Rebecca Moore Howard
Office: 239A HB Crouse
Office hours: By appointment
Telephone: 443-1083
E-mail: rehoward@syr.edu
Home page http://wrt-howard.syr.edu

In a post to the WPA-L list, I asked fellow writing program administrators to recommend background readings--works that would provide useful or even essential context--for the work of writing program administration. My specific request was for "extra-disciplinary theories that might directly inform the work of a WPA." Here's the fascinating list that writing program administrators across the country generated; read as much of it as you possibly can. I've included in this list a few staples of writing program administration that didn't fit in the required texts for this course:

Abbott, Andrew. "The Order of Professionalization." Works and Occupation 18.4 (November 1991).

Abbott, Andrew. The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. U Chicago P, 1988.

Bantz, Charles R. Understanding Organizations: Interpreting Organizational Communication Cultures. Columbia, SC: U South Carolina P, 1993.

Barton, David. Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1994.

Bloom, Lynn Z., Donald A. Daiker, and Edward M. White, eds. Composition in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis and Change. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1996.

Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1977, 1990.

Engestrom, Yrjo, Reijo Miettinen, & Raija-Leena Punamoki, Eds. Perspectives on Activity Theory. Cambridge UP, 1999.

Forester, John. Planning in the Face of Power. Berkeley: U California P, 1989.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage, 1979.

Gee, James Paul. Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses. 2nd ed. Bristol, PA: Taylor and Francis, 1996.

George, Diana, ed. Kitchen Cooks, Plate Twirlers and Troubadours: Writing Program Administrators Tell Their Stories. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1999.

Glassick, Charles E., Mary Taylor Huber, and Gene I. Maeroff. Scholarship Assessed: Evaluation of the Professoriate. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass, 1997.

Hunter, Ian. Rethinking the School: Subjectivity, Bureaucracy, Criticism. New York: St. Martin's, 1994.

Janangelo, Joseph, and Kristine Hansen, eds. Resituating Writing: Constructing and Administering Writing Programs. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995.

Mohan, Mary Leslie. Organizational Communication and Cultural Vision: Approaches for Analysis. Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1993.

Miller, Richard E. As if Learning Mattered: Reforming Higher Education. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1998.

Myers, Isabel Briggs, and Peter B. Myers. Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type.

Myers-Breslin, Linda. Administrative Problem-Solving for Writing Programs and Writing Centers: Scenarios in Effective Program Management. Urbana, Il; National Council of Teachers of English, 1999.

Nardi, Bonnie A., and Vicki L. O'Day. Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1999.

Parakrama, Arjuna. De-Hegemonizing Language Standards: Learning from (Post) Colonial Englishes about "English." New York: St. Martin's, 1996.

Parks, Stephen. Class Politics: The Movement for the Students' Right to Their Own Language. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2000.

Peterson, Marvin W., et al. Planning and Management for a Changing Environment: A Handbook on Redesigning Postsecondary Institutions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997.

Readings, Bill. The University in Ruins. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1996.

Schon, Donald A. Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987.

Schon, Donald A. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books, 1983.

Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York : Doubleday/Currency, 1990.

Street, Brian V. Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development, Ethnography and Education. New York: Longman, 1995.

Tierney, William G. Building the Responsive Campus: Creating High Performance Colleges and Universities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999.

Tyack, David B., and Larry Cuban. Tinkering Toward Utopia : A Century of Public School Reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1995.

Watkins, Evan. Work Time: English Departments and the Circulation of Cultural Value. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1989.

Wertsch, James V. Mind as Action. New York : Oxford UP, 1998.

Wertsch, James V. Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1991.

White, Edward M. Developing Successful College Writing Programs. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989.