Quality Enhancement Day
Wednesday March 7, 2007
McNeese Campus

About the Speakers

Dr. Saundra Yancy McGuire is the Director of the Center for Academic Success, Adjunct Professor of Chemistry, and Associate Dean of University College at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She received her B.S. degree, magna cum laude, from Southern University, Baton Rouge, LA; her M.A. from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; and her Ph.D. in Chemical Education from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where she received the Chancellor’s Citation for Exceptional Professional Promise. Prior to joining LSU in August 1999, she spent eleven years at Cornell University, where she served as Director of the Center for Learning and Teaching and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, and received the coveted Clark Distinguished Teaching Award. Dr. McGuire is the author of numerous publications, including the Problem Solving Guide and Workbook, Study Guide, and Instructor's Teaching Guide for Russo/Silver's Introductory Chemistry, Third Edition. She is the recipient of numerous awards, the most recent of which are the 2007 Diversity Award from the Council on Chemical Research, the 2005 National Service Award and the 2002 Dr. Henry C. McBay Outstanding Chemistry Teacher Award, both presented by the National Organization of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers; the 2003, 2004, and 2005 Technology in Higher Education Conference Outstanding Presentation Award; and being named a 2003 YWCA Woman of Achievement in the City of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She is married to Dr. Stephen C. McGuire, chair of the Department of Physics at Southern University, and they are the parents of two daughters, Dr. Carla Abena McGuire Davis and Dr. Stephanie Niyonu McGuire.

Presentation Abstract
Academic Excellence for Every Student: Metacognition is the Key!
Today’s students come to college with widely varying academic skills, interests, and motivation levels. Faculty often lament that students are focused on achieving high grades, but do not want to spend time learning. Most students think that memorizing information before an examination is equivalent to learning the material, and spend considerably less time studying than is commensurate with their grade expectations. Cognitive science findings can serve as the basis for learning activities that motivate students to become fully engaged in the learning process and to take responsibility for their own learning. This interactive address will present cognitive science concepts, such as metacognition and judgment of learning, that can be used to improve faculty teaching and student learning. Participants will learn a variety of strategies that can be used to help all students experience meaningful, transferable learning.

Powerpoint Presentation (PDF format).

Valerie M. Balester, Associate Professor of English, is Executive Director of the University Writing Center, which houses the writing-in-the disciplines program for Texas A&M University. Her 1993 Cultural Divide: Case Studies of African American College-Level Writers (Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook-Heinemann) earned an Honorable Mention for the W. Ross Winterowd Award for best book on composition theory. She discusses that work in “The Problem of Method: Striving to See with Multiple Perspectives,” a response to “History in the Spaces Left: African American Presence and Narratives of Composition Studies” (CCC 52:1, September 2000: 129-32). More recently, co-edited, with Michelle Hall Kells and Victor Villanueva, Latino/a Discourses: On Language, Identity and Literacy Education (Boynton/Cook, 2004), now going into a second printing. She is a co-keynote speaker, with James McDonald, at the 2007 International Writing Centers Convention to be held in Houston in April.

Presentation Abstract
Write to Excellence: The Role of the Writing Center in Writing Across the Curriculum
Writing across the curriculum (WAC) teaches us to value the various disciplinary rhetorics which make up the university, to celebrate their differences and work with their commonalities. Writing is not the sole province of English, and likewise writing centers which support and enhance WAC should be shared by all departments, centrally located, if not physically then organizationally, on a campus. Furthermore WAC programs are not always housed in writing centers, but they should be. I have heard arguments that writing centers and WAC have different missions, one student-oriented, and the other, faculty-oriented. It’s fairly obvious that this sets students and faculty against each other, in competition for resources. As Mark Waldo has observed, writing centers are the natural home for a WAC program, at least when they have tenured (or tenure-track) directors, adequate resources, and a central location within the institution. The writing center and WAC support the same programmatic objectives, including not only making students better and more responsible writers but also making faculty better writing teachers. A good writing center not only works with faculty to support writing and provide resources and tutoring to students—it also helps faculty with how to grade, design good assignments, assign journals, and so on. As the center for a campus dialogue about writing, a WAC-based writing center showcases what academics value—critical thinking, clear communication, self-expression, and the creation of knowledge—and confirms that good writing is something for which we are all responsible.

Powerpoint Presentation (PDF format).