Images from the 2011 TYCA-West Conference
Thanks Lutfi for taking the pictures and getting them up to Flickr.
Conference Report by Louise Bown
Jeff Andelora giving a brief overview of the history of TYCA National.
The TYCA-West Conference was held Fri and Sat, Oct 7-8, 2011 in Mesa, AZ. Over 100 participants attended. This was the best attended conference in the history of TYCA-West. Shelley Rodrigo chaired the conference and Lufti Hussein was program chair. Shouan Pan, Mesa Community College President, welcomed us in the morning and Jim Avery, Academic Vice President, addressed us in the afternoon.
Kristine Hansen, from Brigham Young University, gave the keynote presentation on “Dual Enrollment Programs: The Good, The Bad and the Future.” When Kristine first heard of dual enrollment programs she wondered why anyone would want to fast forward young people’s education in this way. She soon learned that there are many reasons for the widespread growth of such programs. She also has realized that dual enrollment programs are not going to go away and that it is up to us to make them the best they can be. She focused on who sees dual enrollment programs as good and why, discussed some of the problems and suggested what we must yet do if we are to have dual credit programs that do not shortchange students out of the rich education in writing that they both deserve and need in order to become fully literate. One of the benefits that is cited in a 1999 U.S. Department of Education national, longitudinal study is that the most important factor influencing college degree completion is a rigorous high school curriculum, that “The academic intensity of the student’s high school curriculum counts more than anything else in providing momentum toward completing a bachelor’s degree.” One of the problems she mentioned is credit laundering. An example of credit laundering is of a student who takes a course in high school and transfers the credit to a university. The introductory course at the university was designed to prepare students for the second semester course and the student struggles because the course is not the same as the one offered at the university. Other problems involve cash cows (the college that offers the course gets the tuition dollars) and quality control. Student readiness, teacher credentials and evaluations are some of the quality control issues. In the future we need to make sure dual enrollment is built on a solid foundation. Chris Anson has developed standards for dual-credit composition programs which include faculty development and pedagogical integrity.
Carol Jenkins, Glendale Community College, gave a plenary session on “Plagiarism in the Multicultural Classroom—Implications for Teaching and Learning.” She asked if plagiarism is an academic or socio-cultural phenomenon and began by asking “Who owns knowledge”? Western cultures would say that copyright holders own knowledge. However, in some Asian cultures, knowledge, especially on the Internet, is seen as public knowledge. She also asked “What role does culture play in defining academic integrity”? In Asian cultures, students are rewarded for finding sources and copying and pasting. She went on to say that multicultural students often unintentionally misuse sources and that one strategy we can use to help these students avoid plagiarism is to instruct them that the writing process in our country involves a set of assumptions different from those they are accustomed to. She shared stories of two women who were deported because of plagiarism issues and met with shame in their countries.
Conference presentations focused on such issues as Multimodal, Multimedia, Multicultural, Mythology and Methodology; Bringing Community Writing Center Pedagogies into the Composition Classroom; Responding to Online Writing; Alternative Rhetorics for Writing Classes; Pride and Prejudice and Twilight and Zombies; Community College University Partnership; and Advocating the Teaching of General Linguistic Theory.
There are two openings on our TYCA-West REC. Clint Gardner was elected as the new National TYCA-West Rep.
2012 Call for Proposals
TYCA-West Conference 2012
October 19 & 20, 2012
Alterations: the future of two-year college English departments
The Two-Year College English Association is a professional group of English teachers dedicated to the principle that our teaching of writing, language, and literature provides students with an opportunity for self-determination as literate citizens. As two-year college teachers, we work in a special environment. We teach a population diverse in cultures, ages, backgrounds, abilities, and goals. We teach in institutions open to all students with a high school education, or its equivalent, or with open enrollment policies.
Recent developments in higher education are putting pressure on two-year colleges to move students through the system more quickly and yet provide quality higher education to sometimes underprepared students. These pressures impact development of curriculum, courses offered, text book selection, staffing of classes, admissions policies, uses of technology in online and in-person education, as well as writing centers and academic advising. The challenges and opportunities that we will face in the next decade are worthy of discussion and exploration.
For the 2012 conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, we are seeking proposals that address the future of English departments and how we can best address the challeges that lie ahead.
Please submit: a cover page that includes the title, speaker/s, institutional affiliation, email/s, and phone number/s of all involved, along with a brief 100-200 word description of your presentation and the format of the presentation (panel/workshop/lecture/paper reading). The sessions are 1 hour and 20 minutes long. Please tell us if you would like to be partnered with another presenter (so you each will have approximately 40 minutes) or if you would like the entire time slot. All rooms will have a computer with Internet connection and projection capabilities. You may request a room with laptop computers for all participants. Only one copy of this information need be submitted.
Email your proposal to tycawest2012@gmail.com by September 1, 2012.
Download: 2012 TYCA Call for proposals