This fall, I am beginning the second year of a faculty writing and mentoring program with the University of North Texas (UNT)’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS). The program was proposed by Priscilla Ybarra, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, Department of English) and is sponsored by Steve Cobb, Ph.D. (Associate Dean, CLASS). I share a description of the program here to give a sense of what’s possible for tailored writing support: support customized to meet the needs of a particular organization and responsive to the questions and requests of writers.
The CLASS WRite Program
The University of North Texas (UNT)’s CLASS WRite Program has been emergent and taking shape over the last academic year (2023-2024). This academic year (2024-2025), I will be supporting a group of 22 faculty—across disciplines and ranks—working alongside two faculty co-coordinators, Arunima Datta, Ph.D. and Matthew Heard, Ph.D.
The program includes three components:
1. Weekly Writing Groups
Modeled after my online writing groups, the CLASS WRite Program meets weekly for 2-hour writing groups. At the start of each week, faculty facilitators check in about how everyone is showing up and what everyone is working on that day. Participants then write for the remaining time, coming together in the final few minutes to share updates and closing words. The group is a container of support for moving projects forward and writing in community with others. As writers, it can help knowing that we are not alone, but writing with and alongside others.
2. One-with-One Coaching Conversations
Three times throughout the academic year, I join the writing groups to offer “office hours” for drop-in coaching conversations. During the writing groups, there’s the option for faculty writers to meet with me (in a zoom breakout room) and to talk through any questions around writing. Sometimes these coaching conversations involve reviewing sections of text. Often, they address questions of the writing process and what gets in the way of writing. The conversations go wherever they lead—from addressing particular genres of writing (e.g., book proposals or grant reports) or particular audiences (e.g., responding to reviewers or writing for public audiences) to intervening into conditions that undercut or, in contrast, affirm writing (e.g., reading and writing practices, rituals, and larger life questions).
3. Participation in Writing Retreats
Finally, each participant of the CLASS WRite Program is invited to join two of my regularly scheduled writing retreats throughout the year, as fits their schedules. And I offer two retreats for CLASS WRite faculty on reading days, closing the fall and spring semesters. These writing retreats include a mix of writing time, group check-ins, one-with-one coaching, guided meditation, freewriting, and intention-setting. As a complement to the weekly writing groups and coaching hours, these retreats provide both small-group and one-with-one check-ins. Retreats offer real-time support when it’s most needed.
Vision of the Program
From its initial days, the CLASS WRite Program has been rooted in feminist co-mentoring. Writing can feel like a solitary, even isolating, activity, but it doesn’t have to be! In fact, writing is always relational, connecting us to writers who have come before, readers we hope to reach, and other writers and readers who are very much part of our lives and relational spheres.
In her proposal for the program, Professor Priscilla Ybarra put it this way:
Chicana feminist writer Cherríe Moraga offers a three-fold way of understanding the place of writing for scholars who center their work on social justice and decolonization: “I write to remember. / I make rite (ceremony) to remember. / It is my right to remember.” (A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness, Writings 2000-2010, Duke UP, 2011). The CLASS Faculty WRite Workshop is an interdisciplinary group of CLASS faculty who will work together and develop systems of mutual assistance and co-mentorship to support their writing project goals for 2023-2024 and beyond.” —Priscilla Ybarra, Ph.D.
Centering writing work that is striving toward justice, there’s real potential to build power with—and to build that power with other writers and fellow colleagues—toward relational networks of support that can stretch outward and far exceed the CLASS WRite Program.
Tailoring the Program
This version of the CLASS WRite Program has come together through the feedback of faculty participants and advocates. Priscilla Ybarra named the work I do around contemplative practices and meditation as key for the program. Building on Moraga’s naming of remembrance and ritual, the program has as its center an intention to disrupt overly intellectualizing the scholarly process. Instead, there’s an intention to tune into embodied knowledge and to write from a place of grounded presence and mutual support.
Over the past year, the importance of faculty co-facilitators emerged as key. So did the need for more up-front scheduling and communication. The anchors of one-with-one and small-group conversation/mentoring have remained central. And the program continues to take shape around a mix of writing groups, retreats, and coaching.
Certainly, other programs could take as their center other core commitments. I share here the CLASS WRite Program because it’s an example of what’s possible for a tailored writing program within an organizational context. There’s incredible power to responding to local context and customizing programs in emergent, responsive, collaborative ways.
If you’re interested in a tailored writing program for your campus or organization, reach out. Both Candace Epp-Robertson, Ph.D. and I are excited to collaborate and customize for what you may need.
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This post is written by Beth Godbee, Ph.D. for Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice.
To learn more about tailored writing support, read the related post “Writing Support for the School Year (and Year-Round).” And learn more about one-with-one coaching, writing groups, and writing retreats through these links.
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