The campus is seeking a faculty member within the UC Davis Academic Senate to direct the newly restructured university writing program. The deadline for applications is May 23.

According to Elizabeth Langland, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, the writing program has been revamped to create a "functionally autonomous interdisciplinary unit" within the Department of English.

The university writing program will be governed by the proposed new director, as well as by a director of composition (who will serve as academic administrator) and an interdisciplinary advisory committee. The committee will be composed of faculty members from the writing program and from across the disciplines.

The new position is key in a plan to develop an interdisciplinary writing program that serves the entire university more effectively and efficiently, Langland said in a memo to the UC Davis faculty.

It is designed as an interim two-year position with responsibilities that would include conducting the search for a specialist in writing instruction across the disciplines.

Langland and various faculty members concerned with undergraduate writing skills have spent the last three years exploring how to improve the composition program. A plan that would have changed the composition requirements within just the College of Letters and Science failed last June, when the college faculty voted against the idea.

That proposal would have maintained the required two courses in English writing but deleted a three-decades-long requirement that the second course be taken in the upper division. It also added a "writing requirement" determined by the faculty of each major within the college.

Some faculty members at the meeting last summer argued that the proposal would leave UC Davis graduates with worse writing skills than they have now. Others were concerned about the lack of resources and adequate faculty training to teach writing in disciplines other than the humanities.

Although the plan concerned only the College of Letters and Science, the two other undergraduate colleges -- Engineering and Agricultural and Environmental Sciences -- have a vested interest in any changes to curriculum requirements, since they depend on L&S to teach composition classes for their students.

To apply for the post, faculty members should submit a cover letter, a curriculum vitae and supporting materials to Langland by May 23. For more information, contact Langland at (530) 754-8920 or elangland@ucdavis.edu.