The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Committee is very pleased to announce the 12th recipient of the annual Outstanding WAC Faculty Award, E. Jethro Gaede, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, History, Political Science and Sociology. This award recognizes faculty members who make a strong commitment to fostering student writing skills through courses designated as Writing Intensive (WR).
Jethro is now finishing his 6th year at MCC in which all of the courses he teaches are designated as WR. Like so many other past Outstanding WAC Faculty Award winners, Jethro was already teaching his courses with writing as a central component of the curriculum before they were formally designated as such. During his first year at MCC, he became aware of the WAC program, and by the start of his second year at MCC, had certified all of his anthropology courses as WR offerings. In addition, Jethro served as a WAC committee member for three years, bringing the mission of WAC to students and faculty alike by presenting at both WAC Student and Faculty Workshops. He helped guide student workshop attendees through the process of writing an abstract for a research paper in the humanities; the focus of his faculty workshop presentation emphasized the important of writing for oneself.
This concept – writing for oneself – has permeated Jethro’s own life, as well as his courses. He is a strong proponent of journaling, having kept one himself for the past forty-two years. Indeed, one of the class project of which he is most proud involves creating a personal fieldwork journal in his ANT 102 sections. This assignment is a product of twelve years of designing, assigning, and tinkering, in order to find just the right writing exercises to connect with key lessons from ANT 102. Jethro uses this assignment to get his students in touch with various aspects of their own life and culture, as well as to create familiarity with geographical, economic, and cultural diversity on a global scale. For example, he asks his students to record how they would spend $2 per day to pay for all of their expenses, as so many people must, out of necessity. He also asks his student to reflect on these expenditures. In his words, ‘the students are brought face-to-face with the reality of world poverty. This exercise requires a written reflection on what it would mean to live this way day in and day out’. The act of documenting this information affords the student a more personal, tangible sense of poverty than would a classroom discussion.
Jethro also understands the importance of formal writing, and requires the development of research papers, with appropriate bibliographies and abstracts, in all of his courses. He sometimes has students engage in collaborative writing assignments to have them experience consensus building and peer review during the writing process. Jethro underscores the significance of clear written communication to his students by explaining that ‘what you put on paper is your proxy to someone else; people will judge you on how you express yourself’.
As members of the WAC Committee during the years of Jethro’s service on the committee, we have had the privilege of working with him to promote the importance of written communication to the College community. His passion for self-expression and the very act of writing itself was evident in our committee discussions and in his workshop presentations. We are delighted to extend congratulations to Jethro, on behalf of the WAC committee, in the presentation of this well-deserved award.
MaryJo Witz
Writing Across the Curriculum
04/19/2013 |