In Winter 2024, the Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning (OVPTL) began offering awards to graduate students at UCI for research on teaching and learning practices that focus on undergraduate writing in the disciplines. These awards ($5,000 each) support graduate students with their engagement in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and include guidance and support from the Campus Writing & Communication Coordinator (CWCC), Writing Across the Curriculum + Writing in the Disciplines Program (WAC+WID), and Center for Excellence in Writing & Communication (CEWC). The graduate students –recognized as WAC+WID Graduate Scholars—are drawn from undergraduate teaching units across campus. 

A second cohort of WAC+WID Graduate Scholars will begin in Fall 2024. Stay tuned for more information.

Purpose: Similar in design and scope to the Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation (DTEI), Graduate Scholars (previously Graduate Fellows), the WAC+WID Graduate Scholars Program supports graduate students with these goals: 

(1) developing, assessing, and sharing writing pedagogical skills and practices 

(2) fostering an interdisciplinary community of graduate students and faculty focused on supporting undergraduate writing in the disciplines 

(3) preparing competitive teaching and SoTL materials for the job market. 

Eligibility: The position of WAC+WID Graduate Scholar may be held concurrently with a GSRship, TAship, or other fellowships. Graduate students who are members of an academic or professional unit that teaches undergraduate students are eligible to apply. Preference is given to those graduate students who have had experience working directly with undergraduate students as graduate instructors, teaching assistants, or advisors. The review committee selects a cohort that represents a diverse range of disciplines and perspectives.

Application & Selection Process: As part of the application process, graduate students are  asked to reflect on their experience teaching writing in their discipline and to identify a pedagogical research question and inquiry project related to writing and undergraduate student learning. Applicants are encouraged to confer with colleagues in their home departments and members of the CWCC, WAC+WID Program, and CEWC to identify promising and feasible inquiry projects. Projects might include, but are not limited to:

• Designing and sequencing writing tasks that align with discipline-specific learning goals and assessing their impacts
• Developing, practicing, and assessing strategies for providing students with effective and actionable feedback on their writing
• Designing, implementing, and assessing the effects of writing assignments that utilize multimodal features
• Building, refining, and assessing collaborative and team-based writing projects
• Developing and assessing pedagogical approaches that support undergraduate student writers with writing about quantitative data and data visualization
• Developing and assessing strategies that support multilingual students in discipline-specific writing contexts
• Developing and assessing  activities that integrate AI (Artificial Intelligence) technologies with undergraduate writing assignments
• Integrating and assessing writing pedagogies that foster equitable, inclusive, and accessible learning environments

Expectations: The WAC+WID Graduate Scholars meets in person as a cohort 6 times over the appointment to workshop their projects. Each meeting lasts 2 hours.  In between cohort sessions, WAC+WID Graduate Scholars consult with members of the CWCC, WAC+WID Program, and faculty within their own disciplines. Each WAC+WID Graduate Scholar presents a culminating artifact that reflects their SoTL research. Artifacts include a portfolio of new or redesigned teaching materials, a series of blog posts or online teaching resources for the DTEI, CWCC, WAC+WID or CEWC, or an article or conference paper for a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) forum. Graduate Scholars are encouraged to use and share their artifacts with colleagues in their home units and, potentially, as part of a future colloquium hosted by the OVPTL and CWCC.