Monday, September 24, 2007

Our English department is undergoing Program Review right now, and I'm the chair of this "enjoyable" activity. Anyway, our committee has been going over the program review questions and deciding how to present the material to the rest of the faculty. One of the questions has to do with goals for the next three to five years. I wonder what the department would say if one goal would be to have all on-campus composition classes offered only in computer classrooms. If we believe that computers assist students in the writing process, then are we doing about 50% of our students disservice by not giving them the opportunity to take a writing class in a computer classroom? I'd be interested to know how many colleges in the country ONLY offer writing classes in computer classes now. I'm sure there are faculty who have never taught in the computer classroom who might have cow at the thought of teaching all future classes in such an environment.