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Howe Writing Center gives away $20 thousand in grants

Karen Gaske

The Roger and Joyce Howe Center for Writing Excellence recently announced the 2007 recipients of their individual and departmental grants.

The yearly grants, which totaled $20,000 in all, consisted of two $5,000 departmental grants and five $2,000 grants, awarded to individual faculty members. According to a press release, this year's departmental grants went toward the department of teacher education and the department of sociology and gerontology. The individual recipients included Brenda Dales, from the department of teacher education; Kathleen Hutchinson, from the department of speech pathology and audiology; Harvey Thurmer, from the department of music; and Roscoe Wilson, from Miami-Hamilton's art department. The fifth grant was awarded to Stacy Brinkman, from University Libraries, and Ben Jacks, from the department of architecture and interior design.

According to the Center's Web site, the recipients of the grants are determined by its advisory committee, which evaluates applicants based on the objective and potential impact of their proposal. The committee consists of 18 faculty members whose areas of expertise span a variety of disciplines. Among the committee members is the Howe Center's director, Paul Anderson, who played an essential role in the creation of the grant program, which began in 2004.

"I was thinking about how to engage with departments," said Anderson of his initial idea for the grant program.

Anderson hopes that offering incentives to departments for working with the Howe Center will help to fulfill one of their goals, which is to encourage faculty to use more writing in their curriculums.

For example, according to Anderson, the grant received by the department of teacher education will be used by faculty in the undergraduate reading education program to design "writing-to-learn" assignments. These assignments are designed to help students gain a better grasp of the course material. It is their hope that the increased use of writing will enforce the techniques taught to students.

According to the Howe Center's Web site, the department of German, Russian, East Asian Languages (GREAL), a recipient of the grant in 2004, put the money toward improving writing projects for students who are composing pieces in a foreign language for the first time.

The department of manufacturing and mechanical engineering, which also received the grant in 2004, used the grant to develop assignments that link to its instruction, better preparing students for the type of writing that will be necessary in their future chosen profession.

Richard Taylor, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is part of a team that received one of the most recent grants for 2007. He will work alongside Michael Novak and James Hershberger, also from the department of chemistry and biochemistry, to continue promoting the use of writing assignments as a learning tool.

"We want to extend what we're doing for our organic chemistry students," Taylor said.

The writing assignments were devised to move students from a strictly mechanical approach to the course material to a more creative and interpretive approach.

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"(Students were able) to contribute to the data and to the analysis of the data," Taylor said of the writing assignments. "I think it's a process we'll refine and continue."

Kathleen Hutchinson, from the department of speech pathology and audiology, also received a 2007 grant from the Howe Center. She has already begun using it with the students in her Evidence Based Practice course.

"It will result in a very substantial research paper, which is why I needed help," Hutchinson said.

A few of the Howe Center's staff members meet with students from the course to assist them in improving the quality of their writing.

"They give advice and guide writing assignments," Hutchinson said. "They gave me some very good ideas on how to get students thinking about assignments."

Anderson said the main focus what how much students could gain.

"The projects (that the grants contribute to) are focused on how to use writing to help students learn more in their courses," Anderson said. "The main thing is how students are going to benefit."

In particular, the Howe Center hopes to increase the use of writing in departments that do not traditionally emphasize it, such as the science departments, department of music and management information systems. In addition, the center's members are looking to help faculty develop more useful writing assignments. The Howe Center's assistant director, Sagar Rijal, emphasized the importance of these goals.

"Writing enhances learning in any discipline," he explained, pointing out "better assignments result in better writing."

Matthew Ferguson, the Howe Center's administrative assistant, also weighed in on the value of the grant program. By increasing the use of writing as a teaching tool, it helps students develop critical thinking skills. It allows them to react to and process the course material.

"You've got better assignments and students better prepared to handle them," Ferguson noted of the program's successes.

While the use of grants has been a powerful tool thus far, the staff of the Howe Center is hoping that it will take on a more widespread influence across all disciplines.

"Our hope is that not only each project will have a terrific result," Anderson said, "but also that the work of each team will inspire other people to do similar work."