After a successful first semester, WRIT 111 was approved Wednesday by Harpur College Council to become a permanent course at Binghamton University — and some hope it becomes a requirement in the near future.
WRIT 111, which was offered for the first time this semester as an experimental course, was popular among freshmen, according to Peter Spaet, vice president of academic affairs for the Student Association who sits on the Council. Of the 900 available seats, 851 were filled.
“WRIT 111 is a course focused on writing and is designed to help students develop skills that will enable them to succeed in other courses at Binghamton, as well as in graduate and professional school and in almost any career they pursue,” said Don Nieman, dean of Harpur and Chair of the HCC.
HCC, the legislative body for Harpur, is comprised of Harpur administrators, faculty and students. According to Spaet, students make up approximately one-third of the Council.
Spaet added that students were overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal to make WRIT 111 a permanent course.
“Towards the end of the add-drop period, I had students coming to my office hours asking if additional spaces would be opened up,” he said.
The idea of creating a first-year writing course was initiated by Ricardo Laremont, Ph.D., former interim dean of Harpur in the spring of 2008, according to Nieman.
Nieman said he continued work on the course with Harpur College staff, such as Associate Deans Jennifer Jensen and Anna Addonisio, Director of Composition Kelly Kinney and Dean’s Professor Rebecca Moore Howard.
The course gaining “permanent course” status does not mean it will be required for all students, however. Spaet said that the approval of the course merely gives the department permission to continue offering the course.
Nieman said the majority of the best public universities, like Michigan, Berkeley, Wisconsin, Virginia and North Carolina, do require freshman writing courses.
“While I would like to see WRIT 111 required eventually, at this time we are not able to offer enough seats to make it a requirement,” said Nieman. “Making the course a requirement would necessitate full discussion on campus and approval by the appropriate governance bodies.”
A common misconception about the approval is that there will no longer be any ENG 117 classes offered, according to Spaet. ENG 117 courses are being offered for next semester, but in reality, students will most likely be given the opportunity to take some ENG 117 classes during their time at BU, he said.
“I would expect there to be ENG 117 [courses] offered in future semesters,” Spaet said.
According to Spaet, there was a shift in graduate student instructors to WRIT 111, but the budget constraints had much more of an impact on ENG 117.
“The absence of 117 [classes] for next semester has more to do with a rapidly changing SUNY budget than anything else,” he said.
According to Nieman, the University hopes to offer the same number of sections of WRIT 111 in future semesters as it did this semester.
“By providing first year students with a state-of-the-art writing course, WRIT 111 will help Binghamton students develop strong writing skills, which are critical to their success as students and professionals, and their ability to function as effective citizens,” he added.
Spaet said he would have liked to have taken it “because the skills learned in this type of course can extend to other courses, making someone a better all-around student.”
“Since the overwhelming majority of courses offered involve writing in some way, (especially for a Harpur student) the skills learned in a writing-focused course can improve a student’s performance in many of the other courses they will take throughout their four years here,” Spaet added.