Administration and Theory may seem at first incommensurate if not oxymoronic terms. The work of Writing Program Administration, however, overturns that perception, for it demands that theory be integrated within everyday decision-making. The essays in this collection inhabit that space between theory and practice, between "knowing that" and "knowing how" in the high-stakes world of budgetary planning, programmatic development, and curricular innovation.
An excellent companion to Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser's first book, The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher (Boynton/Cook, 1999), this new volume foregrounds the intellectual work of WPAs. It is divided into two parts, "Theorizing Our Writing Programs" and "Theorizing Writing Program Administration." The first section explores the local institutional contexts within which WPAs theorize writing programs in conversation with other program participants; the second section analyzes the professional contexts in which WPAs converse with other WPAs. All writing program administrators are sure to find The Writing Program Administrator as Theorist valuable and informative, whether they are directing programs in first-year composition, writing across the curriculum, writing centers, or professional writing.
