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Dr. Jerry Kramer Employs Writing Expertise to Expand UST Writing Program
6/23/2009
 Dr. Jerry Kramer, professor of English, is leaving his position as associate vice president for Academic Affairs to apply his expertise as writer and editor to a newly formed position, Writing Program Administrator.
Kramer’s mission is to fashion a comprehensive program of courses, services, and various other opportunities for both students and faculty to improve student writing.
“A substantial amount of writing and grading of papers takes place at UST,” Kramer said, but we’re not organized and programmatic about requirements, standards, and systems of evaluating student writing. We need to revive our writing in the disciplines system, including writing intensive courses. And we can offer helpful information and assistance online to guide students in the writing process.”
“Great universities have great writing programs,” Kramer said. “This is one more major challenge to a university that aspires to greatness.”
Whether it’s tutoring a student at the Learning and Writing Center or via Blackboard, helping to write a grant proposal, working with a faculty member on taking students to higher levels of writing proficiency, or just unlocking the mysteries of the comma or grammar rule for someone, Kramer will be ready with his well known green pen to advise and guide. A teacher with many years of experience, he is enthusiastic about writing as an accurate test of thinking and of its capabilities for searching and ethical persuasion and lucid discourse.
“Dr. Kramer’s new assignment follows from his long standing interest in developing and implementing a sustainable writing program for the University,” Dr. Dominic Aquila, vice president for Academic Affairs, remarked. “It is Dr. Kramer’s dream to establish a top-notch writing program on campus. His knack for creative and imaginative programming has set a high bar for us. His desire to see a writing in the disciplines approach come alive on campus is yet another example of his dedication to develop programming to educate students to think critically and communicate effectively.”
By collaborating with the new Center for Faculty Excellence and getting faculty more directly involved in the work of the busy Learning and Writing Center, Kramer hopes to begin building an organization that will benefit students and faculty.
“Dr. Kramer has been a champion of the LWC and the CFE, and we welcome his continued support and insight,” Dr. Michele Simms, co-director of the Center, said. “He has been instrumental in fostering the connection between faculty development and the initiatives at the LWC. He has played no small part in what is now an ongoing conversation between the two centers to explore ways to support the goals of each with the shared intent of serving our students, faculty and University.”
Kramer is a member of the Council of Writing Program Administrators, an organization with hundreds of members across the country that offers a network of scholarship and support for leaders of college and university writing programs. He has an extensive history of writing and editing at UST, beginning with his being for a time a one person English Department “Writing Lab” in the early 80s. With other administrators, he helped shape and develop that service into today’s Learning and Writing Center, which normally (without a hurricane) draws over 2700 student visitors in an academic year.
As a member of the English Department, he devised and first taught the Advanced Writing (Non-Fiction) course and workshop that is now part of the department’s attractive Writing Concentration in the major, an innovation Kramer recommended. It includes Professional Writing, Technical Writing, and Creative Writing.
Six editions of the Undergraduate Catalog and several editions of the Handbook for Faculty and Administrators have been produced with Kramer as General Editor. It was Archbishop J. Michael Miller, who as UST president, coined the term “Kramerized” because of Dr. Kramer’s deftness with text, including even the president’s Christmas Prayer, and encouraged or required “Kramerizing” of important documents, reports, and other University written communications.
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