New
Center for Programs
in Contemporary
Writing
The
University's three
key writing resources
will be affiliated
for the first time
through the creation
of the Center for Programs
in Contemporary Writing,
SAS has announced.
The
Center, which will open
in July, will include the
Critical Writing Program
(currently known as the
Writing Program) and the
Creative Writing Program
currently housed in the
English department. It will
be closely affiliated with
the Kelly Writers House,
which is a thriving non-curricular
writing community sponsored
by the Office of the Provost.
The directors of the Critical
Writing Program and the
Creative Writing Program
will report to Kelly Family
Professor of English Alan
J. Filreis, who will direct
the new Center. The director
of the Writers House will
continue to report to Dr.
Filreis by virtue of his
position as faculty director,
a role he has held since
the founding of the Writers
House in 1995-96.
"Al
brings an immense energy
and vision to everything
that he does," said
SAS Associate Dean for Arts
and Letters Rebecca Bushnell. "We're
delighted that he will bring
that energy into this exciting
comprehensive initiative."
The
new Center will further
strengthen the School's
already strong commitment
to the writing seminars
through which all Penn undergraduates
fulfill their writing requirement.
There will be a renewed
commitment to offering introductory
writing experiences across
many departments and disciplines,
to the training of the instructors,
and to the quality of the
services supporting these
seminars, the Writing Center,
and Writing Advisors. The
integration of Critical
Writing and Creative Writing
and their new close ties
to the Writers House will
unite the traditional writing
curriculum with the dynamic
out-of-the-classroom writers'
workshops, symposia, readings,
student-created literary
projects and publications,
and other activities of
the Kelly Writers House.
The new Center will make
it possible, for example,
for the Writers House Fellows,
world-renowned visiting
writers, to conduct for-credit
writing courses for undergraduates,
allowing students to learn
from and interact with eminent
writers in a small-class
format.
Dr.
Bushnell noted that this
new structure will make
possible interactions and
collaborations that have
not existed at Penn and
do not exist in such a combination
at any other college or
university. "This is
exactly why the provost
has sponsored the creation
of the all-university hubs,'" said
Dr. Peter Conn, deputy provost,
who has worked closely with
the Writers House, Penn's
first hub. "We have
always hoped that creative
ventures like the Writers
House would eventually find
their own natural connections
to the curriculum and make
a larger whole out of the
sum of the parts."
"I'm
especially excited," said
Dr. Filreis, "that
for the first time, students
who enroll in writing seminars
in order to fulfill their
writing requirement will
begin to realize that there
are subsequent courses in
writing they might take
and indeed that there's
an entire culture of writing
and writers at Penn beyond
the first-year seminar.
A number of students, I
expect, will follow the
flow of creative students
from introductory writing
seminars to more advanced
seminars in fiction, screenwriting,
expository writing, playwrighting,
poetry writing, feature
writing, and journalism
and will discover an absolutely
vital community of emerging
and established writers."
"I
am simply ecstatic over
the appointment of Professor
Al Filreis as director of
the SAS Center for Programs
in Contemporary Writing," said
Dean of the College Richard
R. Beeman. While the College
has already made substantial
progress in improving the
quality of those courses
that our students take to
fulfill their writing requirement,
Al Filreis will bring to
the writing program at Penn
a breadth of vision and
a level of energy and vitality
that will expand the impact
of the program all across
the curriculum and well
beyond. By bringing together
the resources of the College
Writing Program, our excellent
Creative Writing Program,
and the intellectual vitality
of Kelly Writers House,
and by empowering Al Filreis
to help create the synergy
among those entities, I
believe that we will soon
be able to claim quite confidently
that Penn's writing program
is the very best in the
nation."
Dr.
Kerry Sherin will continue
in her role as director
of the Kelly Writers House.
Dr. Gregory Djanikian will
continue to direct the Creative
Writing Program, now housed
in the new Center. A director
of the Critical Writing
Program will be appointed
in the coming months.
The
new Center will be housed
at 3808 Walnut Street, providing
convenient access to the
audiences and writers at
the Kelly Writers House,
which is located at 3805
Locust Walk immediately
behind the Center's new
building. This new site
will include the Writing
Center and Writing Lab and
a newly renovated seminar
room offering state-of-the-art
technology for the teaching
of writing. The Center will
also host the equipment
for digital audio archiving
of the presentations of
visiting writers. |