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March 10, 2003

Humanities dean details future of Writing Program

By Scott Rappaport

Dean Wlad Godzich has proposed the creation of a Writing Department in the Humanities Division in an effort to stabilize the status of the Writing Program on campus.

"I remain committed to creating a Department of Writing which will have adequate funding for the types of writing that the faculty will decide that it wishes to support."

—Wlad Godzich

Contrary to fears being expressed by some members of the campus community, he expects that this action will better serve students taking Subject A and Writing 1 courses. Dean Godzich also emphasized that creation of a Writing Department will provide an infrastructure on which faculty can build the academic programs they think will best serve educational goals.

"I have given the Writing Program faculty their budget for next year," Godzich said. "The level of funding is equivalent to a 15-person department, making it the third largest department in the division. And I am asking them to design a curriculum that fulfills the primary obligation to Subject A and Writing 1 courses. It will be up to the faculty to manage that budget, and if they can identify savings, they can use it to provide for whatever minors they wish to support."

All students are required to fulfill the Subject A writing requirement, a UC-wide obligation, as well as UCSC’s own Writing 1 prerequisite. Godzich said that for the last several years, the Writing Program received funds designed to address the Subject A and Writing 1 requirements, but through internal savings, the program was able to support two minors--Communication & Rhetoric, and Journalism.

Godzich stressed that he is not seeking to eliminate the journalism minor, but rather intends to end the annual scramble for ad hoc solutions to the funding of the Writing Program. The University of California generally considers journalism a graduate program, whereas both community colleges and the CSU system offer undergraduate journalism degrees.

"I certainly do not oppose the existence of a journalism minor on campus," Godzich said. "As a research institution, UCSC should not pursue vocational programs. But I think that journalism can be taught here, either as a set of courses, or as a minor."

The funding of the Writing Program has been complicated by enrollment growth. Godzich said that money had been available in the past for the two minors, because UCSC was not meeting its enrollment targets, and so savings within the Writing Program were applied to fund the minors. But as enrollment has grown across campus, those savings are no longer accessible.

"The campus allocates dollars on a divisional basis," Godzich explained. "The Humanities Division has not grown in enrollment during the past several years, whereas the Social Sciences Division and the Arts Division have grown. So those two divisions have received funding to compensate for enrollment growth. But campuswide enrollment growth also means more freshmen--and they are required to take Subject A and Writing 1. In other words, there has been campus enrollment growth, and more demand for Subject A and Writing 1, but no more money to fund the program."

Two years ago, aware that the enrollment situation was heading the Writing Program toward a crisis, Godzich said he asked the program's leadership to develop strategies to solve the problem.

"One strategy is to eliminate minors and allocate funds to meet the growth of enrollment, but they were unwilling to do that," Godzich said. "A second strategy is to seek money from the Executive Vice Chancellor’s Office, but there is no money available. A third strategy--and one that I recommended--is to create a department which is responsible for writing, the creation of which would force a revisiting of the whole budget of writing on campus."

By last year, Godzich said it became obvious that the two minors could be sustained only temporarily if the Writing Program used "carry-forward" money to support Subject A and Writing 1. But due to the state’s budget crisis, that money is in danger of being swept up by the state directly and used to offset anticipated budget cuts. Recognizing that fact, all departments in the Humanities Division have recently had their carry-forward funds frozen.

Godzich noted that the challenge for the journalism minor is the same challenge faced by all programs across campus--to adapt to the diminishing level of funding provided by the state, or to cease operations. He added that Writing 1 and Subject A, as campus and university requirements, must continue to be offered. The two minors, however, are not afforded the same curricular priority.

As a result, Godzich has asked the Writing Program to look at the way in which Subject A and Writing 1 instruction is delivered on campus in an effort to reduce costs. Computer-assisted courses and grant-funded programs are possible alternatives that could be used to restructure the methods in which these requirements are fulfilled.

"In the meantime, I remain committed to creating a Department of Writing which will have adequate funding for the types of writing that the faculty will decide that it wishes to support," Godzich said.


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