Faculty in the Writing Accountability Group range from a variety of disciplines and stages in their academic careers. Across these differences, participants have discovered new ways of balancing their research agendas with other demands, while building supportive accountability structures for themselves and each other. As one participant notes, “My WAG facilitator and group members provide supportive and practical feedback regarding my research progress, suggest practical workarounds when obstacles arise in my projects, and offer a weekly (and daily!) accountability mechanism that has certainly increased my scholarly productivity this quarter.”
Even for advanced-career faculty, the WAG has provided new ways of scaffolding the relationship between day-to-day writing, weekly time management, and long-term career goals; one participant observes, “it is by far one of the best things I have done for myself since being at DU for almost 10 years now. It has significantly changed my academic life and I am amazed at how quickly I have developed new, healthy writing habits! And I truly look forward to checking in weekly with my WAG. During these times of COVID, it’s been like therapy–it keeps me going and I feel truly supported. My writing productivity has increased 10-fold because of these weekly sessions and the terrific videos from NFCDD.” Witnessing colleagues share their diverse passions and move those passions toward completion has built a much-needed sense of DU community in an otherwise uncertain time.
Please share this information with your faculty so they can sign up for the next WAG meeting.
WAG is a collaboration between the Writing Program and the Vice Provost of Faculty Affairs. Many thanks to our colleagues in the Writing Program for facilitating these groups and sharing their expertise. We’d like to thank Writing Program faculty Libby Catchings, Rebekah Shultz Colby, John Tiedemann for facilitating the WAGs this quarter and Juli Parrish, Writing Center Director, for partnering on this initiative.