English and Writing Studies faculty Jennifer Zinchuk and Paula Patch presented at the Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference in Knoxville in July.
Jennifer Zinchuk, assistant professor of English, and Paula Patch, senior lecturer in English and coordinator of the College Writing Program, presented separately at the annual conference of the Council of Writing Program Administrators in Knoxville in July.
Zinchuk co-presented the conference’s sole day-long institute on institutional ethnography, a qualitative research methodology that captures the interplay between institutional practices and individual experiences. During this workshop, Zinchuk presented key features of institutional ethnography projects, examples from her own work and mentored both new and experienced researchers to develop their own projects using institutional ethnography.
Patch presented an interactive talk titled “Getting—and Staying—Out of the Slush Pile: How to Get, Keep, and Love a Job Teaching Composition” as part of a panel titled “Finding Happiness and Satisfaction in the Work of Teaching and Administering Writing.” During this talk, Patch identified first-year writing and teaching first-year students, in general, as areas of growing employment and interest and described ways prospective faculty can prepare for careers as composition specialists.