WAC LIAISONS - History and Accomplishments

History

In the summer of 2017, Academic Programs asked Dr. Leslie Bruce to create a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program at CSUF. In 2017-18, Leslie listened to colleagues from across campus to discover how a WAC program might support CSUF’s faculty and students. Combining the insights from those conversations with the best practices articulated in the Statement of WAC Principles and Practices, she began building a sustainable, supportive writing infrastructure for CSUF’s campus community.

In Fall 2023, Leslie expanded the WAC Program to WAC LIAISONS, a program that connects writing and AI pedagogies across the Curriculum.

Supported by a WAC LIAISONS Advisory Board representing CSUF’s eight Colleges, the WAC LIAISONS program connects writing and A.I. pedagogies to improve student writing and learning, to support faculty efforts to teach with writing, and to create a campus culture that values the ways writing can enhance learning.

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Accomplishments

In its first seven years, before it became WAC LIAISONS, the WAC Program:

• Created 11 different workshops that enable faculty to increase student learning with meaningful writing activities,
• Facilitated a multidisciplinary team in a "ChatGPT Boot Camp" that produced a "ChatGPT Faculty Resources" Canvas site,
• Awarded multiple WAC Certificates, which help faculty enrich their teaching with WAC,
• Honored two CSUF faculty with WAC's "Student Writing Mentorship Award.,"
• Funded two CSUF faculty with WAC Travel Grants,
• Supported thesis, dissertation, and project writers with online and in-person “Thesis Retreats at Pollak Library,”
• Assisted Senate Committees as they revised University Policy Statements related to writing and equitable learning,
• Led a campus team conducting a "General Education and Equitable Writing" project for the Chancellor's Office's "Student Success Analytics" project.
• Consulted with faculty and departments that want to use writing equitably to improve students’ learning,
• Hosted five guest speaker events.  Speakers included Dr. Linda Adler-Kassner (UC Santa Barbara’s Faculty Director of the Center for Innovative Teaching, Research, and Learning), Dr. Dan Melzer (twice, UC Davis's Associate Director of First-Year Composition), Dr. Nicole Gonzales-Howell (U of San Francisco, Assoc. Prof. of English and Rhetoric), and Dr. Chris Thaiss (UC Davis, Prof. Emeritus of Writing Studies).

Leadership

Leslie Bruce took an unusual path to arrive at this point in her career.  After earning a BS in Zoology from Cal State Long Beach, she taught Biology and Chemistry at local high- and middle-schools for six years.  Adding a PhD in English from USC to her training broadened the perspectives through which Leslie approaches her academic roles.

Since 2007, Leslie has taught a broad range of classes for Cal State Fullerton’s Department of English, spanning from Children’s and Victorian Literatures to Scientific Writing.  She applied her multidisciplinary training to create CSUF’s Scientific Writing and Technical Writing courses, the former funded by an NIH grant, the latter by a CSUF FEID grant. 

For her dedication to student-centered, hands-on, equitable teaching, Leslie was awarded CSUF’s 2022 “Outstanding Lecturer Award.”  When invited to inaugurate CSUF’s Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Program in 2017, Leslie developed workshops and other events to support all faculty who teach with writing. In 2023, she transformed the WAC program into “WAC LIAISONS,” a program that empowers faculty to merge writing and generative AI pedagogies to support engagement and learning.