WAC has long been closely aligned with work in writing centers. By the time the National Writing Centers Association (now IWCA) began in the early 1980s, WAC-based writing centers had popped up nationally at many secondary and postsecondary institutions (Kinkead et al, 2015). Later, following their conferences in 2005, the European Writing Centers Association (EWCA) and European Association of Teachers of Academic Writing (EATAW) collaborated by alternating the years of their conferences because of their shared connections to writing studies.
Video: Michael Pemberton discusses the relationship between WAC programs and writing centers. View the video at https://youtu.be/1HPi_MC3wa0.
Similarly, with increasing globalization and internationalization across our universities, many WAC scholars realized the need to explore intersections between WAC and L2 writing. As early as 2000, Paul Kei Matsuda and Jeffrey Jablonski argued for a "mutually transformative model of ESL/WAC collaboration." Notably, Terry Myers Zawacki, the former WAC Director at George Mason University, and Michelle Cox offered a strong response to Matsuda and Jablonski through their edited collection, WAC and Second Language Writers: Research Towards Linguistically and Culturally Inclusive Programs (2014), noting that "The goal that drives this collection is this: that WAC theory, research, and practice must be expanded to include and 'embrace,' to echo [Ilona] Leki, the differing perspectives, educational experiences, and written voices of second language writers" (p. 16). Their collection and similar work have advanced data-driven conversations about how the needs of multilingual writers can challenge and improve the norms and assumptions guiding WAC practices and programs.
Video: Terry Myers Zawacki discusses the connections between WAC and second-language writers. View the video at https://youtu.be/sIjEc4-PMG4.
More recently, long-standing efforts to address communication across the disciplines at the graduate level, such as offering graduate seminars in professional writing and thesis preparation, have led to the formation of the Consortium for Graduate Communication (https://www.gradconsortium.org). The Consortium is an international association that focuses on professional development in written, oral, and multimodal communication to graduate students, working in both first and second languages.
Video: Michelle Cox discusses the formation of the Consortium on Graduate Communication. View the video at https://youtu.be/ahwgT3htxLY.