Black Perspectives in Writing Program Administration : From the Margins to the Center

Winner of the 2020 Best Book Award from the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA).

This collection centers writing program administration (WPA) discourse as intersectional race work. In this historical moment in public discourse when race and racist logics are no longer sanitized in coded language or veiled political rhetoric, contributors provide examples of how WPA scholars can push back against the ways in which larger, cultural rhetorical projects inform our institutional practices, are coded into administrative agendas, and are reflected in programmatic objectives and interpersonal relations.

Editors Staci M. Perryman-Clark and Collin Lamont Craig have made a space for WPAs of color to cultivate antiracist responses within an Afrocentric framework and to enact socially responsible approaches to program building. This framework also positions WPAs of color to build relationships with allies and create contexts for students and faculty to imagine rhetorics that speak truth to oppressive and divisive ideologies within and beyond the academy, but especially within writing programs.

Contributors share not just experiences of racist microaggressions, but also the successes of black WPAs and WPAs whose work represents a strong commitment to students of color. Together they work to foster stronger alliance building among white allies in the discipline, and, most importantly, to develop concrete, specific models for taking action to confront and resist racist microaggressions. As a whole, this collection works to shift the focus from race more broadly toward perspectives on blackness in writing program administration.

About the CCCC Studies in Writing & Rhetoric (SWR) Series
In this series, the methods of studies vary from the critical to historical to linguistic to ethnographic, and their authors draw on work in various fields that inform composition—including rhetoric, communication, education, discourse analysis, psychology, cultural studies, and literature. Their focuses are similarly diverse—ranging from individual writers and teachers, to classrooms and communities and curricula, to analyses of the social, political, and material contexts of writing and its teaching.

Dr. Staci M. Perryman-Clark serves as the Director of the Institute for Intercultural and Anthropological Studies at Western Michigan University, housed within the College of Arts and Sciences. She is also professor of English and African American Studies at Western Michigan University.

Her book (2013) Afrocentric Teacher-Research: Rethinking Appropriateness and Inclusion, is a qualitative empirically-based teacher-research study that examines the ways in which African American students and all students perform expository writing tasks using an Ebonics-based Rhetoric and Composition focused first-year writing curriculum. As such, her work focuses on creating culturally relevant pedagogies and curricular designs to support all students' expository writing practices. She most recently co-edited (2019) (with Collin Craig) Black Perspectives in Writing Program Administration: From the Margins to the Center published by NCTE/CCCC SWR.

Dr. Collin Craig is the Project Coordinator for the Hunter College Black Male Initiative. He collaborates with the BMI student team leaders and directors in organizing weekly workshops, mentoring students and recruiting new members. Dr. Craig received his P.h.D. in rhetoric, composition and literacy studies from Michigan State University with a focus on Black masculinity in the college setting. His research investigates Black Male Initiatives as discourse communities of identity formation, literacy sponsorship, and place making for Black and Latino college males.