University Partnerships

Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT)**
With their shared missions to research and improve student learning on campus, Sweetland and CRLT collaborate on a variety of projects. Sweetland faculty regularly present at CRLT-sponsored events, such as the Provost's Seminars on Teaching, Preparing Future Faculty seminars, and training workshops for graduate student instructors. Faculty from the two units jointly secured a three-year grant from the Teagle and Spencer Foundations to study student learning in Upper-Level Writing Requirement courses. Further, CRLT has generously supported Sweetland research through a variety of grants, both unit-wide and for individual faculty, including several Lecturer Professional Development grants, a Faculty Development Fund grant to revise SWC 100: Transition to College Writing, Teaching with Technology Institute grants to implement online learning in LHSP 125 and SWC 100, an Investigating Student Learning grant for study of SWC 100, and grants from the Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching to research Sweetland's Writing Workshop and to augment aspects of the Upper-Level Writing Requirement. Visit the CRLT website.**

Comprehensive Studies Program (CSP): Summer Bridge**
Sweetland Instructors work with CSP to teach their sections of the transitional writing course, SWC 100, which helps new students build skills and confidence in college-level writing. Visit the CSP website.**

CTools

The CTools team has played an integral role in the development and implementation of the Directed Self-Placement process for incoming students. This included:

  • setting up and maintaining the CTools site for DSP essay submissions;
  • customizing the CTools interface to allow students to submit essays and answer the DSP questions effectively;
  • preparing specialized information downloads to help in tracking purposes and in dissemination of essays to instructors;
  • working closely with Sweetland staff and Graduate Student Research Assitants to troubleshoot technical problems throughout the process.**

English Department Writing Program (EDWP)**
Sweetland shares many of its faculty with EDWP and, through a common commitment to writing and the teaching of writing, our two programs collaborate on instructor training. Visit the EDWP website.**

English Language Institute (ELI)**
In order to further serve non-native English speakers, ELI instructors who specialize in English as a second language issues are available for writing consultations through Sweetland's Writing Workshop and ELI's Writing Clinic. Additionally, Judy Dyer - an ELI faculty member - sometimes teaches SWC 300, a course that trains upper-level undergraduates to become peer tutors in Sweetland's Peer Tutoring Program. Our two organizations have also collaborated on various research projects for the improvement of tutoring and teaching writing. Visit the ELI website.**

Joint Doctoral Program in English and Education**
Our Graduate Student Research Assistants (GSRAs) come from the Joint Doctoral Program in English and Education, which Sweetland Director Anne Ruggles Gere co-directs. Visit the Program's website.**

Lloyd Hall Scholars Program (LHSP)**
All writing courses in LHSP are taught by experienced SWC instructors who are often writers themselves. One goal of living-learning communities such as LHSP is to foster student-faculty engagement, so SWC faculty get to know LHSP students inside and outside the classroom: instructors lead book clubs, organize museum trips, give readings and workshops, judge writing contests, and even meet students for meals in the residence halls during office hours. Visit the LHSP website.**

LSA Instructional Support Services (ISS)**
Our faculty and staff work with LSA ISS to integrate a variety of new technologies - ranging from DreamWeaver software to digital recording hardware - into Sweetland courses and programs. The purpose of this collaborative effort is not only to incorporate essential new technologies into our pedagogy and classrooms, but also to expose students to the rhetorical effects of this type of "new media." ISS also provides extensive support for SWC's SiteMaker projects which include the Online Writing Lab (OWL), the SWC Library, and the request form for outreach, workshops, and faculty consultations.

Additionally, in part through support from an ISS New Initiatives/New Infrastructure (NINI) grant, Sweetland has been able to research, develop, and implement a new Directed Self-Placement process which helps new students choose a writing course that best suits their needs.

Visit the LSA ISS website.**

The U-M MERLOT Community of Practice**
The U-M MERLOT Community of Practice promotes the use of learning objects to enhance undergraduate education. MERLOT stands for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Teaching Online and is both an online resource for educators nationwide and a national community of faculty and staff who are interested in using multimedia to improve student learning.

In 2008, the U-M MERLOT received a two-year New Initiatives/New Infrastructure (NINI) grant from the LSA Instructional Technology Committee to train graduate students in the identification, evaluation, deployment, and creation of good learning objects; to develop cross-discipline workshops to exchange ideas about how learning objects can meet common student learning needs; and to disseminate good cross-discipline and course-specific learning object collections to faculty for undergraduate course integration and enhancement of undergraduate education.

The Sweetland Writing Center joined the U-M MERLOT Community of Practice in the summer of 2009, when U-M MERLOT sought to expand its program beyond the original three disciplines of chemistry, statistics, and psychology, to include writing, physics, mathematics, and romance languages. Christine Modey serves as the faculty mentor from Sweetland, and Tim Green and Ben Gunsberg, both doctoral students in the English and Education program, are the graduate student team members. Together, the Sweetland MERLOT team is working to develop learning objects that help students learn principles of academic writing and to create a collection of good learning objects, found on the MERLOT website and elsewhere, that instructors in SWC 100 and English 124/125 can use to enhance first-year students? development as college-level writers.**

Rackham Graduate School**
Sweetland offers numerous support and training services for graduate students enrolled in Rackham Graduate School programs including, the Dissertation Writing Institute, Writing Workshops, and training for new Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs) through our course, SWC 993. Beginning in the 2009-2010 academic year, and in conjunction with the new Rackham PLAN initiative, Sweetland will conduct twelve workshops on writing concerns encountered by graduate students at transitional moments in their programs. Visit the Rackham website.**

School of Education**
All undergraduates in the School of Education who are majoring or minoring in English take SWC 300 as part of their program. Visit the School of Education website.**

See our Community Partnerships.