In the midst of disciplinary and public debates about education at open-access institutions, it's more important than ever that institutions set a clear path for inquiry and scholarship that will meet the needs of the professional community. This essay provides an assessment of the research achievements in two-year college English, particularly…

Dr. Richard Sagor is the Educational Leadership Program Director and a professor in the Department of Education at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Howard Tinberg is a professor of English at Bristol Community College in Fall River, Massachusetts, where he is also director of the Writing Lab. He is the editor of the journal "Teaching…

Reflects on making "Teaching English in the Two-Year College" a viable journal. Discusses formation of the Two-Year College Organization, and its formal recognition by the Conference on College Composition and Communication in 1997. (SC)

The word "idea" assumed special meaning in composition studies when Stephen M. North, in "The Idea of a Writing Center," showed how an idea can evoke and ignite intense expectations and aversions surrounding literacy instruction. In particular, North lamented the "false sense of knowing" that made getting a message through (in this case, about…

Two-year colleges have long struggled with questions of status and identity. For most of the twentieth century, two-year college faculty were heir to many of the same issues of status and identity that plagued their institutions. Because the majority of two-year colleges were under the control of local secondary-school districts--and faculty and…

For five years, the author has been advocating a writing program administrator (WPA) position at his two-year college. While the vice president of instruction has been sympathetic, the issue has been funding. As a means to prepare and to justify the WPA's continuing existence, he has set to work mapping out the terrain, trying to anticipate the…

Discusses the development of "Teaching English in the Two-Year College," a journal designed to serve the special needs of community college English faculty. Discusses success and subsequent growth of the journal and considers the different subject matters addressed throughout the first five developmental years of the journal. (SC)

Gives tribute to Bertie Carlyle Edwards Fearing (1943-1995), one of the three senior editors of "Teaching English in the Two-Year College." Characterizes Bertie as a person with "style," always focused on the task at hand, and recruiting staff members with Mensa-level intellects and showing them by her example how to work together harmoniously…

Illustrates some of the changes and trends at "Teaching English in the Two-Year College" (TETYC) during the author's years on the masthead. Considers specific articles of his first and last issues (Fall 1978 - December 1987). Represents TETYC staff as individuals who do not give up on students, continually challenging them with new thinking, new…

Faculty at two-year colleges have found their professional identities shaped by conflicting perceptions. Because the community college culture has traditionally emphasized the role of faculty member as teacher and devalued the role of faculty member as scholar, it is not uncommon for faculty who spend their careers teaching in a two-year college…

In this article, the author shares that he was proud of his work as the chairman of the National Two-Year College English Association (TYCA). He has a better sense now of the problems facing them, TYCA's capabilities and resources, and what they ought to do. This essay is the author's attempt to pass on that wisdom for the next waves of TYCA…

In this latest in a series of commentaries from former chairs of the national Two-Year College English Association (TYCA), the author, TYCA chair (2004-2006) and the 2009 winner of the Nell Ann Pickett Service Award, shares her views on becoming involved in local, regional, and national professional activities. Her time in national leadership gave…

Multimodal writing is considered as a "new" way of composing, or, somewhat cynically, as a strategy for adding relevance or interest to a required composition course. Jody Shipka's "A Multimodal Task-Based Framework for Composing" suggests that "students' uptakes of a much wider, richer repertoire of semiotic resources, coupled with their efforts…

This position statement was inspired by the "Position Statement on Graduate Students in Writing Center Administration" (endorsed by the International Writing Center Association on November 17, 2001). A purpose of the document, to borrow language from the graduate student position statement, is to "[suggest] an ideal set of conditions," and it is…

According to the author, the Association for Business Communication (ABC), the premiere professional organization for those who teach business communication, has long neglected and marginalized those who teach at two-year colleges, as has the discipline of business communications as a whole. The best method to determine how ABC could better meet…