By Robert Rios, Co-News Editor
The Chancellor’s Office of the California State University system has asked all schools that use in-person testing to administer the California State University Graduate Writing Assessment Requirement to temporarily suspend the requirement.
A memo sent out by the Chancellor’s office to the CSU Provosts said that the decision to stop in-person GWAR exams was made in consideration of COVID-19 and the executive order issued by Governor Gavin Newsom that requires people to follow social distancing guidelines.
The Chancellor’s Office suggested that each school’s Academic Senate comes up with a new format for the start of the 2021-22 academic year. It also states that this will help ease the progress for students to obtain their degree while faculty find a new way to fulfill the requirement by eliminating in-person testing and possibly creating a course requirement instead.
The Dominguez Hills University Writing Committee will head the discussion at the next Academic Senate meeting with what they believe will be an easy transition as the school already offers two GWAR-certifying courses with English 350 and IDS 397/398.
“While the move to a course-based model is in alignment with the recommendations of the University Writing Committee, obviously the pressures and timeline associated with a response to COVD-19 have given us concern,” Helen Oesterheld, outgoing interim chair of the UWC and faculty member in the department of English said, “Fortunately, the UWC has been researching and moving towards the development of a course-based model since 2017, which puts the campus in a good position to respond quickly and thoughtfully to the Chancellor’s Office memo.”
Right now the UWC is the standing committee of the Academic Senate and is in charge of making policy recommendations regarding campus writing requirements for students to take. Their plan is to open classes similar to ones already offered on campus that fall in line with what the Chancellor’s memo said.
“The UWC is designing a proposal process so that more such courses can be approved in the near future,” Siskanna Naynaha, writing across the curriculum coordinator and chair of the UWC said.
Those programs that already offer Writing Intensive courses are well-positioned to meet any new GWAR-certification course requirements; there will be low-impact revisions to those existing. In addition, many programs that don’t yet offer WI options do offer writing-enriching or writing-enhancing courses that could quickly be brought into alignment with the new GWAR-certifying course requirements given resources and university support.
Currently, the draft for the Academic Senate’s meeting via Zoom recognizes why the decision was made and that students who are enrolled through Fall 2020 and are expected to graduate in any term where the Graduating Writing Exam is suspended will be allowed to graduate on time, pending they have satisfied other university and department or program obligations are met.
Prior to the temporary stoppage of the exam, all students were expected to have met the upper-division GWAR before their senior year. Every CSU campus offers the means for meeting this requirement, either through the Graduate Writing Exam, coursework, or a combination of both. Students had the option to sign up for the in-person test or enroll in course work.
Thanks for the informative article. I’m just curious. What did you mean by “wrath” of GWAR? It was not explained in the text.
Sorry for the late reply. Believe that was a reference to the shock rock band GWAR and that the graduating writing assessment requirement was difficult to master. or it was a long day in the Bulletin virtual newsroom…