The WAC program was established at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1990. The WAC program comprises an initiative to assist both faculty and teaching assistants with the teaching of writing across a wide range of academic disciplines. There are separate seminars and activities that have been tailored for each group, though some also bring faculty and TAs together. Since its inception over 900 faculty members and over 1500 TAs from 14 different colleges and over 60 different departments have attended the formal WAC seminars.
Program Goals
The goals for the WAC program are:
- To introduce faculty and TAs across campus to teaching strategies growing out of the WAC literature
- To develop and maintain an ongoing WAC dissemination program for faculty and TAs
- To attract faculty and TAs from every college and department on campus to the formal seminars, informal workshops, and individual consultations
- To develop and give workshops tailored to individual departments on campus
- To develop an effective evaluation component for the WAC Program
- To provide consultations for online teaching to selected faculty
- To help the campus design and maintain effective mechanisms for approving and recertifying advanced composition courses.
- To create throughout the campus a collegial atmosphere and community for discussing issues related to writing and learning
- To contribute substantially to the larger national WAC community