Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy
March 23, 2007
CCCC Presentation on the Legacy
of Mina Shaughnessy, Hilton Hotel.
New Scholars Talk Back:
The City University of New York and
the Shaughnessy Legacy Thirty Years Later
The Roundtable takes up the question of CUNY's multiple identities within the legacy of one of the most significant thinkers about student writing in the country. Mina Shaughnessy taught "basic writing"-and invented the term-at CUNY's City College in the 1970s against the backdrop of the University's experiment with Open Admissions. Composition theory (and practice) owes much to her 1977 book, Errors and Expectations, which radically reframed cultural definitions of student "error." Thirty years later, CUNY is still associated with that rich historical moment, and with the questions she and others at the time confronted. But CUNY is invariably multivoiced, then and now. It is perhaps the most complex University system in the country, with 17 undergraduate colleges, 250,000 undergraduates, half born in countries other than the U.S. Shaughnessy's questions, particularly about literacy and democracy, need to be reframed for our times. The Roundtable includes the University dean who sits in what was Shaughnessy's seat at the Central Administration, and scholars from seven CUNY colleges, all speaking to Shaughnessy legends-and myths-from varying perspectives. CUNY's extensive "community of practice"-WAC/WID coordinators, Writing Fellows, Composition Directors, are invited to take part in the session.
The participants on this panel are drawn from many of the seventeen undergraduate colleges that comprise the City University of New York. Crystal Benedicks is Assistant Professor of English at Queensborough Community College and interested in WAC/WID. Peter Gray is Associate Professor of English and Codirector of the WAC Program at Queensborough Community College, where he is currently running a pilot interdisciplinary pedagogy seminar for CUNY doctoral students on community college pedagogy in the context of general education. Linda Hirsch is Professor of English and Coordinator of the WAC Initiative at Hostos Community College. Mark McBeth is Associate Professor of English and Codirector of the WAC Program at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Mary Soliday is Associate Professor of English at the City College of New York. Cheryl C. Smith is Assistant Professor of English and the WAC/WID faculty coordinator at Baruch College. Judith Summerfield, Professor of English at Queens College, is currently serving as University Dean for Undergraduate Education at CUNY's Central Office and oversees the University Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing in the Disciplines Program. Jessica Yood is Assistant Professor of English at Lehman College and Co-coordinator of the WAC program.
To view the Shaughnessy PowerPoint Presentation, click here.
