Sharing Our Intellectual Traces ― Narrative Reflections from Administrators of Professional Technical and Scientific Communication Programs

Academic administrators of professional/technical communication programs narrate their day-to-day challenges and solutions. Topics include institutional context, curriculum, program design/redesign, assessment, technology integration, and historical perspectives.

Tracy Bridgeford is an associate professor of Technical Communication at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she also directs the Technical Communication program and the English master's program. She contributed a chapter to Resources in Technical Communication: Outcomes and Approaches; Teaching Writing with Computers: An Introduction; and Innovative Approaches to Teaching Technical Communication, which she also coedited. She has also published in Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. She coedited a special issue of Technical Communication Quarterly on Techne (2002). She is coeditor of Programmatic Perspectives, the journal of the Council for Program in Technical and Scientific Communication, and serves on the organization's executive committee as information officer.Karla Saari Kitalong is an associate professor of Humanities and director of Composition and interim director of the Multiliteracies Center at Michigan Technological University. Her research interests include visual rhetoric and usability in technical communication, especially concerning new media contexts; multimodal composition pedagogy; writing program administration; and writing in the disciplines.Bill Williamson is a professor of Professional and Technical Writing at Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU). He has administered undergraduate technical writing programs at two universities—SVSU and the University of Northern Iowa. He served as coeditor of Programmatic Perspectives, the journal of the Council for Program in Technical and Scientific Communication, and served that organization as information officer and president. His research interests include program administration; technical communication curriculum design, and technical communication pedagogy.