Month: June 2018

Harrison Spenser: Case #5

Characterization of Institution

Research I University

Characterization of Department

We are not an English Department, although we do teach literature courses.

Our undergrad. major is “Science, Technology, and Culture,” and we offer an M.S. in Information, Design, and Technology.

We also supply the composition and Technical Writing courses required by the Institute

How would Harrison Spenser’s case turn out in your department?  At your university/college?

Without the book, and with a displeased Chair, it might have turned out the same. However, the candidate in the case study did make a good-faith effort to get at least some writing done, and did finish some important computer-based projects. With a carefully chosen P& T committee (assuming they are appointed by the Chair) and equally carefully chosen referees who could understand the relationship between the various parts of the candidate’s work, a case could definitely be made.

What are the Department Chair’s responsibilities toward Spencer? Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

Chair’s role to be mentor and chief for a new faculty member and continually point out what is required for tenure. That book should have been finished, published and NOT considered a project started before the candidate’s work at the University (if it’s published while the candidate is onboard, it gets the University’s name). More important, a Chair, as eager is he or she might be to get technology rolling in the unit, may not balance the load on the shoulder’s of a junior faculty member. My current thinking, for example, is not to assign a junior faculty member any major non-research duties accept those that the person can show fits into his or her agenda and time. In other words, service is voluntary unless it can be counted into research.

What are the Personnel Committee’s responsibilities toward Spencer?  Which  did they fulfill?  Fail?

Failed to take into account the candidate’s effort to start publishing; failed to make the appropriate argument for the candidate.

What are the responsibilities of the Dean?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

Of course he should have finished his book; he should also have tried to explain to his Chair that he needed to balance his research with the service. This is easier said than done, since junior faculty are rarely in a position to countermand their Chair.

What are Spenser’s responsibilities?  Which did he fulfill?  Fail?

Inadequate preparation of the candidate by the Chair. Failure to recognize–on someone’s  part–that the new Chair was antagonistic to the candidate. This might be the job of the Dean.

What went wrong?  What went right?

At the risk of repetion: no matter how anxious a department may be to get itself up to speed technologically, it may not do it by ruining the career of a new faculty member.

Harrison Spenser: Case #5

Characterization of Institution

Research II

Characterization of Department

M.A. granted in Professional Communication
M.A. granted in English

How would Harrison Spenser’s case turn out in your department?  At your university/college?

Spenser certainly would have been tenured at this university.

What are the Department Chair’s responsibilities toward Spencer?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

Well, I think Harrison Spencer stepped into a trap. Here he is, a run of the mill academic who’s been scraping by with a series of one-night stands, and suddenly he finds himself saddled with responsibilities he has had meager preparation for. That is, he’s a student of medieval rhetoric hired for a new rhetoric and comp program but diverted by his dept chair into a taxing job requiring a combination of administrative and public relations skills. This would have worked out okay had he had more sympathetic overseers and not made the mistake of seeking rapport with the literature teachers by bringing two of them into his project.

This dept sounds like a pretty traditional one with a dept head eager for innovations, a tricky situation for Harrison, and I infer a lack of mutual regard between the comp/technology group and the literature faculty. The literature people have always thought of themselves as writing specialists, too, and they often regard the introduction of computers into freshman English classrooms as a preoccupation with gadgetry resorted to by teachers who deep down have little interest, really, in either reading closely or writing eloquently but who prattle about ‘communication’ and who may–or may not–have social goals in mind (e.g., huddling impressionable freshman together for some covert Gramscian war of positions).  But the fact is that most literature professors should drop their pose of mandarin haughtiness and accept that running through the Harbrace exercises on the comma splice is not the only path to a liberal education. The comp/technology people, on the other hand, should atone for their early arrogance in parading themselves as ‘writing specialists’ (I have been teaching college composition for forty-one years, even winning awards for it, and yet I was told recently that I wasn’t a ‘writing specialist’ because I didn’t belong to CCCC and read College English) by demonstrating that they have a great deal to offer (as they do) and getting on with their work without betraying any defensiveness around the mandarins. Volunteering to teach a sophomore literature course once in a while wouldn’t be a bad idea.

This is not an easy battlefield for a newcomer to prove his mettle on, and Harrison came naked to the fray. He was naïve to hope that he could “engage some of the literature faculty” by bringing them into his software project, where they sucked up resources reprehensibly, enjoyed their release time, and contributed little. Under a just chair, they would have suffered for their selfishness.

The chair bears a lot of blame for Harrison’s tenure defeat; knowing the P&T committee’s undue harassment of Harrison over publications (the committee were probably all literature mandarins devoted to Cardinal Newman’s The Idea of a University), the chair should have given him some breathing space. Even though Harrison was a dud with undergraduates, he seems to have had a real touch with graduate students, and a discerning chair should have capitalized on that, seeing Harrison as someone who if nursed along properly could play an important role in his vision of a technology-expanded program, both as an administrator and as a tutor/advisor to graduate students.

What are the Personnel Committee’s responsibilities toward Spencer?  Which did they fulfill?  Fail?

One suspects that the “fledgling rhetoric and composition program” was not really ready for its maiden flight in a conflicted department and that Harrison got caught with a P & T committee still dubious about the new program and not at all sympathetic to online publications.

What are the responsibilities of the Dean?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

And one wonders where the dean was while Harrison was running this gantlet of slings and arrows.

What are Spencer’s responsibilities?  Which did he fulfill?  Fail?

Harrison seems to have done much good work, only to have been exploited for his “low key affability and willingness to take on what needed to be done.” The two literature professors sabotaged Harrison and left him without the software publication that with any decent collegial support he should have finished early and been credited with. It was all downhill for Harrison from that point on, with his being asked to do more and more while being harassed about research. (Clearly, he should have been given more credit for his book, even though it was complete by the time he accepted his position.) He deserved more recognition for his reviews for Kairos and for his papers for RSA Online and The Journal of Online Instruction, as well as for his presentations; and the contract with Tallman Publishers should have clinched his tenure.

What went wrong?  What went right?

Clearly, Harrison should have been given more credit for his book, even though it was complete by the time he accepted his position.  He deserved more recognition for his reviews for Kairos and for his papers for RSA Online and The Journal of Online Instruction, as well as for his presentations; and the contract with Tallman Publishers should have clinched his tenure.

Addtional Comments

This reviewer has taught over thirty years in a state university, done four years hard time as chair of the university’s largest department, and served on numerous Personnel Committees, often as chair. His department offers master’s degrees in both literature and professional communication (he was the chair who pushed through the latter degree).

Harrison Spenser: Case #5

Characterization of Institution

Research I University

Characterization of Department

Ph.D. granted in Composition/Rhetoric
Ph.D. in Tech Comm/Rhetoric
M.A.T.C. (M.A. in Technical Communication) undergraduate specialization in Technical Communication
Ph.D. granted in English,
M.A. granted in English
B.A. granted in English

How would Harrison Spenser’s case turn out in your department?  At your university/college?

If Spencer were to come up for tenure here with one book (accepted for publication prior to his hire), a couple of articles, a software package, and several reviews, he would have trouble at tenure time.  Our current T&P document specifies that while research published prior to one’s hire is “commendable,” it will not count toward tenure.  The document also specifies that for tenure, a candidate is expected to produce “a published or accepted book, or articles that are equivalent to a book.”  The problem for Spencer would be that faculty couldn’t count his book; without that book, his research profile wouldn’t be equivalent to a book.  Faculty here would have no problems with the fact that much of Spencer’s work is on-line; that’s accepted.  They would have trouble, however, with the fact that most of his work is in the form of book reviews.  He needs more articles.

I would hope, however, that this case would have proceeded differently here, because I would hope Spencer would receive more practical advice and mentoring than he did at his university.  I see that advice/mentoring as being the responsibility of the chair and of members of the T&P committee.  I also see the candidate as bearing some responsibility for making him/herself as well-informed as possible about departmental and university policies.

What are the Department Chair’s responsibilities toward Spencer? Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

1st: Who assigned administrative duties to Spencer (there’s a passive verb in the description above that hides responsibility; I’m assuming the chair made this assignment)?  As chair, I make every attempt possible to protect untenured faculty from administrative service.  As far as I know, most departments will NOT count administrative work toward tenure.  The candidate assigned such duties is caught in a terrible bind; as an untenured person, s/he has little power to enforce administrative decisions AND s/he is not getting credit for all this administrative work.  It’s simply not fair to put an untenured person in this bind.  The chair should have found someone else to assume primary responsibility for the lab, perhaps with Spencer as an associate to this person.

2nd: The chair should have notified Spencer that the department wasn’t going to count his book–and should have asked Spencer if Spencer wanted that chair to see if the department might be willing to make an exception to its policy.  Routinely, when I hire candidates who bring a strong research record to this institution, I encourage faculty to vote in favor of counting at least some of that pre-employment record when it comes time for tenure.  Faculty generally vote positively; we then have this vote on record.

3rd: Spencer has a 2/2 load.  What load do other new faculty carry?  Is Spencer carrying more than others because he has the computer lab administrative duties?

4th: The scenario notes that in Spencer’s first year review, the chair conveys his concerns about Spencer’s lack of publication but focuses on the benefits of Spencer’s grant-writing, etc.  Are these concerns on paper?   Are the benefits on paper?  I would hope the chair, and Spencer, put these comments on paper.  It’s important for both parties that they have a paper-trail, establishing what Spencer was told to expect.  How does the departmental policy statement on T&P value grantwriting?  Is this component important in tenure cases?

5th: During Spencer’s second year, the chair asks for volunteers to serve on Spencer’s committee, rather than appointing members.  While the call for volunteers may entice interested parties, it does not lend administrative strength to Spencer or to his committee.  Spencer has little public clout.

What are the Personnel Committee’s responsibilities toward Spencer?  Which  did they fulfill?  Fail?

The Personnel Committee Chair should take a more active role in clarifying, for Spencer, what the department’s expectations are.  The committee chair and the department chair can work together to inform the candidate about the specifics of his candidacy.

What are the responsibilities of the Dean?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

Here, the Dean of the College reads the Chair’s Annual Assessment of each faculty member and meets with the Chair to discuss each faculty person (the assessment are in January; the Dean and Chair meet in February).  Assuming that the Chair reported Spencer’s slow progress toward publication to the Dean, she most likely would have urged the Chair to carry back her concerns to Spencer.  The Chair then would meet with Spencer and convey to him what the Dean had said.  The Dean might query the Chair about the department’s willingness to accept on-line and software publication and probably would encourage the chair to include guidelines about such publication in the department’s T& P policy statement.

What are Spenser’s responsibilities?  Which did he fulfill?  Fail?

Spencer takes on too much–but can’t be expected to know that he is taking on too much.  Spencer should have clarified the status of his book before accepting the position; he should have clarified administrative duties; he should have gotten, in writing, some statement about how his admin. work would count toward tenure.  He should have focused more on developing his conference presentations into articles.  He should have left the book reviews until after tenure (at least here, book reviews count for next to nothing).

What went wrong?  What went right?

What went right: Spencer tries to figure out the situation, tries to adjust demands on his time (that is, he suggests a committee to help him in his work; publishes in the area of his teaching; completes his grant work).  Unfortunately, every time he tries to make adjustments, the system undermines him (the committee is volunteer rather than appointed; to publish in his teaching area requires development of new courses; to complete the grant he alienates the faculty member who becomes chair).   This case COULD have come out differently if Spencer had more support and attention from his chair and from members of the T&P committee.

Maricela Guzman: Case #3

Characterization of Institution

Regional Comprehensive, State University

Characterization of Department

Ph.D. granted in English
Ph.D. granted in Composition/Rhetoric
M.A. granted in English
M.A. granted in Composition/Rhetoric
B.A. granted in English
B.A. granted in Composition/Rhetoric

(Department Head with a PhD in Composition/Rhetoric)

How would this case turn out in your department?  At your university/college?

Guzman would receive yearly positive reviews and would have been granted tenure without question.

What are the Department Chair’s responsibilities toward Guzman?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

The Depaartment Chair’s responsibilities are to counsel Guzman and to present Guzman’s case to upper-level administration in a positive light. She seems to have done some of this, but I would question why she did not direct Guzman to publish in a different venue if the ones she was publishing in were problematic to the department.  Perhaps, she should also have informally discussed Guzman’s research more with members of the department before the committee meeting, but since the chair/head gives a separate decision on tenure and promotion, I think there is good reason to avoid informal influence. 

What are the Personnel Committee’s responsibilities toward Guzman?  Which did they fulfill?  Fail?

The Personnel Committee Chair should run the meeting, try to keep tempers cool, and write a report that reflects the spirit of the department.  I don’t think the Chair should influence the voting or discussion, except to keep discussion professional and polite.

What are the responsibilities of the Dean?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

I’m afraid I don’t see the Dean discussed in this case.

What are Guzman’s responsibilities?  Which did she fulfill?  Fail?

Guzman seems to have done what she was hired to do, publish in her field of expertise.

What went wrong?  What went right?

This problem developed from the absolute start.  The department didn’t respect the work Guzman was doing.  They wanted a more conservative member, and they shouldn’t have hired someone whose work they could not support.  There needed to be a re-education early on if this situation were to have “corrected.”  What went right is the chair of the department showed Guzman that she supported her work and would support her candidacy. 

Maricela Guzman: Case #3

Characterization of Institution

Research II

Characterization of Department

M.A. granted in English literature, teaching of writing and literature, and professional writing and editing;
B.A.  granted in English, with writing tracks;

(Also note, that we have a heavy involvement in Ph.D.in Cultural Studies and D.A. in Community College Education)

How would this case turn out in your department?  At your university/college?

I can’t imagine that a productive scholar of this proficiency would have reached this point in her career at my school and not have been fully confident of how to proceed. From the outset, she would have known what was expected and we would have taken pains to make clear to ourselves and her the nature of her work and our approval of her agenda. First, given her educational background and interests, we would have made sure that she was the person we wanted in that position, then each year the Chair would have reviewed her progress and suggested any modifications.
    
Let me say that I don’t think we would have hired for WC director a person who could not make those fertile connections between technology and the work of the Center, but had we made such a choice we would have stuck by our decision and not have expected her to become a new person.
    
The technological nature of her work, by the way, does not appear to be the problem here, but its scientific subject matter. On our campus, more and more work by more and more faculty is being done onlind and in multimedia; given her background and interests we would probably have been excited by her potential.

What are the Department Chair’s responsibilities toward Guzman?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

The Chair is an independent voice in these decisions not a mouthpiece for the rest of the faculty.  Sure, the Chair should mention and reflect on the committee vote in her letter, but the Chair primarily should exercise her own judgment. Otherwise, why have a separate letter from the Chair? In this case, I find it appalling that the Chair did not take responsibility for defending a scholarly agenda that she had either openly or tacitly approved earlier on.

What are the Personnel Committee’s responsibilities toward Guzman?  Which did they fulfill?  Fail?

The Chair of the Re-appointment, Promotion, and Tenure (RPT) Committee here expressed dismay and surprise at the vote, since it did not reflect the discussion. That disjunct should not have occurred, and it’s the RPT chair’s fault that it did. We caution faculty during meetings that they must bring out in discussion anything that might lead to their negative vote. Whenever there has been the hint of a breach of confidentiality of meeting proceedings we have held meetings to reinforce the rules, because we know that the discussion must be secure if faculty are to be forthright.

What are the responsibilities of the Dean?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

The Dean obviously had a different agenda from that of the Department in hiring this person.  If the Dean approved the hire of a WC director, that’s what he/she had the responsibility to support.  The release time agreement should have been honored. At this point, the Dept. chair should consult with Guzman about her career goals, and, if she wants to become primarily associated with the new culture/technology program, then the Dept. should argue for a new hire to direct the WC.

What are Guzman’s responsibilities?  Which did she fulfill?  Fail?

Like it or not, the candidate needs to be sure that her goals and accomplishments are meeting with Department approval; this means regualr, at least annual, review and consultation.  If the Chair doesn’t require this, the candidate must. When it comes right down to it, lack of mutual assurance hurts the candidate the most, so the candidate must take the initiative. In her favor, of course, she did what she assumed she was supposed to be doing and did it well. But she still left too much to blind faith.

What went wrong?  What went right?

What went right was the candidate’s work; what went wrong was the process. Let me add that this case assumes continuity in college and departmental leadership during these five years; but most chairs don’t serve the full probationary period for any candidate; RPT committee chairs serve much less. Hence, all the more need for the candidate to by reassured each year that she is on the right track. As a case in point, in my first semester as chair I was blindsided by a surprisingly weak vote from one candidate’s subcommittee; everyone vilified the subcommittee for not bringing their dissatisfaction with the candidate to anyone’s attention earlier, but clearly the candidate had assumed too much for too long without consultation, and the resulting confusion led to the candidate’s leaving the university.

Nomination Deadline: October 15

Purpose: The CCCC Committee on Technical Communication presents the Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication annually during the Awards Session at the CCCC Convention.

Eligibility: Dissertations eligible for the 2026 Dissertation Award in Technical Communication must have been completed in 2024 or 2025. A dissertation may be nominated only once during its two-year period of eligibility.

Award Criteria: Dissertations are evaluated according to the following five criteria: originality of research, contribution the research makes to the field, methodological soundness of the approach used, awareness of the existing research in the area studied, and overall quality of the writing.

Award Specifics: Applicants must submit the following materials: (1) letter of nomination from a dissertation committee member, preferably the chair, emphasizing the significance of the research for technical communication studies; (2) an extended abstract (approximately 250 words); and (3) a copy of the dissertation. Send materials by October 15, 2025, to the CCCC Liaison, cccc@ncte.org.

E-mail questions

Outstanding Dissertation in Technical Communication Award Winners

2025 Recipient

Elena Kalodner-Martin, “Medical Evidence, Expertise, and Experiential Knowledge: A Study of Patients’ Communication Practices on Social Media”

2025 Honorable Mentions

Hannah Stevens, “Dismantling Barriers to Publishing: Identifying Types of Negative Review Experiences and Strategies for Mitigating Them”
Chenxing Xie, “Transnational Risk Communication of Long COVID Legitimation”

2024
Morgan Banville, “Am I Who I Say I Am? The Illusion of Choice: Biometric Identification in Healthcare”

2023
Wilfredo Flores, “Toward a Virulent Community Literacy: Constellating the Science, Technology, and Medicine of Queer Sexual Health”

2023 Honorable Mentions
Veronica Joyner, “Black at the OB-GYN: Rhetorics of Race in Women’s Health Care”
Jessica McCaughey, “Dynamic Workplace Writing Transfer: Writing Across Career Change”

2022
Gabriel Edzordzi Agbozo, “Spatial Technologies, (Geo)Epistemology, & the Global South: Addressing the Discursive Materiality of GhanaPostGPS through Technical Communication” 

2022 Honorable Mention
Yeqing Kong,“‘Water Is a Human Right’: Exploring Environmental and Public Health Risk Communication in the Flint Water Crisis” 

2021
Cecilia D. Shelton, “On Edge: A Techné of Marginality”

2021 Honorable Mentions

Sweta Baniya, “Comparative Study of Networked Communities, Crisis Communication, and Technology: Rhetoric of Disaster in the Nepal Earthquake and Hurricane Maria”
Wil LaVeist, “Adding Soul to the Message: Applying African American Jeremiad Rhetoric as Culturally Competent Health Communication Online”

2020
Temptaous Mckoy, “Y’all Call it Technical and Professional Communication, We Call it #ForTheCulture: The Use of Amplification Rhetorics in Black Communities and Their Implications for Technical and Professional Communication Studies”

2019
Julie Collins Bates, “Toward an Interventionary Rhetoric for Technical Communication Studies”

2018
Kathryn Swacha, “‘I Could Probably Live to Be 100’: A Rhetorical Analysis of Aging, Agency, and Public Health”

2018 Honorable Mentions
Joy McMurrin, “Negotiating the Supermarket: A Critical Approach to Nutrition Literacy among Low-Income Consumers”
Beau Pihlaja, “New Black Boxes: Technologically Mediated Intercultural Rhetorical Encounters on the US–Mexico Border”

2017
Ella R. Browning, “Rupturing the World of Elite Athletics: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of the Suspension of the 2011 IAAF Regulations on Hyperandrogenism”

2017 Honorable Mentions
Laura Gonzales, “Sites of Translation: What Multilinguals Can Teach us about Rhetoric, Writing, and Technology”
Emily J. Petersen, “‘Reasonably Bright Girls’: Theorizing Women’s Agency in Technological Systems of Power”

2016
Erin Trauth, “A ‘Natural’ Miscommunication: An Examination of Front-of-Package Label Claims and User-Centered Food Labeling Practices”

2015
Erin A. Frost, “Theorizing an Apparent Feminism in Technical Communication”
Ashley Rose Kelly, “Hacking  Science:  Emerging  Parascientific  Genres  and  Public  Participation in  Scientific  Research”

2014
Natasha N. Jones, “Mediation, Motives, and Goals: Identifying the Networked Nature of Contemporary Activism”

2013
Ehren Pflugfelder, “In Measure of the World: Advancing a Kinesthetic Rhetoric”

2012
Joy Santee, “Inter-institutional Collaboration and the Composition of Cartographic Texts: Mapping the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route”

2011
Colleen Derkatch, “Rhetorical Boundaries in the ‘New Science’ of Alternative Medicine”

2010
Rebekka Andersen, “The Diffusion of Content Management Technologies in Technical Communication Work Groups: A Qualitative Study on the Activity of Technology Transfer”

2010 Honorable Mention
Sarah Hallenbeck, “Writing the Bicycle: Women, Rhetoric, and Technology in Late Nineteenth-Century America”

2009
Jonathan Buehl, “Instrument to Evidence to Argument: Visual Mediation of Invisible Phenomena in Scientific Discourse”

2008
Lara Varpio, “Mapping the Genres of Healthcare Information Work: An Interdisciplinary Study of the Interactions Between Oral, Paper, and Electronic Forms of Communication”

2008 Honorable Mention
Huiling Ding, “Rhetoric of a global epidemic: Intercultural and intracultural professional communication about SARS”

2007
Natasha Artemeva, “Becoming an engineering communicator: A study of novices’ trajectories in learning genres of their profession”

2006
Neil Lindemann, “Blurred Boundaries of Science and Advocacy: The Discourse of Scientists at a Conservation Organization”

2005
Huatong Sun, “Expanding the Scope of Localization: A Cultural Usability Perspective on Mobile Text Messaging Use in American and Chinese Contexts”

2004
Donna Kain, “Negotiated Spaces: Constructing Genre and Social Practice in a Cross-Community Writing Project”

2003
Brent Henze, “Scientific Rhetorics in the Emergence of British Ethnology, 1808-1848: Discourses, Disciplines, and Institutions.”

2003 Honorable Mention
Sandra Sterling Reynolds, “Collaboration or Subordination: The Role of Rhetoric in the Conception of Primary Healthcare Giver.”

2002
David Dayton, “Electronic Editing in Technical Communication:  Practices, Attitudes, Impacts.”

2002 Honorable Mention
Dave Clark, “A Rhetoric of Boundaries:  Living and Working Along a Technical/Non-Technical Split.”

2001
Kenneth Baake, “Metaphor and Knowledge: The Rhetorical Challenges at a Post- Modern Science Think Tank.”

2000
Clay I. Spinuzzi, “Designing for Life Worlds: Genre and Activity in Information Systems’ Design and Evaluation.”

1999
Katherine Durack, “Documentation and Domestic Technology: Household Sewing Technologies and Feminine Authority.”

1999 Honorable Mention
Brenda Camp Orbell, “Discourse, Power, and Social Ruptures:  An Analysis of Tailhook 91.”

1999 Honorable Mention
Graham Smart, “An Ethnographic Study of Knowledge-Making in a Central Bank:  The Interplay between Writing and Economic Modeling.”

Maricela Guzman: Case #3

Characterization of Institution

Research I

Characterization of Department

Ph.D. granted in English
Ph.D. granted in Composition/Rhetoric
M.A .granted in English
M.A. granted in Composition/Rhetoric
B.A. granted in English

How would this case turn out in your department?  At your university/college?

I don’t think Dr. Guzman would have received tenure here. As a Research I University; the expectations are higher than 6 published articles and conference presentations and a CD-Rom that isn’t clearly connected to her institutional position. Much would depend on the reputation of the journals in which she published, the length and substance of the articles, and the other aspects of her profile—particularly how well the writing center and the program in technology and culture are doing..

What are the Department Chair’s responsibilities toward Guzman?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

If Guzman is in her fifth year, her Head’s responsibilities towards her are clear: to do what she has indicated she would do—support her tenure case. But the unknown here is what happened after the third-year review. Was Guzman told that she needed to publish in areas that are more clearly recognized as English Studies (whatever that might mean—since the scenario doesn’t indicate the kinds of places she published, it’s not clear if the problem is with where she’s publishing or how people interpret where she’s publishing)? Was her teaching load protected? It should have been, since running a writing center is significant work. 

Which did the Chair fulfill? Hard to say, given the lack of information about the Head’s response to the third year review in years four and five.  Fail? Again, hard to say. If Guzman were publishing in Computers and Composition, The Writing Lab Newsletter, and other comp/rhetoric journals, then the Head should have dismissed the criticisms of the Tenure and Promotion Committee and in fact worked to educate them.

What are the Personnel Committee’s responsibilities toward Guzman?  Which did they fulfill?  Fail?

This is a pretty institutionally specific question, depending on the role of the committee, the frequency of reviews, etc. Do untenured faculty get annual reviews? (They do here.) If so, Guzman should have been advised about what she needed to do to improve her chances for tenure, and her next two reviews should have told her how well she was doing. If there are not annual reviews, the chair of the Tenure and Promotion Committee should have certainly advised Guzman about the concerns raised by the Head.  If the committee conversation was only praise, we have to assume the Head’s information about faculty’s dissatisfaction with Guzman’s scholarship must have come from elsewhere than the T&P committee,  so then it would be the Head’s responsibility to advise Guzman. 

Which did they fulfill?  Fail?  There’s inadequate information in the scenario to answer these questions. We don’t know what the chair of the committee did or didn’t do. .

What are the responsibilities of the Dean?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

The Dean isn’t mentioned in this scenario, so I won’t offer a reply to these questions.

What are Guzman’s responsibilities?  Which did she fulfill?  Fail?

Her responsibilities were to do the job for which she was hired, which it seems she has done. In addition, she has some responsibility for finding out what the tenure expectations are and how the work she’s doing in her first few years fits, though I think most of that responsibility lies with the Head and Tenure and Promotion Committee, which should be particularly attentive to the work of untenured faculty working in relatively new and interdisciplinary areas like technology and writing. 

Which did she fulfill? She’s certainly publishing and she’s presenting at appropriate conferences.  I would assume that at an institution like hers, her profile looks pretty strong, so I’m not surprised she’s likely to get tenure.   Fail?  Well, it depends on what kind of advice she’s been given. From the brief description given in the scenario, the CD-Rom project sounds like a mistake. Not because it’s a CD-Rom, but because it’s about Mars, not writing and technology or writing centers.

What went wrong?  What went right?

What appears to have gone wrong is that Guzman wasn’t given enough information and guidance about what would be valued and what wouldn’t at tenure time. It’s very hard to persuade tenure committees that someone whose profile looks unusual is doing what he or she should be. Unfortunately, untenured faculty have to do work that fits expectations, at least to some extent.

Again, if Guzman’s publications were in composition or composition and technology journals, then the problem isn’t hers; it’s the department’s, and the Head and T&P chair should be doing what they can to educate people. And Guzman’s being dispirited is something that went wrong. The work she wants to do in racism and gender and technology is consistent both with her connection to the technology and culture program and to work being done in composition studies. If she feels it’s not going to be valued, then something is definitely wrong with the place she’s working. 

What went right? Guzman’s likely to get tenure, and her Head is going to support her.

Workshop Reports of the 1952 Conference on College Composition and Communication Meeting, March 28, 29, The Carter Hotel, Cleveland, Ohio.

Nomination Deadline: November 1

Purpose: The CCCC Executive Committee presents, as occasion demands, the CCCC Exemplar Award to a person whose years of service as an exemplar for our organization represents the highest ideals of scholarship, teaching, and service to the entire profession.

Eligibility: The Exemplar Award seeks to recognize individuals whose record is national and international in scope, or whose record is local and regional with national implications, and who set the best examples for the CCCC membership.

Award Specifics: Nominations should include a letter of nomination; four letters of support; and a full curriculum vita. The nominating material should be send to the CCCC Exemplar Award Committee at cccc@ncte.org. Nominations must be received by November 1, 2025.

E-mail questions

Congratulations to the 2025 CCCC Exemplar!

Anne Ruggles Gere, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Exemplar Award Winners

2025

Anne Ruggles Gere

2024

Mike Palmquist

2023

Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes

2022
Louise Wetherbee Phelps

2021
Beverly J. Moss

2020
Charles Bazerman

2019
Cheryl Glenn

2018
Kathleen Blake Yancey
(watch Kathleen Blake Yancey’s acceptance speech during the 2018 CCCC Annual Convention Opening Session)

2017
Deborah Brandt
(watch Deborah Brandt’s acceptance speech during the 2017 CCCC Annual Convention Opening Session)

2016
Sondra Perl

2015
Sharon Crowley

2014
Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe

2013
Keith Gilyard

2012
Mike Rose

2011
Edward M. White

2010
W. Ross Winterowd

2009
Victor Villanueva

2008
Patricia Bizzell

2007
Peter Elbow

2006
David Bartholomae

2005
Erika Lindemann

2004
Jacqueline Jones Royster

2003
Winifred Bryan Horner

2002
Art Young

2001
Lynn Quitman Troyka

2000
Muriel Harris

1999
Geneva Smitherman

1998
Janice Lauer

1997
Ann E. Berthoff

1996
Edward P.J. Corbett

1995
James L. Kinneavy

1994
Andrea Lunsford

1993
Richard Ohmann

1992
Janet Emig

1991
Richard Lloyd-Jones

Jared Johns: Case #1

Characterization of Institution

Research I

Characterization of Department

Ph.D. granted in English
Ph.D. granted in Composition/Rhetoric
M.A. granted in English
M.A.  granted in Composition/Rhetoric
B.A. granted in English

How would Jared Johns’ case turn out in your department?  At your university/college?

Probably very much like it did here—the Promotion and Tenure committee would be very concerned about John’s low number of refereed publications and would want the chair to send him a strong message about the need to focus his efforts on such publications. If he were to come up for promotion and tenure with this profile, he’d likely not receive it at the college or university level.

What are the Department Chair’s responsibilities toward Johns?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

The chair’s obligations to Johns include making the criteria for promotion and tenure clear to him and to be sure he understands, early in his career, which of his work will be helpful and which will not. His conference with Johns in his first year was a step in the right direction, since he offered him specific advice about his research and teaching, but it appears that there was not as much follow-up as there could be. It also appears that Johns was given quite a bit of very time-consuming service work, and that might not have have been fair to him, despite the released time he received for it.

What are the Personnel  Committee’s responsibilities toward Johns?  Which did they fulfill?  Fail?

It appears that the Personnel Committee at this institution does not do annual reviews of untenured faculty. If that’s the case, then perhaps the committee did what it was required to do. However, I think it’s critical for untenured faculty to be reviewed much more frequently by those who will vote on their promotion and tenure. By the fourth year, there’s little that can be done to turn around a situation like Johns’. In this case, the thorough review Johns received came two years too late to help him. It also seems to me that the committee may have placed too much emphasis on traditional teaching and not enough on Johns’ work with students, both formally on graduate students’ committees and informally in the computer facility.

What are the responsibilities of the Dean?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

Sorry, I don’t see any references to the Dean in this scenario. And I don’t think that during the probationary period, Deans typically have much involvement with untenured faculty. That’s mostly a departmental responsibility.

What are Johns’ responsibilities?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

Johns’ responsibilities include understanding the criteria on which he will be evaluated for promotion and tenure and focusing his work so that it dovetailed with those criteria. He probably should have understood that he needed to publish his work in the kinds of forums that are accepted and recognized at his institution, since it’s very difficult to be a “break-through” case. He also had the responsibility to work hard to improve his teaching, since it was made clear to him that there were concerns about its quality. Johns did seem to fulfill his responsibilities in terms of administering the computer facility and working with graduate students. He certainly seemed to be a good colleague—one who shared his expertise willingly with his peers and students. He was clearly establishing a national reputation among people in his area of expertise. 

What went wrong?  What went right?

Two things went wrong. First, the department did not seem to give Johns the kind of detailed “warning” about his status until too late. Second, Johns, like a number of new faculty I’ve seen, didn’t seem to understand that ultimately his service contributions and his non-tradtional publications would not help him earn tenure and promotion. He seemed not to understand how conservative most universities are—looking for traditional peer-reviewed publications and teaching evaluations that are at least average for the institution and the courses. Though Johns’ chair did seem to talk to him about these issues early in his career, there did not appear to be enough regular subsequent evaluation and/or mentoring.