Program Administrator as Researcher and The Writing Program Administrator as Theorist, present different WPA stories, making a compelling argument about how much intellectual, rhetorical work writing program administration requires. Collections like these offer a welcome counterargument for those whose tenure committees would dismiss administration as service equivalent to other committee work, and their texts make the case that writing program administration is a valid site for scholarship, functioning as a theoretical response to the difficulties some WPAs discuss in their narratives of having people understand, respect, and acknowledge the work that they produce. Moreover, Rose and Weiser offer ways to reframe WPA identity as something not defined by a university or department, but rather by self-reflective inquiry.
The jWPA and the Advice Narrative
While many WPA narratives help to support the belief that significant work has been done to establish writing rogram administration as a serious, intellectual, legitimate field of study (and by extension, that those who labor as WPAs should be perceived as inquiring intellectuals rather than entry-level managers), the hero/victim spectrum invites different conclusions about the nature of writing program administration and the qualifications of those who do the work. One such conclusion, which some of us heard often as graduate students, was that an untenured faculty member should under no circumstances take on a WPA role, even if he or she had the requisite graduate preparation suggested by the Portland Resolution. Alice Horning’s essay, “Ethics and the jWPA,” exemplifies this kind of advice narrative that seeks to use other WPAs’ experiences as the basis for generalized summaries of what WPA work is, who should do it, and how WPA tasks should be approached. For those pre-tenure faculty who still write, collaborate, and think like WPAs, yet who were strongly discouraged from being WPAs, these advice narratives may harm more than they help. They often write GenAdmin out of a job by reinforcing the stereotype that we are unprepared—intellectually, personally, and professionally—to take on a WPA role successfully, when they could focus collectively on how to rethink models of protection and power so that GenAdmin can more quickly (i.e., sooner in their careers) do what they were trained to do in graduate school, which is to think, talk, and write about writing programs.
We find ourselves in a fundamental disagreement with arguments that claim we should play it safe, and we find this rationale for not accepting jWPA positions to be paternalistic: “Just as no parent would give children a steady supply of treats just because kids want them, no administration should give junior faculty members writing program administrator positions just because new graduates want them, not withstanding their training, energy, and experience” (Horning 48). The subject position that these arguments create doesn’t leave us much room to respond because our critique of these arguments can be dismissed as naïve, unaware, or unwilling to accept the gravity of life as a jWPA.3
In many ways, the tension we have just described that exists between generations of WPAs is mirrored by the often unspoken conflicts that exist between second- and third-wave feminists. In their book, ManifestA: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards describe the ways in which critiques by third-wave feminists have been silenced—either by those in the second wave, or more problematically, by the third wave writers themselves—because the younger feminists are perceived to be “unmindful of [their] foremothers” (224). Baumgardner and Richards explain that in many feminist organizations, if a third-wave feminist critiques or problematizes the organizing practices, strategies, or conceptions of feminism promoted by second-wave feminists, then she runs the risk of being seen as someone who doesn’t understand the lessons of the feminist movement and disregards the advancements the second-wave fought so hard to achieve.
Rather than participating in the conversation about how to be a feminist in the twenty-first century, Baumgardner and Richards note that many third-wave feminists feel they are not welcome in the conversation unless they toe the line. As Diane Elam noted, “Daughters are not allowed to invent new ways of thinking and doing feminism for themselves; feminists’ politics should take the same shape that it has always assumed” (Baumgardner and Richards 224). In their own experience and their observation of others, Renegar and Sowards argue that many third-wave feminists feel disconnected from the feminist community because, while they acknowledge and enjoy the victories previous generations of feminists achieved, “our experience as feminists . . . leave us feeling angry, hopeless, and confused as to where we are supposed to go, how we are supposed to get there, and what battles we are supposed to wage as part of a feminist movement” (330). Members of GenAdmin may feel the same sense of frustration—as if caught between second-wave and third-wave goals and means. Now that some of the major WPA battles have been declared—arguing for WPA studies as part of the discipline of rhetoric and composition, fighting for clear job descriptions for WPAs, making the case that WPA studies is an intellectual pursuit—it can sometimes seem difficult to know what our next “declaration” can be on an organizational level. That is not to say there is no longer a need to keep fighting these battles, particularly with recession cutbacks. Yet, as we have discussed, these efforts begin to build a monolithic view of what WPA is (as an organization, a job, and an identity) that doesn’t leave space for differing, resisting views.
We see this kind of stance in our discipline in moments when generational conflicts impede our efforts to build on the past and reimagine the future of WPA work. In his preface to Untenured Faculty as Writing Program Administrators, Edward M. White notes, “When a jWPA takes the job, the center of gravity shifts somewhat. The traditional tasks remain, but the younger faculty has less stake in tradition, in keeping things running as they have been, in exerting authority over the program. . . . The jWPA may be more interested in challenging than maintaining the way things are done” (Preface viii). White acknowledges a shift in the way WPA work is conducted by junior faculty, but his reluctance to embrace this shift whole-heartedly illustrates a tension that jWPAs feel as well: we are torn between the received wisdom of experts—much of which has been transmitted through narrative warnings—and our own experiences and hopes for ourselves as WPAs. But we also recognize in this quotation an assumption that tradition and maintenance are privileged terms and that changing may be viewed as merely disruptive rather than directed productively. Here, we see evidence of different values emerging between generations of WPAs, values that we have often learned from our mentors but are enacting differently as GenAdmin.
When we argue that there is space in the academy for untenured WPAs, we feel we are perceived as undercutting the argument that WPA work requires institutional and professional maturity that senior WPAs have, and we seem to show disrespect for the efforts of previous generations to gain institutional and disciplinary legitimacy for WPA work. When we make arguments in favor of a balanced professional and personal life, we are accused of promoting an “unattractive combination of disappointment and entitlement,” just as Kristen Kennedy was for early drafts of her essay outlining the struggles she had in finding a career that satisfies her desire for both a meaningful professional and intellectual life and contentment in her personal life (527). In many ways, it would be much easier to stay quiet and follow the advice of our predecessors, and as Debra Dew points out in her discussion of the jWPA role, many young WPAs do subscribe to the party line, and their propensity for “groupie behavior” makes them “eager to flatter successful WPA professionals, both our local mentors, and national superstars, who deservedly appreciate the fawning of wannabe WPAs” (115). So when, as junior WPAs, we offer a different view of WPA work and identity, we run the risk of appearing disrespectful to both our peers and our senior colleagues.
For those who have lived experiences similar to those outlined by the victim and hero stories we discuss, GenAdmin may resemble a group of upstarts who are unwilling to heed the advice generated by those stories. By no means are we arguing that all junior or all senior WPAs think in these ways; instead, we recognize an opportunity to articulate some of the tensions we have felt when accounting for our differences, tensions that have been brought out, in particular, by the binary narratives that have shaped the advice sometimes given to those who aspire to WPA jobs. We realize GenAdmin can fall into essentializing traps just as easily as any social movement or category, and we recognize that generational misunderstanding can go both ways, but our disappointment rests with arguments
