Apply: WAC Clearinghouse New Scholar Fellowships

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Dear Students and Colleagues:

We are very pleased to announce four WAC Clearinghouse New Scholar Fellowships for the coming year. This is our third year of offering these opportunities to work with editorial teams for the Clearinghouse. Please see this document for descriptions of this year’s Will Hochman, Charles Bazerman, Susan H. McLeod, and WAC Clearinghouse Associate Publishers New Scholar Fellowships. These opportunities come with a stipend of $500 for 6 months of work and $1,000 for 12 months of work or for a more intensive six-month fellowship.

The call also provides instructions for applying; these opportunities are open to new and early-career scholars. Preference will be given to doctoral students who are in good standing in their doctoral programs and to full- or part-time faculty or independent scholars who have graduated within the past five years.

The deadline for applying is Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. If you have questions, please reach out to Ann Blakeslee at ablakesle.

We look forward to receiving many applications for these terrific opportunities!

The WAC Clearinghouse Leadership Team

WAC Clearinghouse New Scholar Fellowships 2025-2026

The WAC Clearinghouse is delighted to announce this year’s fellowship opportunities for doctoral students and early career scholars who are interested in expanding their editorial and administrative experience through involvement in one or more of our publishing venues and/or initiatives.

The fellowship positions listed below are 6- or 12-month appointments that carry a stipend of $500 and $1,000, respectively (the stipend typically will be paid when the work for the fellowship has been completed). Fellows take on at least one project to advance the work of the Clearinghouse and its publications and have opportunities to shadow their assigned editorial team to learn about publishing. Prior to starting the appointment, fellows will be informed of the expectations of the fellowship, anticipated work schedule, and deliverables.

Eligibility: Fellows may not be members already of the WAC Clearinghouse editorial board or editorial team. Doctoral students must be in good standing at an accredited institution. Preference will be given to doctoral students and to full- or part-time faculty or independent scholars who have graduated within the past five years.

To Apply:

  1. Submit a statement of interest (1000-word maximum) to Ann Blakeslee (ablakesle) that directly identifies the project or projects to which you wish to be assigned (refer to the 2025-2026 Fellowship Project Roster below) and that explains your interest in and emerging ideas for contributing to the project or projects you’ve selected. Please put WAC Clearinghouse Fellowship Application in the subject line.

  2. Attach a CV that includes the names and contact information for up to three references who are able to speak to your scholarship and/or service to your home institution or to the field.

Your statement and CV should be included as attachments (Word or PDF only). The deadline to apply is Friday, September 5, 2025.

Applications will be screened by representatives from the WAC Clearinghouse and editors from the publications supporting the fellowships. Selected applicants will be contacted for an interview via Zoom by September 22. Interviews will take place in late September and early October, and fellowship decisions will be announced no later than October 10, 2025. For additional questions, please contact Ann Blakeslee, Associate Publisher for Books, WAC Clearinghouse (ablakesle).

2025-26 Fellowship Project Roster

Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios de la Escritura – The Charles Bazerman New Scholar Fellowship

Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios de la Escritura (RLEE) is a small, independent, multilingual open-access journal that publishes two issues per year, each including at least five peer-reviewed empirical articles. Its goal is to serve the writing research community in the Latin America region and to support its academic development through broader visibility and dialogue with scholarship from other places.

This 6-month fellowship has a stipend of $500. It consists of primary and secondary projects entailing work that will assist the editorial team of the journal and help it achieve the objectives outlined below.

Primary Project

The fellow will contribute to efforts to have RLEE indexed in Latindex 2.0, DOAJ, and Scopus. Tasks include:

  • Collecting and organizing required data and metadata;

  • Ensuring published articles meet indexing requirements for DOAJ, Scopus, and Google Scholar;

  • Reviewing and revising editorial policies and author guidelines for compliance;

  • Conducting a preliminary analysis of additional indexing opportunities, such as SciELO and Web of Science.

This work is crucial not only for visibility and impact but also for the long-term sustainability of RLEE as a space for high-quality, empirical, and methodologically diverse research on writing. We see this as a way to foster and consolidate an independent, open-access academic venue engaging with the Global South. With the fellow’s support, we hope to consolidate RLEE as a sustainable, inclusive journal representing diverse voices in writing research.

Secondary Project

The fellow will also start developing a social media strategy for RLEE, with a focus on platforms such as X and Instagram.

The goals of this project are to increase the visibility and credibility of RLEE, which is a new journal, by securing inclusion in key academic databases and expanding its presence in the field. These efforts aim to grow the journal’s readership and attract more authors to submit their work.

This fellowship offers meaningful insight into independent, multilingual, open-access publishing and its operational challenges. The fellow will meet at least once each month with the general editor and assistant editor to create a schedule, monitor progress, and offer professional advice. Additionally, communication via email and/or text will be a regular feature of the fellowship experience.

WLN – The Susan H. McLeod New Scholar Fellowship

This 6-month fellowship has a stipend of $500. The fellow will work with the editors of WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship and will be responsible for redesigning the journal’s appearance to improve its accessibility and readability. This is an important project for WLN as it recently moved to an online, open-access journal available through the WAC Clearinghouse and needs design and access improvements to make it better suited for this new platform.

The fellow will:

  • research the appearance and accessibility features of other open-access journals in writing studies to make recommendations for changing WLN’s appearance, layout, and formatting;

  • work with the editorial team to redesign the journal’s template, including updating accessibility guidelines and practices;

  • meet regularly with a lead WLN editor and monthly with the editorial team to discuss ideas, review progress, and implement design plans;

  • prepare one issue of WLN implementing the new features.

The deliverables for the fellowship will include a new layout template/formatting guidelines for the journal that incorporate updated accessibility guidelines.

Open Words: Access and English Studies – The Will Hochman New Scholar Fellowship

This 6-month fellowship has a stipend of $1,000. The fellow will work 15 hours monthly as Editorial Assistant on the production of the Spring 2026 issue of Open Words: Access and English Studies. Since 2007, Open Words has been dedicated to publishing peer-reviewed articles focusing on political, professional, and pedagogical issues related to teaching composition, rhetoric, reading, creative writing, ESL, and literature to open-admissions and non-mainstream student populations. The goal of the project is to publish the Spring 2026 issue to thematically underscore the relation between access and the following areas of interest in English Studies:

  • Equity in writing instruction

  • Literacy practices and identity

  • Linguistic justice

  • Writing assessment

The Editorial Assistant will assist the editorial team with providing feedback on contributors’ articles, corresponding with contributors and reviewers, and announcing the publication of the Spring 2026 issue on listservs and social media platforms to disciplinary audiences interested in issues of access.

In addition, the fellow/Editorial Assistant will complete the following tasks:

  • Draft the introduction of the Spring 2026 issue, emphasizing how each article aligns with Open Words’ aim of access in English Studies;

  • Copyedit the Spring 2026 issue;

  • Recruit readers with disciplinary knowledge of issues of access for future journal issues.

The appointment as Editorial Assistant will provide an opportunity for the New Scholar Fellow to gain experience working with editors, joining meetings, and being mentored in the processes of providing feedback to contributors; drafting the introduction of an issue; and formatting, editing, and copyediting articles.

At least one Zoom meeting with the fellow will take place monthly to offer guidance and support. Regular communication will occur via email. The main deliverable of the project is the publication of the Spring 2026 issue of Open Words.

The Journal of Writing Analytics – The WAC Clearinghouse Associate Publishers New Scholar Fellowship

This 12-month fellowship has a stipend of $1,000. The fellow will (1) collaborate with the editors of The Journal of Writing Analytics as they develop 2025 and 2026 manuscripts and (2) collaborate with research specialists to launch the “WAC Clearinghouse Collection of Writing Corpora.” The corpus initiative is the main deliverable of the fellowship.

1. Upon appointment, the New Scholar Fellow will be appointed Assistant Editor of the journal for 2025-2026. The fellow will collaborate with the journal Editors-in-Chief as they concurrently develop manuscripts for Volume 8 (2025) and Volume 9 (2026, a special issue, Generative AI and Writing Analytics).

  • The candidate will meet with the editors remotely once a month and participate in email discussions as the team plans invited papers and reviews submissions across a range of research genres.

  • Following a successful fellowship, the candidate will be eligible to join the Early Career Board of Reviewers.

2. For the corpus initiative, the fellow will join in remote monthly meetings and email discussions with researchers Duncan Buell (Chair Emeritus, NCR Chair in Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina) and Laura Aull (Professor of English, University of Michigan) to launch the WAC corpora collection. The fellow will be responsible for the following deliverables:

  • To launch the WAC collection, the fellow will prepare a Clearinghouse site featuring a model corpus of first-year writing developed by Duncan Buell (Chair Emeritus, NCR Chair in Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina) and Chris Holcomb (Professor, Director, First-Year English, University of South Carolina). Professor Buell will support the fellow with technical aspects of the featured corpus, with special emphasis on curation (including file conversion, de-identification, and IRB processes). Professor Aull will focus on text analysis, with special attention to lexicogrammatical analysis (including model building, software selection, and reporting). The fellow will develop a detailed description of the corpus, identify existing analyses, and chart directions for future research.

  • Using this corpus and its presentation as a model, the fellow will identify and post (or link) existing public corpora for curation on the website. Concurrently, working with Professors Buell and Aull, the fellow will issue invitations to post new corpora at the Clearinghouse from all areas of writing across the curriculum, as well as writing in non-academic settings.

At the conclusion of the project, the fellow will be invited to submit a Research Note to The Journal of Writing Analytics on experiences with the editors and project researchers. The fellow will also be invited to submit a Research Article to the journal on an innovative analysis of one of the curated corpora.

**Please note – I wish to acknowledge that my working hours may not be the same as your working hours. Please do not feel obligated to respond to any correspondence from me outside of your work schedule.**

Ann M. Blakeslee, Ph.D. (she/her)
Professor of English, Eastern Michigan University
Director, Office of Campus & Community Writing
Co-Founder, YpsiWrites
Associate Publisher for Books, The WAC Clearinghouse
ablakesle