Communication Across the Curriculum at SIUC

Communication Across the Curriculum (CAC for short) is a new, campus-wide curricular and professional development initiative at SIUC.  It is designed to provide support for faculty and graduate teaching assistants interested in integrating written, spoken, visual, and electronic communication into their courses, and fostering critical thinking across the disciplines.

The CAC Task Force (2003)

The History of CAC at SIUC

Supported by the Faculty Senate in 1997, the Core Curriculum's "Writing Literacy" report recommended that SIUC launch a WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum) program.  The Provost appointed a Chair, who then formed a Task Force composed of representatives from each College.  The charge was to implement the program in measured steps, beginning in AY 1998-99 with workshops, organizational meetings, and a website.  WAC became Communication Across the Curriuclum (CAC) after the Task Force determined that speaking and other forms of communication, in addition to writing should also be stressed.

Precedents and Rationale

Ø       provide focus and momentum  for the university's central mission of educating students

Ø       break down the often artificial disciplinary boundaries that can isolate faculty and students, encouraging the interconnectivity of academic endeavors

Ø       prepare students for the global marketplace, where the ability to manipulate, manage, and deploy information will be what distinguishes leaders

Ø       foster renewed  commitment to the professional development of faculty and the education of students

Good CAC programs transform the teaching and learning culture of a university by improving student learning and literacy, as well as faculty teaching and morale.

 The Task Force recognizes two fundamental principles:

Ø       Literacy, which involves both writing and speaking effectively, is also a primary mode of learning

Ø       Learning can be enhanced when teachers and peers respond to students' attempts to articulate their learning orally, in writing, and electronically

Put simply, students learn by reading, writing, and speaking about the content of their courses, and faculty gauge and improve student learning (and thus shape pedagogy) by reading, listening, and responding to student work. Writing and speaking are also modes of communication, and it is through repeated practice and reinforcement across the curriculum that students learn to write and speak effectively. A good CAC program fosters literacy, which greatly enhances opportunities for success in college and in the professional world.

University Priorities

The CAC initiative addresses the first four of the five priorities in SIUC's "Priorities Statement." CAC aims to improve teaching and learning and to strengthen undergraduate education, especially with its focus on the agencies of student learning (writing, speaking, and critical thinking). One primary responsibility of the modern university should be to prepare a literate citizenry, people well prepared with the abilities to manage, manipulate, disseminate, and evaluate information. CAC will help us meet that responsibility. The quality of instruction will improve because students learn more and more efficiently when writing- and speaking-to-learn are common practices. Improved teaching and learning translates directly into better retention and more widespread academic success. Finally, because CAC involves faculty across the disciplines in collaborative discussion of pedagogy, it directly contributes to faculty development, improves morale, and fosters the collegial spirit.

The Illinois Commitment

The CAC initiative also addresses major points raised by the Citizens' Agenda.  As the Agenda notes, "A premium will be placed on acquiring, processing, evaluating, and using information to solve problems" (p. 7) as the economy becomes more global, technology-dependent, and driven by information resources. CAC prepares students with the communication skills necessary for applying their learning in real-world situations.

The Agenda also notes that "to maximize both the personal and economic benefits of education, Illinois citizens will need to continue to upgrade their knowledge and skills throughout their lifetimes" (p. 8). Because literacy prepares one for lifelong learning, CAC will provide students with the skills they will need in order to acquire and evaluate knowledge well beyond their academic careers.

Finally, because "employers are demanding that basic communication, problem solving and analytical skills be emphasized" (p. 11), students who complete their degrees at a university with a strong CAC program will be better prepared to meet the demands of employers. A student who possesses critical literacy, which CAC will promote, is more likely to succeed in college, in a professional career, and in life generally.

Teaching Support

The primary purpose of the Communication Across the Curriculum Program will be to provide faculty and graduate teaching assistants with ideas for integrating written, spoken, visual, and electronic communication into their courses to enhance student learning.

This effort will be supported by a number of ongoing initiatives.  In AY 1999-2000, CAC representatives will meet with faculty one-on-one to share ideas and to determine the needs of particular academic units.  They will conduct department and college-wide workshops designed to illustrate effective ways to introduce communication activities into courses.  They will collect the good ideas of faculty and share them with others.

In Fall 1999, CAC representatives will begin to work with graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) during Graduate Student Orientation, providing hands-on workshops for GTAs that will help them effectively introduce communication and communicating-to-learn activities into their courses.

Also in AY 1999-2000, several nationally respected scholars and teachers will be invited to campus to conduct workshops for both faculty and graduate teaching assistants.

Online Resources

To support faculty development and enhance student learning, the CAC Program maintains a website designed to offer teachers  many resources for teaching communication-intensive courses across the disciplines.  Students also will find useful resources for improving their communication skills and information regarding the help already available on campus, such as that offered by the SIUC Writing Centers.

The CAC website can be found at http://www.siu.edu/departments/cac/

Ø       Introducing CAC

Ø       CAC/WAC Links

Ø       The CAC Task Force

Ø       Teaching Resources

Ø       Student Resources

Ø       Writing Handbook

Ø       Writing Centers

Ø       Research on CAC

Ø       College Profiles

Ø       Contact Information

The website houses a variety of guides for introducing communication into courses.  The Teaching Resources page contains links to information about, for instance, the SIUC Writing Centers and the University-Approved Writing Handbook, as well as bibliographies on CAC that faculty may wish to consult and a guide to integrating writing- and speaking-to-learn activities in courses.  The website is regularly updated as teaching resources are developed.

Other Resources

Morris Library has made a variety of resources available for faculty and graduate teaching assistants at its Reserve Desk in the Undergraduate Library.  Users should request materials for "Library Affairs 1000."

Morris Library's "Explorer" is also available to students.  It is an online, interactive guide to the library's services and to all facets of the research process.  Explorer is accessible from the Library Affairs and CAC websites.

CAC also makes available to departments and individual faculty a series of videotapes describing writing-to-learn activities.  These videotapes introduce key concepts of Communication Across the Curriculum and provide teachers with specific strategies for responding to student writing, handling the paper load efficiently, managing peer response, and introducing communication-intensive activities into large lecture classes. Contact  the Task Force Chair at 453-6811 for  further information.

How  CAC Can Help Faculty, Departments, and Colleges

Communication Across the Curriculum  helps students to be more efficient learners and faculty to be better teachers.  Departments already recognize the importance of training good graduate teaching assistants, many of whom are responsible for teaching their own courses. CAC can help departments foster good teaching among all of its teachers.  CAC will also make programmatic assessment and accreditation efforts more manageable tasks.  CAC encourages direct contact with faculty and among students.  Their learning will be more evident to themselves and to faculty, who bear the responsibility of reporting on student learning.  The CAC representatives and Chair will help faculty pedagogically, and they will also help programs determine the most efficient ways to measure, report, and react to student learning.

Classroom Demonstrations

One ongoing feature of the CAC Program will be to provide faculty and graduate students the opportunity to observe how a communication intensive course is conducted.  Interested faculty have the opportunity to observe the courses taught by the CAC Chair. 

What CAC Can Do for Students

Research shows that as students move to progressively more complex subject matter in their disciplines, their ability to communicate effectively diminishes unless their learning is continually reinforced and communicated to others.  The CAC initiative will provide incentives and means for teachers to provide students the opportunities they need in order to excel in the more demanding courses in their disciplinary areas.

We also know that students benefit when we think of them as active learners, as people who need various opportunities to express what they have learned and who retain more when provided with such opportunities.  As communication becomes an integral part of their undergraduate experience, beginning with the Core Curriculum, students will learn to appreciate the value of being a good writer and speaker, as well as to appreciate the courses that encourage them to communicate their learning actively to their teachers and their peers, to think critically, and to apply their knowledge widely.

SIUC's Writing Centers

SIUC's Writing Centers offer free services to all SIUC students. Students may work with tutors on their writing either on a regular-weekly or first-come, first-served drop-in basis.  Instructors may also refer students to the Writing Center to work on specific aspects of their writing.  Writing Centers are located in Faner Hall 2281, Trueblood Hall, and, soon, Lentz Hall. For more information, call 453-6863.  The Director of the Writing Centers is Dr. Jane Cogie.  Visit the Writing Center website at http://www.siu.edu/~write .

The Centrality of Communication

One of the first acts of the CAC Task Force was to broaden the scope of the initiative to include oral, visual, and electronic communication components in addition to writing.  Because all of these forms of communication are integral to learning in all disciplines and to academic and professional success generally, the Task Force reasoned that as we move into the 21st century students will need to know how to be proficient communicators in multiple ways in a variety of contexts.  Electronic communication in particular is an emergent but vitally important component of everyday discourse, so the CAC Program will be providing support, including software and training, to teachers who want to make it a component of their courses and their teaching.

How to Become Involved

Contact the CAC Chair or Task Force Representative in your area.  Both are ready to assist any faculty member or graduate teaching assistant who would like to learn more about how CAC can improve undergraduate education. To find the Task Force Representative in your area pleae visit our Task Force Page by clicking here.

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