Faculty writing has never been more crucial. In an era of heightened competition for grants, promotion pressures and demands for public engagement, writing is the vehicle through which faculty share their expertise, secure funding and advance their careers. Research shows that successful academic writers aren’t necessarily better writers—they’re better-supported writers. They have systems, communities and resources that support their productivity and help sustain engagement with writing as their needs change across their roles, responsibilities and careers.
Faculty writers are seeking support for their writing. Where do they go when they need it? Many are unsure.
Support for faculty writing on campus is often decentralized or may vary from year to year, making it difficult to find or accessible only to those with the advantage of an informed mentor. Support for faculty writing might be offered in any number of campus locations: centers for teaching and learning, provosts’ offices, offices for faculty advancement, writing centers or academic support centers, research centers for grant writing, graduate student support centers, or individual departments. Writing support may be outsourced through institutional memberships to organizations such as the NCFDD or the Textbook and Academic Authors Association, which offers webinars, writing programs and templates for downloading.
Department chairs and campus administrators may want to support faculty writers but aren’t sure where to begin. Or if there is a problem, it’s considered an individual faculty problem and not one that calls for a campus response.
Perhaps there’s an underlying assumption that faculty should already know how to write and shouldn’t need support to meet basic job expectations, like publishing a certain number of articles before tenure. Establishing a faculty writing space or central resource hub might be seen as suggesting they need remedial help—much like the stigma writing centers face as places where “bad” students are sent.
Yet today’s faculty are expected to write across more genres than ever before: grant proposals, peer-reviewed articles, public-facing pieces, social media content and policy briefs. Each involves different skills and audiences. The faculty member who can craft a compelling journal article may struggle with a foundation proposal or an op-ed. Writing support isn’t remedial—it’s strategic professional development.
The current moment also presents unique challenges. Post-pandemic isolation has disrupted the informal networks that previously supported faculty writing. Budget constraints mean fewer resources for individual faculty development, making shared writing support more essential. New faculty arrive on campus without the professional development resources or mentor networks that previous generations took for granted, while midcareer faculty face mounting pressure to produce more with less support.
We can do better in our support of faculty writers. If you want to help, here are ways to do better, or to get started.
- Gather resources. Even though writing support might be available, it may not be widely known, or up-to-date, and it may be dispersed across many different units or offices on campus. Create a centralized web page gathering information for all campus resources for faculty writing. The entity that hosts the site will be different for each campus. For some, it’s the provost’s office. For others, it’s a writing or teaching center. List the resources—where faculty can go for support—and help faculty navigate the resources by providing descriptions (not just links), categories (i.e., “find a writing group”) and contact information. Collaborate with faculty to curate a list of recommended books, podcasts and writing spaces they have found helpful.
- Make faculty writing visible. What if faculty writing support were as central to campus as student writing support? A teaching center could include a workshop on writing about teaching; the provost’s office or campus research center could offer workshops on developing institutional review board protocols. Consider reserving dedicated spaces for faculty to gather and write (such as a faculty writing room) or schedule specific writing times/days in a university writing center or campus coffee shop. Give them a name (Writing Wednesdays, Motivating Mondays). Writers can plan for these meet-ups and write in the company of others, in public rather than isolated in individual offices.
- Organize a virtual workshop watch session and follow-up discussions. Gather faculty for a workshop watch session. After the workshop, help participants continue to discuss what they learned and how they’ll apply it through group check-ins or follow-up meetings. Try NCFDD’s core curriculum webinar “Every Semester Needs a Plan,” The Professor Is In’s “Art of Productivity,” or join a London Writers’ Salon Writers’ Hour, and talk about everyone’s work after the writing session.
- Identify a faculty cohort to support for a year. Supporting all faculty writers with diluted support is often ineffective. Instead, focus on associate professors one year, new faculty writers the next and clinical faculty writers the next. Help them connect and be resources for each other throughout the year through writing retreats and writing groups. Build a campus writing community one cohort at a time.
- Collaborate with campus partners. Combine campus resources to support writers. Could the library offer a meeting space? Two departments co-convene a writing group? Campus units could take turns hosting a daylong writing space once a month, helping writers learn about different spaces and writers across campus.
- Start a writing support library. This can be virtual or in a central location on campus. Partner with the library to keep track of which books are in circulation or in high demand. Consider developing a workshop or writing group around in-demand books.
- Ask faculty what they need and listen and respond. If we don’t ask faculty what they need, we won’t know. What some faculty need now may be different than what they needed last fall.
- Support connectors. Every campus has them—the person or department that is a go-to for troubleshooting faculty questions and connecting them to writing resources. Amplify their reach, and support the faculty relationships and networks they’ve already established. Support the person or people who will curate that library, update the resource list, collaborate with campus partners and serve as a faculty writer point of contact.
What’s next? Start by mapping what already exists on your campus. Create one central hub where faculty can find all writing-related resources. Make faculty writing as visible and supported as student writing. It’s OK to start small: Try one of these strategies we’ve shared and notice what happens. And remember—supporting faculty writers isn’t about fixing deficiencies. It’s about recognizing that writing is central to faculty success and deserves the same institutional attention we give to other essential job functions. Faculty are an invaluable resource in our campus ecosystems. Let’s lower the barrier to them finding the support they need to write well. When they thrive, so do our institutions.
Jennifer Ahern-Dodson is an associate professor of the practice in writing studies at Duke University, where she directs the Faculty Write Program.
Christine Tulley is a professor of English at the University of Findlay and president of Defend, Publish & Lead, a faculty development organization.
