2006-2008 National Survey of US WAC/WID Initiatives

In this initial survey for this phase of the Mapping Project, we sent out survey requests to individuals at over 2,600 higher education institutions in the US**. We received 1,338 survey responses and 625 programs indicated that they had a WAC program in place.

The goal of this survey was to collect information on the presence and structure of WAC programs in the US and Canada.

Questions covered topics such as:graphone.png

  •         Institutional size and type
  •         Funding Sources
  •         Age of Program
  •         Program components
  •         Curricular Elements
  •         Technology
  •         Director responsibilities and releases
  •         Program assessment

 

 

To view all survey questions, please click here.

Key Findings

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By looking at this information on program age, as well as the number of years the director was in place at the institution, we were able to conclude that despite early concerns that WAC programs may struggle due to a difficulty in changing leadership**, most WAC programs survived after at least one change in leadership.

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A more complete analysis of the data can be found in our 2010 article in the College Composition and Communication.
 

 *McLeod, Susan H., ed. Strengthening Programs for Writing Across the Curriculum. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988. Print.

**Although we received responses form Canadian institutions as well (and those statistics were published in our article in CCC), for the purposes of distinguishing the National portion of the project from the International portion of the project, we are now only focusing on the US statistics in this section.

*** McLeod, Susan H., and Eric Miraglia. “Whither WAC? Interpreting the Stories/Histories of Mature WAC Programs.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 20.3 (1997): 46–65. Print.