WRAC AY 2027-2028 Teaching Interests Overview

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Hello, WRAC faculty!

Every fall semester, very early on, we ask faculty to think about what courses they’d like to potentially teach for the coming year. I know fall 2026 is just starting, but per university workflow, the department admin team is already working on creating our department teaching schedule for summer 2027, fall 2027, and spring 2028.

The way this process works is that we send out a Google Form and ask all faculty to fill it out. 

The main form asks about teaching in First-Year Writing, Professional and Public Writing and the Minor in Writing, and in the Experience Architecture program. 

A separate form will be shared with core and affiliate graduate faculty about grad seminar teaching interests.

Graduate students, do NOT fill out this form. There’s a separate process for assistantship appointments and we launch that in spring.

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The form has some questions about when you prefer to teach, where you prefer to teach, and what you are interested in teaching next year. 

If you have accommodations documented through an HR SEAD, please indicate so on the form, but there’s no need to include further information on the form itself.

There’s also space to share life circumstances that might impact your teaching but that aren’t covered by an HR accommodation.

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The form is for indicating interest and preferences. If you don’t indicate interest, we may not know, for instance, what days and times you prefer to teach.

After we send out the Google Form, the admin team works together with our amazing Academic Operations crew to create a draft schedule based on student need and demand. We are required to submit our departmental summer 2027 and Fall 2027 schedules in university work copy this November. 

We then use the interest forms faculty have filled out to start staffing classes. If you have indicated interest in teaching P2W, the Minor in Writing, or XA, there are some next steps you should take to pursue that interest.

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Preparing to teach in the undergrad or grad programs might include:

* meeting with an associate chair to discuss the interest you’ve indicated on the form

* reviewing the syllabi of the class or classes you’re interested in potentially teaching

* sitting in on current classes

* reaching out to current faculty teaching those classes to learn more about their philosophy and approaches

* participating in program meetings

* having conversations with and about our students to get to know them and their interests better

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And we can certainly help to facilitate these processes!

With this in mind, please fill out the teaching interest survey no later than 5pm eastern on Friday, September 11. 

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If you have any questions, please feel free to see me, your department chair; Crystal VanKooten, our Director of First-Year Writing; Steve Fraiberg, Associate Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies; Casey McArdle, Director of XA; or Trixie Smith, Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies.

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