The State of College Writing: The Part-Time Other
Rebecca Curtis

Student-centered classrooms, growth theorists, expressivists, discourse communities, voice, error, multi-culturalism, peer-editing, portfolios, metalinguistic awareness--these multi-faceted pedagogical tools and ideas re-invent and re-imagine the writing classroom. As a new Community College English instructor, I entered the classroom in the fall of 1998 prepared to implement the latest pedagogy. I was still not prepared, however, for the demands of teaching language minority students--or underprepared students, nor was I prepared for the institutionalized exploitation of part-time instructors. I, like many of my colleagues, felt over-worked, over burdened, under-paid, and under-appreciated--the part-time other. Seventy-five percent of all English instructors at Santa Monica College (one of the colleges I teach at) are part-time instructors. They are not paid for office hours, nor are many of these instructors provided with the basic tools necessary to carry our their jobs: offices, phones, computers, voice mail. They are paid little more than half of what full-time instructors are paid for the same course load. Many work at two or three colleges to survive--they are known as freeway fliers. This leaves instructors, of course, with less time and attention to devote to their students. This exploitation of part-time English instructors who teach basic writing, only adds to the current crisis in education our country now faces. In an essay entitled The "Wyoming Conference Resolution Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing," Linda R. Robertson, Sharon Crowley, and Frank Lentricchia address this issue:

Writing instructors in various institutions all over the country have become disenfranchised. It is difficult to understand how, with the current crisis in education--with so many students entering the universities and community colleges unprepared for the rigors of academic life, so little support is paid to writing instruction. As educators committed to closing the gaps between those students coming into the college prepared for college writing, and those un-prepared, we must ask ourselves who should teach writing, how should writing be taught, and how should our institutions respond to this challenge to effectively support students and instructors?
The crisis in education, however, is not new. Mina P. Shaughnessy, in her book Error & Expectations explains that the implementation of Open Admissions Colleges exposed the academic deficiencies of students who went to school for 12 years; Shaughnessy suggests that the education system has failed to educate "all" its youth; it has, however, finally begun to admit to this failure. Now, Shaughnessy explains, we can begin to hope for reforms to close the gap (291). Shaughnessy's book was published in 1977, and the problems continue to persist. In November of 1998, an article entitled "America's Teaching Crisis" appeared in the New York Times Education section reporting that the crisis in education is "happening anew, with test results showing that American students are behind their peers in other industrialized nations on math and science, and lagging in literacy (Archibold 4A 23). Randal C. Arhibold reported that states were responding to this crisis by raising standards for students and eliminating writing programs: "States are toughening certification exams. Colleges are raising standards. Teachers are caught in the middle. It's an all-out assault" (4A 1). While university administrators respond to the crisis by closing the doors on under-prepared and language minority students, instructors attempt to find new ways to teach these students despite the lack of finding and support for their endeavors.
Current pedagogical theories of expressivists such as Peter Elbow, and Donald Murray, and the work of sociolinguistists such as Deborah Tannen, attempt to address these literacy problems, but most institutions, under increasing pressure from legislators do not support training in composition theory for writing teachers; many who teach reading and composition are English literature instructors who are not trained to teach reading and writing at all. Many institutions do not support writing teachers at all. Universities are responding to the crisis in education by attempting to raise standards, and to even do away with basic writing programs all together. Community College English instructors are expected to prepare unprepared students to write. How is it possible then, for writing instructors, who are themselves under-paid and under-trained, to solve this crisis in education in America today.
It is indeed tragic that "the American poor, the immigrant poor, veterans, the racially segregated, and the disenfranchised" ( Rose 455) are being taught by instructors who are themselves disenfranchised. The challenges composition instructors face initiated a response from The Wyoming Conference on College Communication and Composition. The topic of the 1987 conference was "Language and the Social Context," and participants examined the social constructs and constraints for students; because of the problems composition instructors were dealing with, conference members expanded the topic to include and examine the social constraints for writing teachers (Robertson 486). James Moffett, who was one of the major contributors to the conference explained that, ironically, while we enable students to "discover the freedom of self expression," instructors do not feel they can speak freely about the unfair labor practices that limit their own academic freedom (486).
Indeed, the part-time other has been silenced by a system of hierarchy which separates and marginalizes the teaching of developmental writing. Members of the Wyoming conference drafted a resolution to support the dilemma that writing teachers face in American institutions--and to give voice to the inequities of their predicament. The Resolution formulated standards and expectations for salary levels and working conditions for post-secondary teachers in writing; established a procedure for hearing grievances against institution's non-compliance with these standards; and established a procedure for acting on non-compliance: to issue a letter of censure to an institution's administration, Board of Regents or Trustees, or State Legislators and to publicize the findings to the public (Robertson 489-490).
The Resolution has not ended the quandary, however, and the crisis persists. To begin to address the problems with writing instruction, it is important to understand who is teaching writing; writing teachers are primarily part-time, temporary, English instructors--the majority are female--who are not being trained in teaching writing; they are also graduate students who are often not paid at all. In her essay, "Symposium 1999: Dreaming the Future of English," Judith Fetterley suggests that many full time faculty in the university do not wish to teach writing and so the job falls to graduate students: "As a graduate student I could expect to be given the work that faculty did not wish to do themselves: teaching writing" (703). Fetterley also points out the deficiencies in training for writing instructors suggesting that English instructors are required to spend years studying literature, while writing teachers are not required to spend any time at all studying writing. Indeed, as a graduate student in English Literature, Fetterly had little training in teaching writing: "I did my job with minimal instruction and without any sense of how this "job" related to my profession. In truth, I had no idea what I was doing" (703). Fetterley questions why general education requirements are the responsibility of the English department (703). Indeed, many universities are asking these same questions? So, if full-time University English faculty do not want the task of teaching these labor intensive writing classes, who is responsible for teaching writing?--and why are instructors who teach writing not being trained in rhetoric or composition?
Even though the current conditions in Education have created the need for more college writing classes, including basic writing courses--or "remedial courses," the teaching of writing has become entangled in a political semantic web. How did it get this way? In his essay "The Language of Exclusion -- Writing Instruction at the University," Mike Rose explains the origins of the composition class: "Freshman composition originated in 1874 as a Harvard response to the poor writing of upperclassmen, spread rapidly, and became and remained the most consistently required course in the American curriculum. The problems of underprepared first year students are not new, but it seems as funding has decreased with the change in student populations, and standards have dropped in the elementary and secondary K-12 system, the college writing problem has exacerbated; Rose elaborates on the persistent problems of students entering college with little abilities to write: "Academic senates worry that the boundaries between high school and college are eroding" (446).
Part of the political entanglement in English Departments is the labeling of "remedial problems," and universities, Rose argues, wish that basic writing courses could be moved to community colleges. This is because English departments consider the teaching of writing classes "intellectually second class," and the people who teach writing are temporary instructors; the classes lack continuity of curriculum and instructors lose "the status that comes with tenured faculty involvement" (446). A system of hierarchy exists in the university with part-time instructors at the bottom of the totem-pole. In his essay entitled "Symposium 1999: Crossing Borders: The Two-Year College," Frank Madden writes of the problems created by the naming of writing instructors as remedial teachers who are then

This labeling, of writing classes as "remedial" is a construct that allows institutions to view writing teachers as insignificant, to under-value their contributions, and to under-fund writing programs. Rose explains the "remedial" labeling as a political construct: "to be remedial is to be substandard, inadequate, and, because of the origins of the term, the inadequacy is metaphorically connected to disease and mental defect (451). The institutional hierarchy labels the part-time remedial instructor--as other.
Rose suggests however, the problems teaching writing to underprepared or "remedial" students have always been a part of university life and will continue to plague the institutions--until these challenges are addressed. The California Post-secondary Education Commission put out a report on remedial education called "Promises to keep." The report looks at writing instruction in three of the CA public college and university systems and includes a historical overview of the problem of teaching developmental writing. The report found that the problems in teaching under-prepared students have always been with us. Despite the report, administrators continue to invest in the belief that the "remedial" problem is something that will be solved in five to ten years when the academies of grammar schools and high schools, and families, make fundamental changes. Rose argues that the belief in this "myth of transience," keeps administrators from recognizing the full extent of the problem and from initiating fundamental changes: "It is ultimately a conservative gesture, a way of preserving administrative and curricular status quo" (456). The myth of transience--the belief that the remedial problem will go away--is another political position that allows universities to avoid meeting the challenges of the crisis in education today.
While, Rose may be correct that the problem of teaching under-prepared students has always been with us, forces in the 50's and 60's allowed students who had not considered enrolling in college to do so, and the open admissions policies of the 70's and 80's accelerated the shifts in student population. Students with differing social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds forced the colleges to re-define the teaching of writing (Wiley 422). A tremendous amount of political pressure was placed on administrators to create a multi-diverse, multi-cultural English program to respond to these changing demographics. The making of an English program, John Rouse argues, became a "political act" (424).
The failure of universities to recognize and respond to the need for a more inclusive writing policy has left many students out of the college system. The result of the oppression of writing instructors is that under-prepared and language minority students continue to suffer. We are still asking ourselves why these students do not succeed--why there are such low numbers of students of color transferring to universities from community colleges?--yet we continue to undervalue the contributions writing instructors make. Indeed, the numbers of students who are un-prepared to meet the requirements to enter universities, and therefore must enroll in community colleges, have increased. The Enrollment at Santa Monica Community College has swelled to over 31,000 students; the undergraduate enrollment at UCLA is slightly over 35,000. Yet, Santa Monica Community College does not have the infrastructure, the teaching staff, nor the funding that UCLA has. UCLA however, has moved the teaching of writing from the English department to their Writing Programs; this concentration of writing as a separate field of study is one way to help legitimize the work of writing instructors and to emphasize the greater need for funding for writing instruction; the writing program at UCLA, however, is terribly underhanded.
Some public universities however, are choosing to do away with developmental writing altogether. By the year 2007, The California State University will phase out their developmental writing courses; an executive order 665 is meant to eliminate developmental writing from the CAL State System; any student wishing to attend a CAL State School must be prepared to meet freshman writing course requirements. Currently, if students do not test into Freshman writing, they are required to complete two semesters of developmental writing; if they fail the second course, they are asked to go to community college and complete developmental writing there, so they may later be accepted into freshman (first-year) composition. To respond to the challenges of developmental writing, California State College at Northridge (CSUN) is currently engaged in a summer bridge program with Valley Community College. Valley College currently offers three developmental writing classes on the CSUN campus; these courses provide community college course credit for developmental writing, intended to prepare students for first-year Composition. The courses will be taught however, by CSUN instructors. Counselors are now tracking students who do not complete developmental courses and are sent to community colleges.
The California system is not the only University attempting to eliminate developmental writing. In her essay "Evaluating Writing Programs in Real Time: The Politics of Remediation," Barbara Gleason explains that in May 1998, the Board of Trustees for the City University of New York (CUNY) "approved a resolution to refuse senior college admission to students who have not passed all three CUNY skills assessment tests in reading, writing and math" (561). Previously, when students failed these tests, they were placed in remedial writing courses: Basic Writing 1, Basic Writing 2, or an ESL course. The community colleges have now inherited the job of teaching the "remedial" developmental courses CUNY could no longer offer. Indeed, the community college acquires the responsibilities for teaching developmental writing.
The community college environment is indeed changing and evolving. In her essay "Teaching and Identity: My thirty -Five Years in the Community College System," Janice M. Albert takes the reader through many of the changes that have shaped the realities of the community college. When she began teaching in 1966, the college she taught at was only one year old. The instructors were not trained, nor did they have any experience in teaching writing and reading. The student population included many "returning women" who had deferred their educations until their own children were in school. The students in the 60's, however, were "Native speakers of English." That was all to change, however, as Albert explains: "We did not dream of a future in which any one class might represent eight or nine nationalities from language groups all over the world" (334). With the shift in demographics in the student population came a major shift in the California Community College system away from the progressive ideals of the "Master Plan for Higher Education" in the 70's. Local taxpayers no longer cared to fund costly college programs. Albert reports that "Proposition 13, the landmark Tax Reform Initiative of 1978, changed the community colleges decisively. . . Funding dried up as school districts lost the ability to levy taxes. The cost of providing education shifted to the state, which promptly capped enrollment" (335). The public was no longer willing to pay for the high cost of higher education for community colleges.
Public pressure--political pressure--has been behind many of the changes that have occurred at CUNY as well. The New York Times reported that for the past 20 years, CUNY has suffered devastating budget cuts, and "the taxpayers were sending CUNY a Message" (Traub 13). Pressure came from New York Governor Pataki, Mayor Rudoph W. Giuliani and members of the Board of Trustees to raise academic standards and this pressure led to the resolution to refuse admissions to those students who could not pass the basic skills tests. Barbara Bowen, an associate professor of English at Queens College (CUNY) argued that the problem was not standards, but underfunding (Traub 14). As Gleason argues, while the Board's actions were viewed as a "victory for standards" the real purpose of their resolution was to "downsize the university, rendering it more cost 'efficient' along the lines that have become a familiar feature of corporate America" (580). These pressures from the Mayor, however, led to the plan to phase out Remediation from the senior colleges over three years and eliminate it (Traub 14). Gleason reports that students who fail the basic skills test could now enroll in one of CUNY's Community Colleges where "costs [were] held down by higher teaching loads for full-time faculty . . . and a greater reliance on adjunct faculty" (580). The Board's decision has become a hot button political issue protested in public hearings and in the local press; Socio-political forces, however, continue to plague the issue of Remediation (582). The New York Times reports that now state after state is toughening licensing for colleges and mandating higher standards (Archibold 24). This will place more pressures on community colleges across the nation to prepare under-prepared and language-minority students.
The response by administrators and politicians to deal with funding problems, was to pass the problem off to the community colleges; the community colleges responded by hiring more part-time, temporary instructors, who could be under-paid and exploited. These positions were often filled by women, creating another problem. Women form an under-class in the larger economy. Robertson reports that the decline in full-time secure teaching positions, once typically held by women, reflects a national trend allowing employers to save money on benefits while meeting the demands for writing teachers (487). The hiring of the part-time female instructor as other--is just another way to pay women lower wages. Susan Miller, in her essay "The Feminization of Composition" comments on the numbers of women in part-time teaching positions: "Women hold the part-time appointments in academic institutions. In 1976, women occupied 25 percent of full-time positions, but 38 percent of part-time positions . . . a large proportion of this part-time work force are housed in departments of English" (493). Just as the "remedial" problem allows institutions to view writing instructors as insignificant, social and cultural traditions help construct an identity for women as self-sacrificing, nurturing, mothers which allows for exploitation. Women are identified as individuals who will sacrifice their "personal separateness" for children. This cultural identity imposes traditions on women that allow institutions to "regulate property, power, and status within communities" (493). As the taxpayer refused to pay for higher educational costs, administrators sought new ways to fund their colleges; part-time female writing instructors were often being paid the same amount of salary as graduate students. Women writing instructors suffer bias of gender, and both male and female part-time instructors suffer from exploitation by an educational institution which marginalizes their contributions.
The emphasis on who should be teaching writing has changed from a full-time tenured faculty to a part-time temporary workforce who are predominately women. The content of our coursework--what is being taught--has undergone tremendous change as well. As universities eliminate basic writing courses from their curriculum, the community college system has moved away from the teaching of literature to concentrate on the teaching of developmental writing. In the early 1990's, the emphasis within the community college shifted to prepare students for transfer. Branches of higher education such as the University of California and the California State University system created the core curriculum, that would be "universally accepted for transfer." The emphasis shifted away from literature and toward composition. Albert reports that literature was reclassified as Humanities; currently only 7% of community college English department classes being taught are literature classes (333-336). The emphasis has shifted in the community college from literary studies to teaching composition, and particularly to teaching developmental composition--reading and writing. With the changing demographics of student populations, many community college's have simply not been able to keep up.
What will the new community college English program look like?--What courses will be taught and who will teach them? Madden believes that graduate English programs should be expanded to include the scholarship of teaching with a focus on the problems of pedagogy. If Literature instruction has become only 7% of the community college English program, then perhaps community colleges should be focusing on hiring instructors whose scholarship includes rhetoric and composition, and not primarily literature.
Indeed the old models of pedagogy no longer apply to today's muti-cultural multi-linguistic academic milieu. In his book "A Teaching Subject" Joseph Harris suggests that after the 1966 Dartmouth Seminar there was a shift "from a view of English as something you learn about to a sense of it as something you do" (1). The shift, away from the old models of teaching skills and knowledge to a growth model of teaching that focused on students' experiences and how experiences are shaped by language, forced writing teachers to re-think classroom strategies. According to Marilyn M, Cooper, who reviewed Harris' text for CCC, his work focuses on the work students and teachers do together in the classroom (505). She explains that Harris sees the classroom as '"a public space where students can begin to form their own voices as writers and intellectuals...not simply to defend the cultures into which they were born but to imagine new public spheres which they'd like to have a hand in making"'(503). Harris' text illuminates the debate over how writing should be taught as illuminated by Growth theorists and expressive theorists. Expressive approaches of writing such as those advocated by Peter Elbow were seen as highly political (504). Research on the writing process was an attempt to focus on student writing, to reform how writing was being taught, but it was also an attempt to legitimize the field of composition rhetoric as a research field (504).
Another attempt to legitimize the field of composition and rhetoric emphasizes the hiring of PhD's in rhetoric to teach writing courses. Madden also argues that with fewer than half of graduate students earning PhD's in English Studies between 1996 and 2000 expected to receive full-time tenure track positions at four-year institutions, Two-Year colleges, would benefit greatly from the hiring of PhD's. Does this mean that many talented professional part-time instructors of community colleges with Masters Degrees, who have dedicated themselves to years of under-paid part-time work will now be overlooked as PhD's unable to find tenure positions in four-year universities are hired in the community colleges? Will this change the requirements for English department candidates?--should it?
Madden is Professor and Chair of the English Department at SUNY Westchester Community College; he believes his department reflects the future of English Studies in the Two-Year college:

Madden envisions a changing Two-Year college, in which teaching will remain the central focus, but the instructors extra time spent grading and conferencing with students will help define their teaching loads. Professional development and achievement will be supported financially. Hiring committees, Madden argues, will "view the PhD as valuable," with faculty researching, writing, and publishing a crucial part of the department (723).
Madden's vision may seem Utopian in light of the tremendous problems created by funding shifts, and the political realities English instructors face in re-imagining their positions. Fetterley comments on these difficulties:

It is true, as Madden and Fetterley suggest, that because of shifts in University enrollment "sixty percent of new PhD's in English cannot find full-time, tenure-track employment" (Robertson 487). These are the political realities English instructors face; must the educator however "resign his conscience to the legislator?"--as American universities begin, as Fetterley suggests, to be thought of as corporations. Henry David Thoreau in his essay "Civil Disobedience" argues that "a corporation has no conscience" (724). Madden's vision of the future for writing programs in the Two-Year college may indeed seem utopian, however it reflects a larger desire to support and endorse writing instruction in our community colleges--to support under-prepared and language minority students in their quest to secure a higher education. Will we close the university doors on those students our own system of education has failed? Rose also asks us to support the teaching of writing, to "consider, though, the message that would be sent to the schools and to the society at large if the university embraced--not just financially, but conceptually--the teaching of writing: if we gave it full status, championed its rich relationship with inquiry, insisted on the importance of craft and grace, incorporated it into the heart of our curriculum" (458).
Part-time temporary writing instructors in both universities and community colleges--many of them women-- now bear the responsibility to prepare underprepared students. The exploitation of these highly qualified and dedicated instructors is a crime. We cannot expect to educate all our youth and prepare them for the task ahead of them without instructors who are adequately trained and financially supported. Visionary instructors will continue to implement new pedagogy designed for a changing multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, student population. We must end the labeling of basic writers as remedial, and end the naming of writing instructors as sub-standard. The problem is not a transient one. We must meet these challenges head on. These instructors should be entitled to the same benefits, privileges, and status as full-time instructors. They should be treated with fairness and respect. It is time for administrators and legislators to support instruction--and ultimately free these fliers from the free-ways and house them in their departments where real collaboration among colleagues can take place.

Works Cited

Albert, Janice M.. "Teaching and Identity: My thirty -Five Years in the Community College System." Teaching English in the Two-Year College. Vol. 27 #3 March 2000.

Archibold, Randal C. "Getting Tough of Teachers." The New York Times. Nov. 1, 1998. 4A 23.
Cooper, Marilyn. "A Teaching Subject: Composition since 1966--A Review." College Composition and Communication. Vol. 51, #3, February 2000.

Fetterley, Judith. "Symposium 1999: Dreaming the Future of English," College English , July 1999.
Gleason, Barbara. "Evaluating Writing Programs in Real Time: The Politics of Remediation." College Composition and Communication. Vol. 51 #4, June 2000.

Harris, Joseph. A Teaching Subject -- Composition since 1966. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1997.

Madden, Frank. "Symposium 1999: Crossing Borders: The Two-Year College." College English, July 1999.

Robertson, Linda R., Sharon Crowley, and Frank Lentricchia. "Wyoming Conference Resolution Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing." Composition in Four Keys --Inquiring into the Field. Mark Wiley, Barbara Gleason, Louise Wetherbee Phelps. CA: Mayfield Publishing Company: 1996.

Rose, Mike. "The Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University." Composition in Four Keys --Inquiring into the Field. Mark Wiley, Barbara Gleason, Louise Wetherbee Phelps. CA: Mayfield Publishing Company: 1996.

Rouse, John. "The Politics of Composition." Composition in Four Keys Inquiring into the Field. Mark Wiley, Barbara Gleason, Louise Wetherbee Phelps. CA: Mayfield Publishing Company: 1996.

Shaughnessy, Mina P. Error & Expectations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Thoreau, Henry David. "Civil Disobedience." The Blair Reader. 2nd Ed. Kirszner, Laurie and Stephen R. Mandell, eds. New Jersey: The Blair Press, 1996.

Traub, James. "At Queens College, Shaking Up is Hard to Do." The New York Times. Nov. 1, 1998. 4A 13.

Wiley, Mark. "The (Re)Turn to the Political." Composition in Four Keys Inquiring into the Field. Mark Wiley, Barbara Gleason, Louise Wetherbee Phelps. CA: Mayfield Publishing Company: 1996.