By Laura Norton
Dear Executive Vice Chancellor Chemers,
This letter was begun just over three years ago, when I first began as a freshman student here at UCSC. Like many freshmen, my major was “undecided.” My high school education had prepared me for university, but little for what might lie beyond the world of academia.
I stumbled through my General Education requirements until eventually finding my way to journalism. It is where I have made my home, and as I look toward graduation in June, journalism - and writing - is where I know my future lies.
I tell you all of this because a university is only as good as its students, and after spending more than three years as a student, and nine weeks as a tutor at this university, I am positive this is an institution of quality. But the most meaningful test of this is not what quality of students enter, but what quality of students leave.
As the new Executive Vice-Chancellor of UCSC, this standard of quality is something you must now consider and strive for in your daily interactions with students, faculty, and staff alike. This means you must think critically about the goals of the educational programs, divisions, and departments you now oversee.
Particularly important is the state of the Writing program, which, as you know, has been attacked. Budget constraints forced Humanities Dean Wlad Godzich to freeze the “carry-over” funds that had previously supported the minors in Journalism and Communication and Rhetoric, the only undergraduate writing minors or majors in the UC system, and a program highly regarded by teachers, news editors, and employers alike.
Because of this, last spring Writing Program Chair Roz Spafford was forced to make the decision of funding the Writing Program’s minors or funding required writing classes and assistance for all freshmen and undergraduate students. She decided, rightly, to fund the UC required courses. However, because writing on this campus is a discipline that is taught to all students and not an elect few as in other disciplines, the money is still not enough, and the Writing Program and its valuable services may be nearing a state of crisis.
Funding for the Writing Program is not just a matter of convenience; it is about democracy and the value of education. More specifically, it is about the futures of the more than 13,000 undergraduate students at this institution, all of whom demand writing instruction whether through beginning, intermediate, or advanced classes. As the Brazilian sociologist Paulo Friere wrote in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed: “authentic thinking does not take place in ivory tower isolation,” but instead in communication. And so if the goal of this university is to promote authentic thinking among its students, and by extension guarantee the quality and worth of the degrees bestowed upon them, then attention must be paid to communication, and subsequently, writing.
When the university stops educating its students in writing, it stops educating them at all. As a skill, writing is necessary for success not only in school, but also in nearly every workplace imaginable. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, psychologists, social workers, engineers, managers at all levels, in business, in science, the skills of writing and writing persuasively are demanded (Gadda, Walsh).
Thus, if UCSC is to take itself seriously as a major academic institution, it must begin to take writing, and the academic and professional needs of its students, seriously.
This means reinstating funding to the Writing Program, capping Writing 1 classes at 20 students, reinstating tutoring for all students who have not passed the Subject A examination, reinstating the Writing minors, and regarding writing as a campus-wide responsibility rather than the concern of a specific program.
HERE'S WHY WRITING IS NECESSARY FOR ALL STUDENTS
The students I tutor as part of the Kresge Core Course desperately need and want writing assistance, mostly because they understand the power of being able to communicate effectively. And while I can write pages upon pages of my successes and failures, joys and sadnesses in working with these students, given the current state of the Writing Program, such an essay seems futile and self-indulgent.
Instead I am writing you about one of my students who, when the term started, nearly refused to write an academic essay, and now, only nine weeks later, is considering changing his course of study from psychology to writing.
“I actually like writing now,” Tim said to me this afternoon when we met to review a core course paper he had written on Rudolfo Anayo’s novel, Bless Me, Ultima. “I look forward to writing my papers,” Tim said.
What a change this was from the Tim I originally knew, the one who would barely say three words in a forty minute tutoring session, and handed me each of his papers carefully, pulling away a bit as my hand touched the words he had written. “It’s not very good,” Tim would say. “I didn’t have much time.”
As George Gadda and William Walsh note in a study of freshmen students’ writing experiences at UCLA, many students are aware that they enter university without the skills necessary to complete long analytical essays on topics and themes they might not even think are apparent in any given text. For Tim, as well as many other students, the core courses are freshmen students’ first encounter with analytical prose, and although the students may have thought deeply about both the books and themes they have been asked to write on, they lack the knowledge of analytical style and structure which will give academic credence to their thoughts.
Smokey Wilson, an education advocate and writing instructor at a California community college, wrote in a study on student-centered learning, “We are not a ready-made ‘academic learning community,’ my students and I; we hold in common so few ways of reading or writing that what community we have, we forge line by line.” Particularly true is this of freshmen students who, although we may forget, are not often familiar with academic literature.
As educators and upper-classmen it is sometimes hard for us to remember those first few weeks and months of our own freshmen careers and our encounters with what may have seemed to be the impossible literary demands placed on us by academic prose. We forget the paralysis that strikes when you first read page after page without understanding a single word, the icy stabs of panic that hit when you are asked to craft an essay, the fevers of embarrassment and unworthiness when a paper is returned to you marked “not passing.” As a writing tutor however, I experience these encounters many times a week in my meetings with each of my students, and together we work through them. I encourage the students to not see their writing as “bad,” as they invariably do, but instead to view it as a “work in progress.” In an effort to incorporate that elusive “argument” called for in college papers, we pull apart sentences word by word, defining and analyzing parts. It is the most excruciating and painful of writing processes, mostly because it is the students’ first blunt encounter with university-level thought and writing. But more than this, it is also students’ introduction to the demands of university life.
And an interesting thing happened. As we opened up the sentences, Tim opened up, too. He began sharing with me not only his weekend plans to go to concerts, but also the history of his family and his struggle to make it to UCSC. His writing improved. He began incorporating more brainstorming into his writing process, as well as editing and revising. At home he analyzed each sentence just as we had together in tutoring. And he stopped using the word “bad” to refer to his writing.
When I first took this job as a writing tutor, I wrote that my goal was to help my students learn how to write effectively, incorporating the ideas of audience into their writing. I hoped this would show them that their writing had a purpose and place outside of the normal, every day response papers they were accustomed to writing in high school. Together, Tim and I were able to accomplish this. And so when he came to me this afternoon and professed his interest in pursuing writing further, it was as if each of us had won a major battle; except that I knew that at this University, Tim’s battle with writing had only begun.
I hold Tim up as an example, not an exception. Tim’s level of writing and analytical development was no higher or lower than most of my students. In fact, Tim is part of what Gwendolyn Middlebrooks, an associate professor of education at Spellman College and a member of the Georgia Association of Educators, notes is a growing trend in higher education. She writes:
- “I find that, while many high school graduates come to college well prepared, others display poor study skills, weak communication skills, and the inability to perform higher-level cognitive tasks. These even include some students who have taken Advance Placement courses.
While their high school academic records may be impressive, these first-year college students have difficulty functioning as independent learners. College work requires that they tackle multiple high-level cognitive tasks such as application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, and many seem ill-prepared for this.” (Middlebrooks)
As an optimist, I hold hope that under your administration, my students, as well as the many others that will follow them, will get the help they need to succeed not only as students, but also in their chosen careers and lives after they leave the University. I hold hope that you will recognize the value of classes that teach students the higher-level cognitive tasks of analysis and effective communication. I hold hope that students at UCSC will get the education they both desire and deserve, regardless of their pre-University cognitive preparation.
It is, I realize, a major undertaking to ensure that all students leaving the University know how to write and think effectively. Because of this, many will tell you that freshmen students’ inability to write is the fault of the high schools. And perhaps there is truth in this. If we did fund our high schools more, pay attention to them more, value the services they provide more, then our students would arrive with more skills. But there is little you or I can do about changing the role of high schools in today’s society. There is, however, something you can do to help these students in their first weeks and months to bring them up to university-level thought and writing.
The University must not continue to ignore the needs of its most needed and fragile students. And if this administration’s inattention to the necessity of learning to write and think effectively continues, it stands to lose much more than I think many realize.
The University needs to realize that the needs of all students, even in a seemingly homogenous population of UC-accepted college students, are as diverse as the backgrounds and histories they come from. Particularly is this true of second-language and EOP students, who are often the first in their families to go to college and thus have little to no preparation for the challenges that lie ahead of them. And particularly true was this of Hilda, a Bridge and EOP student who although her writing skills were demonstrably higher than those of her peers, had no clue as to the demands of academia. Because of this Hilda struggled through the first month of school. She reported signs of depression including sleeplessness and loss of appetite. Her schoolwork suffered and although she received extensions on extensions of assignments, she still often did not complete them.
Hilda is the first in her family to go to college. Her parents were immigrants to the United States from Mexico and worked seasonally in various factories: packaging spinach one month, strawberries the next. She wears her UCSC Slugs sweatshirt often, and is proud that she has made it to University. She was confident that because she had been accepted she had the skills she needed to succeed, but by the end of the first month, it became clear that Hilda would not pass core; she had missed too many assignments and class sessions. Halfway through the quarter, her Core teacher insisted she see me for help.
As one of my more challenging students, Hilda was with me almost every day, if not in tutoring sessions, then in the phone calls and e-mails that bounced between us, and of course, in my thoughts and worries.
Does Hilda belong at UCSC? Her performance in Core might suggest not. But Hilda sat down with me one day and wrote her third core paper. I knew then that Hilda belonged here at UCSC. The paper she wrote was thoughtful and creative. It was, without a doubt, the best Core course paper I had (and have yet to) read.
John Ogbu, an anthropology professor at UC Berkley, wrote on the covert classism he said is a part of a cultural ecology in education that provides “subtle mechanisms” for underprivileged and minority students and white students to adapt to different futures. I hate to think that Ogbu, and his theories of classism in modern-day education, could be right. But Hilda has shown me through her struggles that second-language students, students of working-class backgrounds, and students of color, do struggle more to both belong and keep up with the cognitive skills and requirements demanded in higher education, mostly because the secondary schools they come from are funded less than schools serving students of upper- to middle-class backgrounds.
If the University withdraws and withholds the funding that supports services for these “under prepared” students, it is telling them, in effect, that they don’t belong here. As a writer, editor, tutor, and advocate for my students’ rights, I find this chilling message unacceptable.
I can not accept that Hilda was not able to get the help she needed to fit into a university-level academic environment until the quarter was nearly half finished, and it was almost too late. What I accept less is that she might not have received any help at all. What I accept least of all is that she may be a part of a pattern of class-based exclusion from University-life.
Without the support of writing assistance sessions in core courses, Writing 20, and Writing 21, students like Hilda would fall through the cracks of the educational system, possibly failing out, and leaving behind a predominantly white middle- to upper-class student population at UCSC.
It stands to reason that withdrawing and withholding funds from the Writing Program threatens the entire reputation of UCSC.
I do not under-estimate the strength of character that it will take to fix the damage that has already been done not just to the morale of the Program, but also to students like Tim, Hilda, and many more. But in this new position of authority you have obtained, you have the power to stand against all of this and reverse an incredible injustice that has been done not just to the University, but also to the students the University purportedly educates. And although there are many who will attempt to dissuade you from making the right decision regarding the Writing Program, know that you have the support and the strength to stand up for the rights of my, and indeed your, students.
If I have persuaded you in any way, I have been successful. If I have caused you to look again at the Writing Program, I have been successful. And if I have made you cheer for these students, as I do, then I again have been successful. But you should also realize this success has come not from me, but from the program which has taught me and for which I now fight. Because it is only by the talent of my teachers and the strength of the program that I am here today.
I hold my students up as examples not to testify to the strength of the Writing program and its ability to succeed (although clearly it is and does), but as an example of what writing can and should mean to all students - and what writing can and should mean to the University.
Sincerely,
Laura Norton
Writing Tutor
City on a Hill City Desk Editor
Journalism Student
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