Preparing for (Almost) Everything: A Practical Guide to Tech Comm Budgets, Staffing, and Curriculum Development, (forthcoming from USU/CO press in early 2027)
Editors: K. Alex Ilyasova and Sean Williams
We’re writing to seek contributors to the edited collection on TSC Program Administration. Specifically, we are looking at putting together a volume on the how of TSC program administration regarding budgets, staffing, and AI/technology and curriculum development. This volume aims to present best practices that would be useful to new TSC administrators—whether that is a junior faculty member (right out of grad school) or a senior faculty member moving into this administrative role. Additionally, the goal is to collect the practices of TSC program administration and to add to the practical advice for TSC program administrators.
Given the current national economic, cultural, and technological climate, the collection is seeking chapters in three different areas:
· Best practices regarding budgets,
· Best practices regarding staffing, and
· Best practices with regard curriculum development in relationship to technology, e.g., AI integration, literacy, etc.
Additionally, we are seeking contributions to these three areas from across all types of institutions, e.g., R1, R2, R3, state and teaching colleges. Our goal is to represent TSC administrator best practices from all types of institutions.
Chapters should focus on the pragmatic not the theoretical, answering questions of why, how, and/or when. Equally important, the chapter should also highlight the “transferable skills” involved in working through the process as an administrator. And each chapter should offer clear advice, steps, and/or best practices, and should illustrate through example/case study how the steps are/were put into practice. Lastly, the chapters would include lessons learned/takeaways.
The opening of the book will discuss TSC as its own field, and TSC program administration as distinct from WPA, so contributors will not need to address this in their chapters.
Suggested ideas for chapters include:
· TSC programs by the numbers, what you need to know about budgets
· TSC programs by the numbers, what you need to know about scheduling, and faculty workloads
· TSC programs by the numbers, what you need to know about Majors/Minors
· Building new types of programs, like certificates and badges, in addition to or in place of full degree programs
· Understanding TSC Programs and Faculty Composition—TT to NTTF to Adjuncts
· Managing teaching, research, service, and programmatic responsibilities
· Developing online, hybrid, f2f TSC programs
· Developing AI-centered curriculum
· Using AI in programmatic assessment, scheduling, marketing
· Developing undergraduate versus graduate TSC Programs
· TSC programs and faculty professional development
· “Future proofing” TSC curriculum
· The role of the service courses in TSC Programs
· Changing curricula in TSC programs, responding to shifts in industry/culture/workplace
· Other, to be proposed by contributor
The Review Process
In the first stage of the review process, all submitted proposals for the CFP will be notified as to initial acceptance. Once a proposal has been accepted, authors will work with the editor to produce a polished first draft. This draft will be reviewed by members of the editorial board who will offer feedback and determine the extent to which the chapter is ready for publication or whether and how much revision it needs.
Here is our tentative timeline for abstracts and chapter drafts:
To participate, please send the following to tcprogrambook2 by August 1, 2025:
- A tentative title for your chapter
- A 250-300 word abstract that overviews your chapter (what it will cover and how)
- Your name, department, and affiliation as you would like them listed for this project
We will provide comments on your entry and author guidelines by August 15, 2025. A full chapter draft (5000-7000 words not including “Works Cited entries) would be due by January 9, 2026.
We will provide feedback on drafts by Feb 13, 2026, and revisions of chapters will be due March 15, 2026. Final manuscripts will be due May 15, 2026 (including formatting in APA style) and the collection will be submitted by July 2026 to the publisher with anticipated publication date in early 2027.
Outline of chapters: 6000-7500 words
· Discuss/define the key topic in a TSC program
· Discuss your experience with the development/building/sustaining of this particular topic/subject
· Present the main steps to the process
· Discuss the main aspects/factors to consider in developing/building/sustaining this topic/subject
· Discuss the “transferable skills” needed and applied throughout the process.
· Present data/research throughout that supports the choices/steps discussed. Should not just be an anecdotal account.
· Discuss the lessons learned/takeaways—aspects that were revised, tried again/over, changed based on circumstances/new information