What You Can Do:
- Click here to send emails to Executive Dean Wade, Chancellor Conway, and President Holloway (again if you sent emails earlier!) asking them to stop the layoffs and cuts in the Writing Program.
- Share the link to the new email campaign with students, colleagues, and friends: rutgersaaup.org/StopWPCuts.
- Join Writing Program faculty in talking to students and families at the SAS Convocation this Saturday, May 11, from 9–10:30 a.m. and 2–3:30 p.m., outside Jersey Mike’s Arena (83 Rockafeller Rd., Piscataway). Click here to tell us you’re coming and when!
Dear colleague,
We’re writing to report on our efforts to save the Rutgers-New Brunswick Writing Program—and what we’re doing over the coming week to continue the fight.
A resolution protesting Writing Program layoffs and cuts passed with over 90 percent support from SAS faculty after our members demanded a discussion of the cuts at an SAS all-faculty meeting last week. Click here to read the resolution that our faculty voted to adopt by a margin of 382–39.
Over 230 people from all ranks attended the meeting, and every single person who spoke in the meeting pointed out the damaging effects—not only within SAS but university-wide—of Executive Dean Juli Wade’s plans to raise class caps, lay off experienced instructors, and remove successful, unique advanced courses. SAS faculty voted over the weekend on the resolution proposed by our members at the meeting; the final margin in favor was 382–39.
While the SAS meeting was taking place last week, about 40 Writing Program instructors and their allies held a grade-in on Dean Wade’s front porch, where we affixed to her door our Writing Program petition with nearly every instructor’s signature, a RUSA student government resolution protesting layoffs, and an English Department Executive Committee statement.
Prior to the SAS meeting, our Writing Program colleagues were at Rutgers Day on the College Avenue campus to talk to prospective students and their families about the cuts and ask for their support. The people we talked to sent more than 300 emails calling for the layoffs and class-size increases to be rescinded.
That action was so successful that we’re planning to talk to more of our students—this time at the SAS convocation at Jersey Mike’s Arena (83 Rockafeller Rd., Piscataway) this Saturday, May 11. We’ll be there to congratulate our graduating students and their families—and to ask them to help us fight for the Writing Program by sending emails to Dean Wade, Chancellor Conway, and President Holloway. Click here to tell us you’re coming and when.
Last, but definitely not least: Wade, Conway, and Holloway have received more than 2,600 emails asking them to reverse the Writing Program cuts. That seems to have gotten their attention—so we are asking all of you to send another one! Click here to be taken to a page where you can send emails. The sample text is new, so you can raise your voice again if you’ve already written to the administration.
We also ask you to share the request to send emails with your students, friends, and colleagues. This is the link to share: rutgersaaup.org/StopWPCuts.
In solidarity,
Shelby Wardlaw, Assistant Teaching Professor, English–Writing Program
Julie Flynn, Assistant Teaching Professor, English–Writing Program
Erin Kelly, Assistant Teaching Professor, English–Writing Program
Howie Swerdloff, Lecturer, Writing Program
Andrew Goldstone, Associate Professor, English