Harvard Expos: Isolated, Ignored?

When Professor of Education Richard J. Light interviewed hundreds of students in an exhaustive survey on teaching at Harvard, he found that undergraduates wanted to learn one skill more than any other: writing.

At Harvard, however, what students want sometimes has little to do with what the University values. Prestige, money and tenure go to those who publish, not necessarily those who teach.

The discipline of writing has only one endowed professorship, the Boylston professor of rhetoric, who is not a rhetorician but a poet.

And the body charged with teaching every undergraduate the art of composition, which has no tenured members, does not even hold the status of committee that the Linguistics Department is fighting desperately to avoid.

It is the Expository Writing Program, and those who work in it say that in the symbolic hierarchy of Harvard, they are at the very bottom, ghettoized and isolated from those who should be their peers.

The University responds that symbolism is not reality, and the mission of teaching students to write is central to the work of the faculty.

"It is the single most fundamental academic skill," says Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell, the person charged with overseeing every aspect of an undergraduate's educational experience.

But Expos teachers, students and even some Faculty members ask if the attention devoted to that mission is adequate, and if the symbolically low status of the discipline and teaching of writing reflects the reality at a place where research is often valued over practice.

Writing Not Included

Over the past year, Buell and the Educational Policy Committee crafted a report calling for a reexamination of the undergraduate concentrations' curricula, and writing was not part of it.

Here, perhaps, is where the reality of educational policy at Harvard seems to mirror the Expos program's symbolic place at the bottom of the Faculty totem pole.

"I'm not sure the University's commitment [to teaching writing] is that strong," says Robinson Professor of Celtic Languages and Literatures Patrick K. Ford '66, a member of the Faculty committee on Expos. "People who teach composition are considered to be second-class citizens, isolated from the rest of the intellectual activity on campus."

Students retain writing skills and "approaches to knowledge" like those taught in the Core far longer than much of their academic training, says James D. Wilkinson '65, director of the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.

"We have some appalling statistics about how rapidly factual knowledge is lost after students graduate if they don't stay in the same [academic] field," he says. "What they tend to remember is how to use evidence and things like how to write...[there are] all sorts of reasons why writing should be more consciously pursued as a goal."

And Expos is the only place where University Hall officially places the responsibility for impart- ing an understanding of how to write.

No single course, no matter how effective,could do the job, says Wilkinson. There must be apartnership, a curricular link between Expos andall of the courses that follow.

"We haven't thought enough about how to developskills like writing," he says. "I think we're atthe very early stages of that."

Right now, one committee comprises the "link"Wilkinson seeks between Expos and the rest of thecurriculum. The Bok Center is also working toforge a partnership between some sophomoretutorials and the first-year writing class, butthe efforts only include two departments as ofyet.

"I'd like to see more interaction betweendepartments and Expos," says Buell. "Thedepartmental programs, particularly tutorialinstruction, could benefit from the systematicinstruction in writing that the Expos peoplehave."

A number of professors say they would beinterested in exploring closer links between theirdepartments and Expository Writing.

"I'd be very interested in seeing proposals tosee more formal and articulated links between whatgoes on in Expos and other courses," saysProfessor of Biology Andrew H. Knoll, who chairsOrganismic and Evolutionary Biology.

But the question of who is to make thoselinks--beyond the Bok Center's efforts withvolunteer concentrations--remains unanswered.

Associate Director of Expository WritingNancy Sommers says she has recently polled 30Faculty members about writing in theirdisciplines.

But Professor of Afro-American Studies andPhilosophy K. Anthony Appiah, a member of whatSommers called a "committee" to explore thequestion, says he has spoken to her "a couple oftimes" and never met with any committee or Exposteachers.

That is precisely the problem for ExpositoryWriting instructors, the teachers say. Even ifSommers and Marius do talk to professors, the restof the Expos staff has no official contact withthe Faculty.

"My feeling was that Expos administratorsisolated the instructors in general," says oneformer Expos teacher. "There were only a couple ofpeople who were plugged into the University."

Teachers say their feeling of isolation is notdiminished by the one official Faculty tie withExpos, the standing Faculty of Arts and Sciencescommittee on Expository Writing.

The committee meets for less than two hoursevery year. Members say they are generally briefedby Expository Writing Director Richard C. Mariusand Sommers and spend the time discussing Expos'procedures and self-evaluations.

"I think the objectives of committees likethese are not to be a second sort of evaluationprocess but to think about goals and objectives,"says Susan W. Lewis, director of the Core Programand a member of the Expos committee. "I think itwould be hard for a committee...to do anythingimplementational."

Buell defends the committee, saying individualcommittee members make their own contacts withExpos teachers, mitigating any isolationExpository Writing faculty might feel. Committeemembers, however, say they have little contactwith the program beyond the annual meeting.

"I wish I could know more about the system so Icould respond more effectively [to questions],"said Associate Professor of Music Graeme M. Boone,who is a member of the committee. "I feel like I'msort of on the edge of the knowledge."

The isolation betrays a problem far larger thansimply a lack of curricular continuity, Exposteachers say: A lack of respect not only for thediscipline of writing but for those who teach it.

For example, in the English Department--atraditional base at some other schools for theteaching of writing--graduate students shy awayfrom the teaching of writing, according todepartment Chair Leo Damrosch.

"I think it [teaching writing] gets lessrespect if it seems like a grunt job that nobodywants," he says. "That seems to me really aghetto."

And this missing link with the Faculty makes itdifficult for Expos teachers to properly preparetheir students for the academic rigors of thefollowing three years.

"We didn't talk to the faculty in differentdisciplines about writing problems they saw...wehave an obligation to the students to teach themhow to write for their next three years atHarvard," says Sarah King, a former Expos teacher."Either that, or we should just admit this is atotally separate discipline."

The neglect among Faculty which Expos teacherssee spills over into long-term plans for theUniversity, evidenced in the plans for theupcoming $1 billion FAS capital campaign.

Faculty committees are preparing to interviewevery single professor in humanities disciplines,but they will speak to only a "representativesampling" of Expos teachers, according to GraduateSchool Dean Cristoph J. Wolff, who chairs theFaculty committee on the planned HumanitiesCenter.

Expos teachers argue that the program needs therespect of the Faculty--and an acknowledgement ofExpos not as a service arm of the FAS but as adiscipline of colleagues like any department.

"It's a mystery to me why actual writing isunder-credited at Harvard," says a former Exposfaculty member. "If you went to an aeronauticsinstitute, and half of the institute wasdescribing planes and the other half flyingplanes, you'd think the hotshots would be in theflying part."

Beneath the concerns with tenured postsand faculty attention, the essential question formany is not how Expos faculty members feel aboutHarvard but how Harvard teaches its students towrite.

"I think that writing skills are not as good asthey should be and maybe not as good as they usedto be," says Michael B. McElroy, chair of theEarth and Planetary Sciences Department.

Within the undergraduate concentrations, manyprofessors say department courses fail to build onwhat is taught in Expos. The result is somethingakin to an academic free-for-all.

"Someday you write a paper with someone whoknows how to write and they beat on you until youknow how to do it," says Howard M. Georgi III '68,chair of the Physics Department.

"It's a course-by-course basis," says Thomas N.Bisson, chair of the History Department. Writingis addressed in the tutorial system, butessentially "it is not done more systematicallythan that."

Wilkinson says this approach to teaching isinadequate. And the present system of keepingExpository Writing separate from the rest of thecurriculum does not work, he says.

Other aspects of the Expository Writing system,including the four-year rule that keeps veteranteachers from staying and results in massiveturnover, may be a problem as well, saysWilkinson.

And Expository Writing faculty complain of alack of methodical training of teachers, thoughthey say the system is improving. One second-yearExpos teacher says the most memorable part of histhree-day teacher training session was the cateredlunch.

What, then, is the solution to theproblems teachers see in the Expos program? Andhow can the University live up to the promise thatthe ability to write comes with a Harvard diploma?

Wilkinson has a simple answer: Abolish thefour-year limit on teachers' jobs at Expos.

"I don't understand a system that forces peopleout after four years," he says. "If good teacherswant to stay around for 30 years, we should letthem."

He suggests a one-year contract for ExpositoryWriting instructors, followed by a three-yearcontract and renewable four-year contracts afterthat.

Ford, too, sees no justification for thefour-year rule. He cites an example from hisexperience as director of the University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles' writing program before hecame to Harvard.

"People were hired as lecturers," he says."They were hired for one year, then up to sixyears, and then were subjected to an "eye of theneedle" review intended to keep the best teacherson staff.

"That proved a means of holding on to peoplewho did prove to be excellent teachers ofcomposition," he says.

Ford also suggests a realistic pay scale inline with first-year professors for beginningteachers. Starting Expos teachers are paid $25,500a year.

Improving the status of Expository Writingteachers, however, does not automatically improvethe quality of writing. If that is to happen,Wilkinson says, a respect for the teaching ofwriting must become ingrained in the academicculture.

In other words, just as Expos could shape itscourses to work with the concentrations, perhapsthe concentrations could shape their classwork toreflect the values and focus of an Expos section.

Wilkinson's answer, and the one Dean of theFaculty Jeremy R. Knowles offers as well, is thewriting fellows program created and run by the BokCenter.

This year, approximately 50 teaching fellowswill take Bok Center training in the art ofteaching students how to write. They will lead"writing-intensive" sections with more attentionto student writing.

Eventually, Wilkinson hopes, their efforts will"filter up" to those who lead the classes and runthe departments. But, he concedes, it is a gradualprocess.

Ford suggests a set of Faculty "Friends ofExpos" beyond the standing committee, which wouldbring the methodologies of different disciplinesto bear on the program's needs. These professorswould care about Expos, and would lend theirexpertise to the program--as well as incorporatethe program's methods into their own classwork.

Sommers notes that some events already beingplanned may allay concerns about the program'sisolation from the rest of the Faculty.

Sommers, who is completing a study of theteaching of writing at Harvard, is organizing alecture series about the role of writing indifferent academic fields.

And Buell says he would like to see morefirst-year seminars at Harvard. But Dean ofFreshmen Elizabeth S. Nathans points out thatadding more seminars is problematic because of thelimited availability of Harvard faculty to teachthe small classes.

In the end, however, writing expertsboth here and elsewhere say that for Harvard, onlya uniquely Harvard solution will work.

The University which hires only "the best inthe world" to teach its students values quality:The problem, Wilkinson says, is making its cultureacknowledge that the teaching of writing is ascentral to stature as the number of Nobels orendowed chairs.

"If those changes take, they will be solidlyimplanted in a Unversity culture which valuesexcellence in academic discourse," says Wilkinson.

A University which, at present, he says,"doesn't always ask students to live up to itsstandards."CrimsonEdward H. WuRICHARD C. MARIUS

No single course, no matter how effective,could do the job, says Wilkinson. There must be apartnership, a curricular link between Expos andall of the courses that follow.

"We haven't thought enough about how to developskills like writing," he says. "I think we're atthe very early stages of that."

Right now, one committee comprises the "link"Wilkinson seeks between Expos and the rest of thecurriculum. The Bok Center is also working toforge a partnership between some sophomoretutorials and the first-year writing class, butthe efforts only include two departments as ofyet.

"I'd like to see more interaction betweendepartments and Expos," says Buell. "Thedepartmental programs, particularly tutorialinstruction, could benefit from the systematicinstruction in writing that the Expos peoplehave."

A number of professors say they would beinterested in exploring closer links between theirdepartments and Expository Writing.

"I'd be very interested in seeing proposals tosee more formal and articulated links between whatgoes on in Expos and other courses," saysProfessor of Biology Andrew H. Knoll, who chairsOrganismic and Evolutionary Biology.

But the question of who is to make thoselinks--beyond the Bok Center's efforts withvolunteer concentrations--remains unanswered.

Associate Director of Expository WritingNancy Sommers says she has recently polled 30Faculty members about writing in theirdisciplines.

But Professor of Afro-American Studies andPhilosophy K. Anthony Appiah, a member of whatSommers called a "committee" to explore thequestion, says he has spoken to her "a couple oftimes" and never met with any committee or Exposteachers.

That is precisely the problem for ExpositoryWriting instructors, the teachers say. Even ifSommers and Marius do talk to professors, the restof the Expos staff has no official contact withthe Faculty.

"My feeling was that Expos administratorsisolated the instructors in general," says oneformer Expos teacher. "There were only a couple ofpeople who were plugged into the University."

Teachers say their feeling of isolation is notdiminished by the one official Faculty tie withExpos, the standing Faculty of Arts and Sciencescommittee on Expository Writing.

The committee meets for less than two hoursevery year. Members say they are generally briefedby Expository Writing Director Richard C. Mariusand Sommers and spend the time discussing Expos'procedures and self-evaluations.

"I think the objectives of committees likethese are not to be a second sort of evaluationprocess but to think about goals and objectives,"says Susan W. Lewis, director of the Core Programand a member of the Expos committee. "I think itwould be hard for a committee...to do anythingimplementational."

Buell defends the committee, saying individualcommittee members make their own contacts withExpos teachers, mitigating any isolationExpository Writing faculty might feel. Committeemembers, however, say they have little contactwith the program beyond the annual meeting.

"I wish I could know more about the system so Icould respond more effectively [to questions],"said Associate Professor of Music Graeme M. Boone,who is a member of the committee. "I feel like I'msort of on the edge of the knowledge."

The isolation betrays a problem far larger thansimply a lack of curricular continuity, Exposteachers say: A lack of respect not only for thediscipline of writing but for those who teach it.

For example, in the English Department--atraditional base at some other schools for theteaching of writing--graduate students shy awayfrom the teaching of writing, according todepartment Chair Leo Damrosch.

"I think it [teaching writing] gets lessrespect if it seems like a grunt job that nobodywants," he says. "That seems to me really aghetto."

And this missing link with the Faculty makes itdifficult for Expos teachers to properly preparetheir students for the academic rigors of thefollowing three years.

"We didn't talk to the faculty in differentdisciplines about writing problems they saw...wehave an obligation to the students to teach themhow to write for their next three years atHarvard," says Sarah King, a former Expos teacher."Either that, or we should just admit this is atotally separate discipline."

The neglect among Faculty which Expos teacherssee spills over into long-term plans for theUniversity, evidenced in the plans for theupcoming $1 billion FAS capital campaign.

Faculty committees are preparing to interviewevery single professor in humanities disciplines,but they will speak to only a "representativesampling" of Expos teachers, according to GraduateSchool Dean Cristoph J. Wolff, who chairs theFaculty committee on the planned HumanitiesCenter.

Expos teachers argue that the program needs therespect of the Faculty--and an acknowledgement ofExpos not as a service arm of the FAS but as adiscipline of colleagues like any department.

"It's a mystery to me why actual writing isunder-credited at Harvard," says a former Exposfaculty member. "If you went to an aeronauticsinstitute, and half of the institute wasdescribing planes and the other half flyingplanes, you'd think the hotshots would be in theflying part."

Beneath the concerns with tenured postsand faculty attention, the essential question formany is not how Expos faculty members feel aboutHarvard but how Harvard teaches its students towrite.

"I think that writing skills are not as good asthey should be and maybe not as good as they usedto be," says Michael B. McElroy, chair of theEarth and Planetary Sciences Department.

Within the undergraduate concentrations, manyprofessors say department courses fail to build onwhat is taught in Expos. The result is somethingakin to an academic free-for-all.

"Someday you write a paper with someone whoknows how to write and they beat on you until youknow how to do it," says Howard M. Georgi III '68,chair of the Physics Department.

"It's a course-by-course basis," says Thomas N.Bisson, chair of the History Department. Writingis addressed in the tutorial system, butessentially "it is not done more systematicallythan that."

Wilkinson says this approach to teaching isinadequate. And the present system of keepingExpository Writing separate from the rest of thecurriculum does not work, he says.

Other aspects of the Expository Writing system,including the four-year rule that keeps veteranteachers from staying and results in massiveturnover, may be a problem as well, saysWilkinson.

And Expository Writing faculty complain of alack of methodical training of teachers, thoughthey say the system is improving. One second-yearExpos teacher says the most memorable part of histhree-day teacher training session was the cateredlunch.

What, then, is the solution to theproblems teachers see in the Expos program? Andhow can the University live up to the promise thatthe ability to write comes with a Harvard diploma?

Wilkinson has a simple answer: Abolish thefour-year limit on teachers' jobs at Expos.

"I don't understand a system that forces peopleout after four years," he says. "If good teacherswant to stay around for 30 years, we should letthem."

He suggests a one-year contract for ExpositoryWriting instructors, followed by a three-yearcontract and renewable four-year contracts afterthat.

Ford, too, sees no justification for thefour-year rule. He cites an example from hisexperience as director of the University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles' writing program before hecame to Harvard.

"People were hired as lecturers," he says."They were hired for one year, then up to sixyears, and then were subjected to an "eye of theneedle" review intended to keep the best teacherson staff.

"That proved a means of holding on to peoplewho did prove to be excellent teachers ofcomposition," he says.

Ford also suggests a realistic pay scale inline with first-year professors for beginningteachers. Starting Expos teachers are paid $25,500a year.

Improving the status of Expository Writingteachers, however, does not automatically improvethe quality of writing. If that is to happen,Wilkinson says, a respect for the teaching ofwriting must become ingrained in the academicculture.

In other words, just as Expos could shape itscourses to work with the concentrations, perhapsthe concentrations could shape their classwork toreflect the values and focus of an Expos section.

Wilkinson's answer, and the one Dean of theFaculty Jeremy R. Knowles offers as well, is thewriting fellows program created and run by the BokCenter.

This year, approximately 50 teaching fellowswill take Bok Center training in the art ofteaching students how to write. They will lead"writing-intensive" sections with more attentionto student writing.

Eventually, Wilkinson hopes, their efforts will"filter up" to those who lead the classes and runthe departments. But, he concedes, it is a gradualprocess.

Ford suggests a set of Faculty "Friends ofExpos" beyond the standing committee, which wouldbring the methodologies of different disciplinesto bear on the program's needs. These professorswould care about Expos, and would lend theirexpertise to the program--as well as incorporatethe program's methods into their own classwork.

Sommers notes that some events already beingplanned may allay concerns about the program'sisolation from the rest of the Faculty.

Sommers, who is completing a study of theteaching of writing at Harvard, is organizing alecture series about the role of writing indifferent academic fields.

And Buell says he would like to see morefirst-year seminars at Harvard. But Dean ofFreshmen Elizabeth S. Nathans points out thatadding more seminars is problematic because of thelimited availability of Harvard faculty to teachthe small classes.

In the end, however, writing expertsboth here and elsewhere say that for Harvard, onlya uniquely Harvard solution will work.

The University which hires only "the best inthe world" to teach its students values quality:The problem, Wilkinson says, is making its cultureacknowledge that the teaching of writing is ascentral to stature as the number of Nobels orendowed chairs.

"If those changes take, they will be solidlyimplanted in a Unversity culture which valuesexcellence in academic discourse," says Wilkinson.

A University which, at present, he says,"doesn't always ask students to live up to itsstandards."CrimsonEdward H. WuRICHARD C. MARIUS