With the dawn of Curriculum 2000 approaching quickly, the University has been readying one of the integral parts of the plan-the Center for Teaching, Learning and Writing.
Under the direction of Joseph Harris, the CTLW will face the task of overseeing many of the writing aspects of the curriculum when it takes effect next fall.
Under the new guidelines, students will have to take a first-year writing course as well as two writing-intensive courses during their junior and senior years.
"By the end of the year, we should have a clear set of criteria and guidelines for what a writing-designated course is," said Harris, also a research scholar in the English department.
To help with this goal, Harris has already begun trying to create a faculty advisory board, which will contain between six and eight faculty members from across Arts and Sciences.
The CTLW has also begun searching for 10 postdoctoral fellows to teach Academic Writing 20, the core of the first-year writing program.
Interviews for these positions will begin in December, and administrators will complete the rest of the searches over the next several years, phasing the new instructors into the first-year writing rotation.
Van Hillard, director of the first-year writing program, said the search will focus on "people who have worked with students similar to our population" and who have an interest in working with first-year students.
Candidates will most likely have received at least some writing instruction, but the search will not be restricted to the humanities.
"We're looking for recently graduated Ph.Ds who have a special interest in undergraduate pedagogy," Hillard said.
The CTLW is also beginning a national search for a director of assessment, who will "evaluate and report on programs across the University," Harris said.
The director of assessment will help write grants and proposals for the center.
Harris, who came to Duke from the University of Pittsburgh, also discussed the center's additional goals this year.
He hopes to talk with several departments about creating graduate teaching certificate programs, "which will help to train graduate students to be classroom teachers as well as scholars."
He also aims to create a tutorial writing center by the end of this year, where students can go to receive additional writing help.
Discussions on this aspect of Harris' plan have just begun, however, and no concrete steps have been taken.
Bob Thompson, dean of Trinity College, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The CTLW must also take one key administrative step by settling into its permanent location, 138 Social Sciences Building, which is currently occupied by the Master of Arts and Liberal Studies program.
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