reprinted from Galin, J. R. (2010). Improving rather than proving: Self-administered sustainability mapping of WAC programs. Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Minneapolis, MN. See Cox, Galin, & Melzer, 2018, pp. 9-13.

George Mason University Network Map

Network map of writing at George Mason University

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