A Literary Journal of Critical Thinking
In the Samizdat Tradition of Writing against the Machine
A Forum for Examining the Dark Side of the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex

Job Ads for Writing Instructors et al (A Few Examples)

The job ads for writing instructors et al in higher education provide excellent insight into the sad, bureaucratic, jargon-infested direction writing has been taking over the years.  The following include but a few gems extracted from The Chronicle of Higher Education.  The editor wrote several essays on the subject, but could not get them published.  One of them, "Double-Speaking Professor Hypocrites," appears below. 

Lead Writing Advisor (I001732)

University of Maryland University College

RESPONSIBILITIES: The Lead Writing Advisor will function as the day-to-day coordinator of the UMUC online Effective Writing Center (EWC). The primary duty of the Lead Writing Advisor is to manage the EWC’s Cold Fusion database interface. Specific responsibilities include responding to questions from students and/or advisors and generating weekly/monthly usage reports. In addition, through the use of the Cold Fusion database, the Lead Writing Advisor will receive and assign papers to advisors for consultation, review assignments for accuracy and return the information to the students.

The Lead Writing Advisor is also responsible for the management of the online advisor communication forum. Responsibilities involve posting a weekly announcement, updating advisors on work-related issues, posting and responding to questions and issues, facilitating a monthly synchronous chat meeting, and periodically digesting content.

Other duties include contributing to the EWC website redesign and updates and helping to identify potential areas for EWC improvement. The Lead Writing Advisor should be able to attend periodic on-site meetings.

QUALIFICATIONS: Requires a BS/BA and a minimum of two years of experience and training as a writing center tutor, advisor or consultant. A BS/BA degree with a specialization in Rhetoric and Composition, is preferred. Applicants should have knowledge and be familiar with the day-to-day operations of a writing center and should have training and background in online writing center operations. Requires excellent organizational, oral, and written communication skills. To be considered for this position, you must be a current employee within the University of Maryland University College.
SALARY: Commensurate with experience
POSITION AVAILABLE: Immediately
TO APPLY: Submit a cover letter, résumé, salary history, and list of three professional references as a Microsoft Word attachment by close of business (COB) June 23, 2006 to lenriquez@umuc.edu. Cover letters and information should be addressed to:
Candidate Search – Lead Writing Advisor (I001723)
University of Maryland University College
UMUC offers an excellent benefits package to include tuition remission, 25 days of leave, as well as a range of insurance options. For detailed information, please visit http://www.umuc.edu/personnel/exempt.shtml.
Current UMUC employees should apply for this position using PeopleSoft Self-Service.
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE ACTIVELY SUBSCRIBES TO A POLICY OF EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY, AND WILL NOT DISCRIMINATE AGAINST ANY EMPLOYEE OR APPLICANT BECAUSE OF RACE, RELIGION, COLOR, CREED, GENDER, MARITAL STATUS, AGE, NATIONAL ORIGIN, POLITICAL AFFILIATION, MENTAL OR PHYSICAL DISABILITY, OR SEXUAL ORIENTATION. THE UNIVERSITY DISTRIBUTES AN ANNUAL INFORMATION REPORT WHICH INCLUDES CAMPUS SECURITY INFORMATION THAT IS AVAILABLE TO PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEES. PLEASE CONTACT THE OFFICE OF HUMAN RESOURCES FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.

Double-Speaking Professor Hypocrites
But jargon, like the euphemism, can also be doublespeak.  It can be—and often is—pretentious, obscure, and esoteric terminology used to give an air of profundity, authority, and prestige to speakers of their subject matter. Jargon as doublespeak often makes the simple appear complex, the ordinary profound, the obvious insightful.  In this sense it is used not to express but impress.

               —William Lutz, “Doublespeak”

            Is it not odd that college handbooks for writing almost always include several pages on avoiding bureaucratese and pretentious language?  Yet college English department chairpersons, course designers, paper proposers and colloquium speakers rarely follow that advice.  Citizen critics need to keep a much closer eye on higher education, which, of course would prefer to keep citizen critics preoccupied with other matters.  Within the context of higher education’s increasing corporate mentality of teamplaying and networking, one phenomenon of interest is the new jargon that helps justify the proliferation of new courses and programs.  Not long ago, I came across a job announcement posted in The Chronicle of Higher Education.  Flabbergasted by the ‘rhetoric,’ I could not resist questioning and challenging.  
 

Your ad description for an Assistant Professor of Writing is a curiosity.  Has writing and English really become so perverted at Syracuse University?  Can there really be PhD writers in America specializing in "digital rhetorics and pedagogies" with interests in "computer-rich Writing pedagogies, electronic communication across the curriculum, theory or history of digital authorship, multiple literacies, or humanities computing?"  When will your department place an ad for a hardcore critical, engaged writer who will not cower at the thought of criticizing the hand that feeds (i.e., the university)?  What Syracuse needs are writers without Orwellian writers’ taboos—not more sycophant instructors of techno-corporate writing.
 

The Director of the Writing Program responded indirectly via an email message sent to her female associate and perhaps by error cc’d to me:  “Again I'm astounded at the sense of entitlement and righteousness the author has in making such a personal attack (and again a male author, I note).  I hope you'll post his message to the WPA list.”

            My assault on the ivory tower was evidently a crude one, lacking in proper tone, though assaults rarely do possess proper tone.   Just the same, the Director’s nonchalant response was troubling, perhaps typical, and reflected evident lack of accountability.  Few academics in power are compelled to debate critics.  Instead, they brush them off with clichéd epithets (e.g., “sense of entitlement” and “righteousness”).  Being a perpetual outsider even when inside the ivory tower, I had no idea what WPA meant, so thought maybe it stood for Women's Patrol Association.  By the way, I was not afraid to criticize female frauds and there were legions of them in academe... just as there were legions of male frauds. 

My last “academic” position was adjunct English instructor without health benefits aboard a US Navy warship for two months.  Mary Ellen Guffey’s Essentials of Business Communication was the required book for one course.  One of the ‘supplementary lectures,’ “Doublespeak,” informed that the National Council of Teachers of English sponsored The Committee on Public Doublespeak, which granted annual awards to spotlight faulty language, be it hyperbole, nonsense, or simply unclear.  So, as citizen critic, I submitted the job announcement posted by Syracuse University’s Writing Program, though the announcement to my eventual surprise was not unique at all.  Needless to say, I never heard a word from the NCTE.  Guffey notes examples of bureaucratese, including “negative declaration of impact” for no effect and “transportation control measure” for ride sharing.  She of course failed to note the plethora of academic examples, many in her own book.  Perhaps if she were less blind or less hypocritical, she would have included a subsection called Academe Speak. 

In any case, I perused the writing and job ads for English appearing in The Chronicle of Higher Education.  The plethora of ads for Reading programs was astonishing.  In fact, any college English Program, Poetics program, Writing Program, Reading Program, etc. would probably astonish critical thinkers.  Perhaps the most surprising feature of contemporary higher education are the Reading Programs, which seem to be growing astronomically.  Why?  Money and growth.  Colleges have become like corporations in their obsession with growth.  Most colleges are offering reading and writing skills courses.  At Marin Community College (CA), for example, “92. Reading and Writing Skills” stresses “Areas of concentration include vocabulary development, basic sentence grammar and usage, literal and inferential comprehension skills, and content area strategies.”  The last two areas of concentration ought to qualify for a Committee on Public Doublespeak award.  Of course it won’t because academics are the judges. 
            Many colleges are seeking Reading instructors, including Palm Springs Community College (FL) and South Florida Community College, which listed minimal qualifications as “Bachelor's in Reading and either related classroom experience or graduate training in remedial education.”  Imagine a person declaring they had a BA in Reading and was teaching Reading at the local community college.  Los Rios Community College (CA) was offering no less than five full-time reading positions!  Evidently, the “dumbing down” phenomenon noted by Charles Sykes regarding high schools has now spread into higher education.  Evidently, it translates into more money for more “dumbing down” courses for students and more “dumbing down” colloquiums for professors. 
 

American River College (CA) was looking for an English instructor to teach a panoply of courses including basic writing skills, intermediate writing skills, college composition, advanced composition and critical thinking, and literature, as well as instruction in the Writing Center and computer-assisted classrooms.”  Literature seems to be sitting in the backseat today.  Other courses probably offered at American River might include advanced writing skills, writing skills for minorities, writing skills for females, basic composition, intermediate composition, beginning critical thinking, and selective critical thinking.  One day, courses might be offered in White Persons Composition, Native American Composition, Mixed-Race Composition, English for Airplane Mechanics, and English for Graduate Students.  Boston University was seeking an instructor who could teach “history of rhetoric, composition pedagogy.”  Wow!

Sacramento City College (CA) was looking for an English instructor to teach classes in “remedial and developmental reading, as well as individualized lab and content area reading.”  Most English departments have jumped on the bandwagon of unoriginality, injecting “computers and other technologies” hype into their programs.  Sacramento notes, “The department is especially looking for faculty with expertise and interest in individualized lab and content area reading.”  Would “content area reading” beat “content area strategies” for a Public Doublespeak award?

The panoply of how to writing courses is ever increasing.  University of California at Davis was looking for English lecturers “capable of teaching a wide range of writing courses, primarily at the upper-division level,” including  “scientific and technical writing, writing in the disciplines, journalism, and upper division expository writing.”  If U. Cal. collaborated with Syracuse University’s Writing Program, both would be able to double their offerings.  Courses could also be offered in business writing, financial writing, general corporate writing, and… academic writing. 

Graduate degrees are being offered in all of these niches, including remedial education, reading, composition and rhetoric, Children’s lit, Youth Literature, and even Artistic Writing (University of Great Falls).  New England College (NH) was seeking an instructor who “should teach writing as a critical and analytical thinking tool, following the principles of current rhetorical theory.”  The college was “committed to the transformational learning of all students.”  Will the judges present NEC with a Public Doublespeak award for “transformational learning”? 

Sheldon Jackson College (AK) was looking for an Assistant Professor of English, a “generalist with preparation in composition pedagogy,” who could join a “team-teaching learning community plus teach broad range of literature courses including cross-cultural elements.”  How about an award for “team-teaching learning community” and “cross-cultural elements”?  Morris College (SC) was looking for an Assistant/Associate Professor of Reading to teach four to five courses (12-15 credit hours) each semester in reading.  Imagine, there must be full professors and even professor emeriti of Reading in America. 

Pace U (NY) was looking for a literacy instructor with a “background integrating reading within the other strands of writing, listening and speaking.”  Walsh University (OH) was looking for an instructor with “English/Writing.  Rhetoric and Composition specialty with secondary expertise in Technical/ Professional Writing preferred, along with experience in professional technologies and innovation in writing courses and writing across the curriculum activities for both students and faculty.”  Wow! 

Unsurprisingly, there is a very strong bandwagon mentality in higher education.  When one does it, everyone else does it.  This creates sameness, if not plainness.  This keeps creativity at a sad nadir.  One must wonder what has happened.  I never took a writing course or English Comp course, because comp used to be an integral part of high school skills and any English course. 

ESL Departments have grown cancerously parallel to English Departments.  Perhaps an award for Academic Speak ought to be given to Ohio University (Athens), which was seeking a specialist in TESOL to fill a tenure-track position with a “Ph.D. in TESOL or TESOL-related areas of Applied Linguistics to teach courses in TESOL Methods, TESOL Materials, Pedagogical Grammar, Testing, Pragmatics, and Discourse Analysis.”  Wow! 

The disaster of writing today can perhaps best be explained by examining a college writing text, for example, Simon and Shuster Handbook for Writers by Lynn Quitman Troyka.  First, it is astonishing to note the incredibly banal statements made by a myriad of writers on writing quoted in the book.  Then it is equally astonishing to note the banal “Computer tip” segments at the end of chapters or sections.  I’m not sure what kind of student can sit and digest a tedious book like this one.  As an instructor, I certainly cannot.  The entire work comes off as a high-school composition to describe in detail all the things a sane person would not want to know about writing.  How did I ever become a writer without reading or studying such a book or for that matter taking an entire class or course on writing?  How many writing courses did Hemingway take?  In any case, the book manifests evident desperation by its hyping with different colored chapters, web accompaniment, CD ROM companion, computer tips, ESL tips, and Editing tips ad infinitum.

As the corporate mentality continues to influence higher education, the situation becomes more pitiful, if not comical.  Corporate education has been replacing academic education with little if any resistance.  Is it not curious—perhaps even troubling—that William Lutz’ “Doublespeak” essay does not contain a single reference to academe, especially since the doublespeak employed in Academe, which specializes in thought, as in other areas of our society is “language designed to distort reality and corrupt thought”?  Another book assigned to me for teaching English, Simon and Shuster Handbook for Writers by Lynn Quitman Troyka, likewise fails to note academic examples in its paragraph on doublespeak.  If it is the responsibility of Academe to alert people to the dangers of doublespeak, then perhaps we are in serious trouble as we accelerate towards Orwell’s 1984.