As a university-wide initiative, WAC at CUNY began with the 1999 resolution of the Board of Trustees endorsing the centrality of writing to a university education. The resolution called for each college across CUNY to integrate writing instruction into the curriculum in every department and academic program. The resolution also called for the creation of CUNY Writing Fellows, advanced graduate students from across disciplines assigned to campuses to support the WAC initiative.

Research has demonstrated that providing students with extensive, meaningful opportunities to write can improve their writing abilities. In addition, through writing students are better able to assimilate and improve their comprehension of course materials and clarify difficult terminology and challenging ideas. Writing also helps students prepare for discussions as well as provide the space for them to explore and refine their own thoughts.

The Hostos WAC initiative encourages writing at all levels of a student’s academic experience including those students enrolled in ESL or developmental writing through completion of English composition requirements and beyond. Writing activities are incorporated at two levels: 1) generally throughout the curriculum, and 2) in designated Writing Intensive (WI) courses. In these ways, an emphasis on writing is not compartmentalized in a few specially designated courses, but is a part of coursework across the College.

WAC at Hostos also recognizes the relationship between reading and writing leading to our recent Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum (WRAC) project. Reading, writing, and thinking are inseparable practices that can be cultivated and improved simultaneously. The Hostos WAC initiative is developing reading and writing materials, which will enable students to more readily access difficult texts. Through the use of informal “writing-to-learn” activities (such as reading journals and micro themes) and formal writing (such as essays and research papers), WAC seeks to maximize the potential for students to write, read, and think about course material.

Unique to Hostos and in accordance with its bilingual mission, the Hostos WAC initiative also reaches out to faculty teaching courses in Spanish so that these faculty are part of a campus-wide endeavor to develop effective teaching, and that students in these classes can further their Spanish-language writing skills. The goal is not only to improve writing proficiency for students in their native language, but also to implement principles of “writing-to-learn” in these Spanish-language courses.

In its work with students and faculty across disciplines and languages, the Hostos WAC initiative is integrated into the life of the College, fostering campus-wide dialogue on writing and learning and becoming an agent for change as it encourages teachers to reflect upon their teaching practices and reshape pedagogies to better improve student learning. We welcome the active participation of all members of the Hostos community in these endeavors.