Writing instruction has existed at Georgia Tech since 1888, when it first opened; in each era since then, the space needs changed and evolved. The “modern era” of writing instruction began in 1987 and then evolved again in 2007. As a way of contextualizing the decisions made in designing spaces in accordance with programmatic and disciplinary philosophies, this section summarizes changes to the status quo from 1987 to the present. These changes included explicitly defining some of the program’s tacit philosophies and shifting the focus of the program in several ways. Simply put, the program was well positioned for changing the space. We discuss in greater detail the specific spaces designed with those philosophies in mind: the Skiles laptop classroom, the Stephen C. Hall Building, and the Communication Center. This section also articulates our program’s core mission.

Changing the status quo

In 1987, Georgia Tech’s Writing Program changed its practice of hiring adjuncts and lecturers to teach first-year composition and technical communication into a doctoral fellowship—the Marion L. Brittain Doctoral Fellowship—where ABDs came to complete their dissertations while teaching a 3:3 load. This was the beginning of the practice that encouraged the Brittain Fellows not only to help their students achieve a set of common programmatic outcomes but also to teach those outcomes through their own academic specialization. One programmatic outcome, for instance, has to do with the adaptation of information to a specific audience. While the outcome was common across the program, the specific content for teaching audience adaptation varied by instructor: For example, specialists in Renaissance drama taught adaptation to audience in their study of period drama, specialists in Victorian novels taught adaptation to audience in their study of period novels, specialists in twentieth-century poetry taught adaptation to audience in their study of poetry. Instructors were paired in small faculty offices, and generic classrooms were the norm: teacher podium, individual student desks, and a chalkboard. In addition, the Department of English created two computer labs where instructors could take their classes once a week.

In the mid-2000s, the Marion L. Brittain Doctoral Fellowship developed an emphasis on digital pedagogy and morphed into a postdoctoral fellowship. The change enabled a more coherent and consistent curriculum and many professional development opportunities. During the first twenty years of the Brittain Fellowship Program, fellows shared faculty offices in the Skiles Classroom Building and taught in Skiles and elsewhere across campus. In the mid-2000s, although instructors were still paired in small offices, most of the classrooms offered LED projectors and screens, along with a teacher podium, student desks, and a chalkboard. Some instructors regularly took their students to one of the computer labs.

In 2007, Georgia Tech made a senior hire (new program director) and changed the Writing Program to the Writing and Communication Program, reflecting a program-wide evolution to focus on rhetoric, process, and multimodality, while continuing an emphasis on digital pedagogy. Up to that point, the two-semester sequence of first-year composition had been largely rhetorical, with an emphasis on traditional essays, research papers, and digital projects. The 2007 curricular adjustment enabled explicit attention not only to writing but also to oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal (WOVEN) communication, which meant the program needed spaces to teach a multimodal curriculum as well as physical and virtual spaces to display the resulting multimodal artifacts.

The new program director coordinated three changes in the spaces used to teach writing and communication at Georgia Tech: a laptop classroom, a campus-wide Communication Center, and a program headquarters.

Defining our central missions

All of these spaces reflect the core philosophies of our program. In rhetoric and composition, we share broad goals regarding humanistic inquiry and rhetorical expectations. Critical thinking and problem solving are good. Appreciation for and understanding of various cultural artifacts, especially literatures, are good. Writing well is also good—but it is not sufficient in a multimodal program.  The Writing and Communication Program developed a mission statement in 2007 that has evolved, and when the Communication Center opened in 2011, it developed a mission statement as well (see figure 10.3).

Both mission statements were developed collaboratively and are regularly examined for possible revision. The Writing and Communication Program mission statement was initially drafted and revised over several weeks by the program leaders (director, associate director, assistant director), members of the Program Committee (elected representatives of each cohort of Brittain postdoctoral fellows and program committee chairs), and members of the Writing and Communication Committee (elected representatives of each cohort of Postdoctoral Fellows and appointed members from the tenure-line faculty); the same categories of people review it every year. The Communication Center mission statement was initially drafted and revised over several weeks by the program leaders (director, associate director, assistant director) and the Communication Center’s professional and peer tutors and research assistants; the same categories of people review it every year.

Figure 10.3: Mission Statements of the overall Writing and Communication Program and the Communication Center

NEXT: INSTANTIATING PROGRAMMATIC PHILOSOPHY IN SPACE