Timeline and Plan for Writing Proficiency Points
Effective Date
ACC approved April 11, 2023
Faculty Senate approved April 17, 2023
Overview
On May 10, 2022 ACC approved a motion to adopt CUE's Recommendations Regarding Variability of Writing Proficiency Points and CUE's Proposal to Implement Fixed WP Values.
In preparing to fix WP point values, it has become clear that it may be desirable to provide departments a pathway to offering courses both with and without WP points in order to preserve graduation pathways for students in fields in which not all instructors are able to teach a writing proficiency course.
The ACC affirms the intent and goals outlined in the CUE Recommendations but wishes to ensure that departments that might otherwise be forced to remove WP attributes from all iterations of certain courses have the option of preserving graduation pathways by establishing a mechanism by which to offer fixed value WP sections or WP versions of some courses and guidance governing the use of such a mechanism. Facilitating this option is likely to require the establishment of new ACC policy and/or guidelines, and the ACC would like its discussion of the parameters of such a pathway to be informed by the actual needs of academic departments.
As such, the ACC will postpone its implementation of fixing WP points and making them a Catalog-based course attribute until AY24-25 but will proceed with collecting information from all departments by the end of the current academic year. Fixed WP values will appear in the 2024-25 University Catalog prior to Fall 2024 registration.
Departments able proceed with declaration of stable WP values should submit this information, via a survey to be distributed by the Catalog Coordinator, prior to June 2, 2023, and will not be required to provide any additional response at a later date in order to establish Banner WP values for the 2023-24 academic year or fixed WP values to be included in the 2024-25 Catalog. A WP course offerings spreadsheet has been created to assist departments in filling out the survey.
New 2023-24 courses approved with a fixed WP value do not need to be included in the survey. WP values for such courses will automatically be entered into Banner when scheduled for the 2023-24 academic year, and the established values will be added to the 2024-25 Catalog.
Departments with courses that cannot easily be fixed will still be required to submit a response but must specify what factors hinder their ability to declare stable WP values for some or all courses offered with WP attributes and to provide contact information for additional ACC outreach as the Commission considers an appropriate response. Information collected will be utilized by the ACC during Fall 2023 to determine an appropriate response and inform new policy and/or guidance.
Preliminary fixed WP values for departments that fail to provide any response to the WP survey prior to the end of the current academic year will be determined on the basis of historical WP values (see WP spreadsheet link above).
It should be noted that the ACC does not expect to establish a pathway that would facilitate the continued use of variable WP point values for the same course. Rather, it may seek to define parameters and a mechanism under which courses may be offered with or without a stable number of WP points.