Dear Colleagues,
You are invited to participate in a research project that is examining the experience of students at open-access rural-serving and rurally-located institutions. I am looking for five participating instructors who teach foundational college literacy courses at rural-serving or rurally-located open-access public colleges or universities. Instructor participants will invite their students to participate by contributing their formal and reflective writing for analysis as well as completing two questionnaires about their educational and community experiences.
This project has been approved by the Michigan Tech University Institutional Review Board #IRB-2024-32: Project title "Investigating the Experiences of Rural College Writers: A Multi-State Study."
Eligibility Requirements
Participating instructors must meet the following eligibility requirements:
- Work at an open-admissions, public, rural-serving higher education institution
- Teach one or more writing courses for first-semester students in the Winter/Spring 2025 semester or term (e.g., first-year writing, developmental writing, integrated reading and writing, second language writing, etc.)
- Use a pedagogical approach that gives students some choice in their topics for formal writing projects
- Assign at least two writing projects and at least two reflective writing assignments
- Be able to commit to participating in the project for the full academic year
- Have an expectation of continued employment at your institution for Winter/Spring 2025
- Comply with your institution’s human subjects policies (if any) for a project receiving IRB approval from an external institution
Compensation
Selected participating instructors will receive a stipend of $1000.00 for project participation ($500 at the end of the semester or term after submitting collected and $500 in the summer after participating in an interview and doing reflective writing) and $400 to use for student incentives. Before spring 2025 semester, instructors will complete a questionnaire, sign an informed consent form, and secure institutional permission to participate.
In the Winter/Spring 2025 semester or term, instructors will inform students about the project, collect and upload ungraded student writing to a password protected online folder, and administer a questionnaire (approximately 30 minutes to complete) for participating students. Student writing will come from select assignments that participants would normally assign in their courses in the absence of a research project. In Summer 2025, instructors will participate in an interview with the principal investigator and complete reflective writing about teaching experiences. Detailed instructions will be provided to participants.
Participating instructors will have the option (but not a requirement) to participate in activities at the end of the project that might benefit them professionally, for example, co-writing an article and presenting at a national conference.
If you are interested in participating, please complete hjhassel)
Holly
Holly Hassel, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Humanities
Director of Composition, Michigan Technological University
Co-Chair, MLA and CCCC Joint Task Force on AI and Writing
Coauthor of A Faculty Guidebook for Effective Shared Governance and Service in Higher Education (Routledge, 2023) and Reaching All Writers: A Pedagogical Guide for the Evolving College Writing Classroom(UP of Colorado 2024)