CAC Research: Welcome & Updates, November 2000

Dickie Selfe, Research Editor
Home Page: http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~rselfe/
Email: rselfe@mtu.edu

Pre-published Research: Spotlight on the CAC work at Clemson University

Greetings from the Research section of Academic.Writing. Once again, we would like use this column to feature a single institution and its CAC-related activities, programs, and strategies as well as some of the pre-published research efforts in which they are engaging.

I have had the great luck to be a visiting professor at Clemson University this year when the institution was voted, in a special issue of TIME magazine, the Best Public University of 2001. One of the primary reasons given for that award was the development of well integrated writing-across-the-curriculum activities on campus. The Clemson faculty think of this effort broadly as Communication Across the Curriculum and as a matter of fact have a substantial electronic infrastructure that allows for ECAC research and development as well. The national recognition is, of course, based on years, even decades, of work researching and applying theories of WAC, CAC, and ECAC (subsequently referred to as CAC).

Because the TIME award reflects so well on all the CAC efforts across the country, I thought the A.W community might like to take a peek inside the effort at Clemson University. Their effort is diverse and effective and this summary does not really reflect the kind of work being done in non-communication departments across campus. Perhaps that's another article for later in the year.

The Clemson CAC program is run primarily through the Roy and Marnie Pearce Center for Professional Communication in collaboration with a number of other departments and programs on campus. The question facing the Pearce Center, now chaired by Dr. Kathleen Yancey, is this: How do we continue the good work of the Pearce Center into the twenty-first century? The research report on the Clemson CAC program, then, will not so much review Clemson CAC history but summarize the ongoing efforts of those associated with the Pearce Center at Clemson who will be keeping the CAC effort moving forward. Not to worry, though. In other sections of Academic.Writing, Donna Reiss will be providing more of the details about the award and the key players associated with that award.

One of the reasons I feel justified in placing this review in the research section of Academic.Writing is that a substantial component of the effort to integrate CAC into the curricular life of Clemson is research related. I think you'll see what I mean when you read the Clemson report and particularly when you read the included excerpts from Dr. Kathleen Yancey's Pearce Center strategic plan.

Publication Information: Selfe, Dickie. (2000). CAC Research: Editor's Comments, November 2000. Academic.Writing. https://doi.org/10.37514/AWR-J.2000.1.7.28
Publication Date: November 8, 2000
DOI: 10.37514/AWR-J.2000.1.7.28