SUNY Cortland News

    SUNY Cortland recently was approved for long-term, renewable federal funding to start a local branch of the National Writing Project as a means of helping outstanding teachers across Central New York improve their practice through writing and research.
    Called the Seven Valleys Writing Project (SVWP), the project's centerpiece as with other National Writing Projects will be a month-long Summer Institute. The College's Summer Institute will take place from July 7-Aug. 1 at Main Street SUNY Cortland, an extension facility the College operates at 9 Main St. in downtown Cortland.
    A group of 15 competitively selected and outstanding kindergarten through 12th grade teachers from many fields of study will attend the institute. The educators will hone their written expression and improve research education-related subjects. Subsequently, they will share their knowledge with colleagues and students back in their home districts.
    "Where teachers recommend teachers, we get the best," said the College's project director, David Franke, an associate professor of English and professional writing.
    Franke was the lead writer of the successful grant application. He currently oversees the $30,000 in federal Department of Education funding, which was matched by a $35,000 grant approved through SUNY Cortland's President's Cabinet.
    Brian Fay, a teacher at the Onondaga-Cayuga-Madison Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), is co-director on the SVWP. In addition to his project administration duties, Fay will serve as the lead teacher representing the area school districts. Karen Stearns, a SUNY Cortland associate professor of English with more than 30 years of regional high school teaching experience, is associate director and co-director of the Summer Institute.
    Franke will also teach in the Summer Institute during the project year. Members of the College's English Department, including Distinguished Teaching Professor Mary Lynch Kennedy, Stearns, Associate Professor Alex Reid and Associate Professor Victoria Boynton, will join him. Reid serves as technology liaison while Boynton is the consultant for experimental and creative writing.
    Local educational community representatives have joined the SVWP Planning Board to set up workshop sites, recruit teachers and serve on the project's steering committee: Karen Brey of Windsor Central High School, Jacqueline Deal of the Broome-Tioga BOCES Vestal Learning Center/ Evergreen, Pam Horton of Owego Apalachin Middle School, Jaime Mendelis of Owego Apalachin Middle School, Carol Mikoda of Windsor Middle School, Juli Quinn of Randall Elementary School in the Cortland City Schools and Amanda Triplett of Cortland High School. Cortland Downtown Partnership Manager Lloyd Purdy, who manages the Main Street SUNY Cortland facility, has expressed his support for what he considers a link to the local community.
    On Wednesday, Jan. 16, the SVWP Advisory Board will host a reception and meeting for area supporters of literacy education from 3:30-5 p.m. at Main Street SUNY Cortland. Individuals interested in attending the event should RSVP in advance by contacting Franke at dtfranke@cortland.edu or (607) 753-5945. City of Cortland Mayor Thomas Gallagher, SUNY Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum and Cortland City Schools Superintendent Larry Spring will attend.
    During February, the project managers plan to interview and select the 15 Summer Institute participants from among the group of candidates presented by individual districts.
    The seed money begins a multi-year project of serving 79 school districts in an eight-county territory located within a 100-mile radius of Cortland. Applicants are required to have at least two years of teaching experience and will be chosen from districts in Cortland, Madison, Chenango, Broome, Tioga, Tompkins, Cayuga and Onondaga Counties. Under-represented groups in teaching, including male elementary school teachers and ethnic minorities, will be encouraged to apply.
    The Summer Institute participants will have an opportunity to develop individually as writers and to learn from SUNY Cortland faculty who are on the cutting edge of professional writing, new media technology, classroom teaching and learning techniques. The teachers will be awarded their choice of either a stipend for attending the institute or six hours of graduate level college credit. They will also attend a pair of retreats that are being planned for before and after the Summer Institute.
    Franke envisions English teachers from regional school districts rubbing shoulders with colleagues whose focus may instead be science, social studies, art or shop but share an interest in improving their learning through writing for their students and themselves.
    "There is nothing remedial about the writing project or what the teachers will impart to their colleagues or students upon their return from the institute," Franke said. "We start from the belief that writing is more than reporting or a generic skill divorced from inquiry and quickly learned. We see writing and learning as always inextricable and as a process for making knowledge for both individuals and communities.
    "Writing well has rarely been a grassroots effort," continued Franke, who since joining the College in 1999 has run interdisciplinary writing workshops to support faculty as writers. "We want the teachers to look at their classrooms as research sites and ask themselves, 'How does learning happen here?' Writing is the best tool for reflecting on our teaching practice. It's also the best tool for students to learn in their content areas as well."
    The project is being overseen by a newly formed advisory board of the Seven Valleys Writing Project. The goal is to address, from the ground up, the long-term economic decline experienced in this northernmost extension of the Appalachian region by supporting teacher leaders who can contribute to their field, in turn strengthening the educational system that prepares the future workforce. The project also offers an important incentive for teachers to grow professionally and to remain in their challenging profession.
    "There is at present little in place to support teachers as writers and learners once they are finished with college and find themselves working in a school," Franke said. However, the SVWP would work closely with  existing programs in the community and at SUNY Cortland. Notably, SVWP plans to interact with administrators through the College's Cortland Urban Recruitment of Educators (CURE) initiative to raise the quality of teaching in low-achieving and high-needs urban districts.
    "The promise of a coordinated professional development program that will develop the practice of and inquiry into writing and learning is much needed and enthusiastically supported by regional teachers and administrators," Franke said. "We believe that the SVWP will contribute to this region's capacity for community building and problem solving."
    He noted that the National Writing Project is the only such federal writing initiative and only three new colleges are chosen annually to sponsor a program. At each site, including the SVWP, funding is supported by the federal government for the long term. In fact, the country's first such writing projects were started in the 1970s.