Black Perspectives in Writing Program Administration: From the Margins to the Center

This collection centres writing program administration (WPA) discourse as intersectional race work. In this historical moment in public discourse when race and racist logics are no longer sanitized in coded language or veiled political rhetoric, contributors provide examples of how WPA scholars can push back against the ways in which larger, cultural rhetorical projects inform our institutional practices, are coded into administrative agendas, and are reflected in programmatic objectives and interpersonal relations.

Editors Staci M. Perryman-Clark and Collin Lamont Craig have made a space for WPAs of colour to cultivate antiracist responses within an Afrocentric framework and to enact socially responsible approaches to program building. This framework also positions WPAs of colour to build relationships with allies and create contexts for students and faculty to imagine rhetorics that speak truth to oppressive and divisive ideologies within and beyond the academy, but especially within writing programs.

Contributors share not just experiences of racist microaggressions, but also the successes of black WPAs and WPAs whose work represents a strong commitment to students of colour. Together they work to foster stronger alliance building among white allies in the discipline, and, most importantly, to develop concrete, specific models for taking action to confront and resist racist microaggressions. As a whole, this collection works to shift the focus from race more broadly toward perspectives on blackness in writing program administration.