It’s hard to believe I am in my fifth year as the UW Divisional Dean of the Humanities. Sometimes, it feels as if no time has passed, as if just this morning I was carting boxes (and boxes and boxes) of poetry from Padelford Hall, where I had been Chair of English, across the street to my current office. Other times, it can feel as if a century has flashed by. Back in 2018 I had never heard the word “coronavirus.”
But above all, there are many things for us to celebrate.
For example, our division took charge of an effort to rename a conference room in the Arts and Sciences Deans Office as the Colleen J. McElroy Room. McElroy is a poet and memoirist, the author of such prize-winning books as Sleeping with the Moon and Queen of the Ebony Isles, who taught creative writing at the UW for over thirty years. In 1983, she became the first African American woman to reach the rank of full professor at this institution. I strongly believe that renaming the College’s principal meeting and planning space after Colleen is a way of celebrating the best of our past and dedicating ourselves to a more inclusive, equitable future.
It’s also been fulfilling as Divisional Dean to advocate for quality writing instruction. Over ninety percent of UW undergraduates take a composition course from our English Department. Those classes are often a gateway into study at the university. Our faculty and graduate students are trained to teach all our students across cultural, linguistic, and educational experiences. We work together to help everyone grow as thinkers and communicators, no matter their future majors. That’s hard but terrifically important work.
In 2018, a Writing Task Force developed the UW Writing Principles to guide future conversations about writing as foundational part of our educational mission, and they recommended the creation of Writing@UW, a website, now online, to serve as a one-stop destination for faculty and students to learn about writing resources and writing opportunities. They also advised the creation of a new position, the UW Seattle Writing Director, who would be tasked with coordinating the many stakeholders and offices on campus involved in writing instruction.
In Fall 2022, I appointed our inaugural Director, Professor Megan Callow, who is now leading searches for as many as four new composition specialists. This will help build our Technical and Professional Communications (TPC) work, supporting many of our Humanities majors who go on to work in fields such as editing, user assistance, technical writing, science writing, and social media management and creation. Increasing our TPC offerings will enable our students to better prepare themselves for careers in these and many other areas in high-technology industries, business, and government and nonprofit organizations.
When I was working on my dissertation back in the 1990s, I deeply immersed myself in the giddy and glorious poetry of the American modernist poet Hart Crane. I never once woke up and said, “hey, someday I might be a dean!” I never dreamed of spreadsheets, enrollment trends, and task forces. A quarter century later, though, here I am. And I can say that, while university administration might not have been where I thought I’d end up, it’s nonetheless turned out to be a rewarding path to take. The UW is a glorious institution. I want it to serve our students, all of them, as well as it possibly can.
