The candidates for the EATAW Board 2011-2013 in alphabetical order:
Roman Banzer
I have been teaching academic writing for more than ten years at different universities in Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Italy. I currently work as head of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Liechtenstein. I work in the faculties of Economics and Architecture on the Bachelor, Master and PHD level as a senior lecturer and faculty developer. Over the last three years we installed a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) program. The core of the program consists of a series of intensive writing seminars introducing students to research-oriented learning. The seminars use writing portfolios and involve students in intensive peer feedback loops and peer assessment.
My academic background includes a dissertation thesis on the dialects of Liechtenstein with a special focus on language pragmatics, language variation and language change. During my research on the „Liechtensteiner Namenbuch“ project, I worked on publications in the field of Onomastics. My current fields of work and research are feedback and assessment in Academic Writing. I have been a member of the EATAW since 2009 and joined the conference in Coventry 2009. I would like to bring in my experience as a lecturer in higher education and researcher to expand the network, to bring in the view and needs of my culture and to strengthen the mission of EATAW in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. I would like to foster links between EATAW and the European Writing Centers Association (EWCA), on whose board I also serve.
Melanie Brinkschulte
I am an EATAW member since 2005 and at the Board since 2009. In 2007 I attended the conference in Bochum, and offered a workshop in Coventry 2009. I will present at the Limerick conference.
Since 2007 I am the head of the International Writing Centre at Goettingen University (Germany) where we offer workshops on various topics on academic writing, tutoring for academic writing in and across the disciplines and a peer tutoring education. I teach academic writing (in German) and since ten years I am specialised on teaching academic writing to international students and to students writing in multilingual academic contexts. My research focuses on students’ aptitudes on academic writing in multilingual contexts and their possibilities to activate resources for their writing in a target language.
The exchange of practical and scientific knowledge is what I appreciated and liked at the former EATAW conferences and what I would like to continue and to contribute to.
As an EATAW Board member I encourage
Kathleen Shine Cain, Ph.D
Currently professor of writing/writing center director at Merrimack College (USA), I have been teaching academic writing (basic, advanced, memoir, social advocacy) for over 35 years. My interest in theory and pedagogy is reflected in my numerous papers, workshops, and presentations at regional, national, and international conferences. I have also authored or co-authored several articles and textbooks, served on the boards of regional and national writing/ writing center organizations, and hosted regional and national writing/writing center conferences.
My interest in international dialogue was piqued when I spent the 2005-2006 academic year at St. Mary’s University College, Belfast. Since then I have presented at each EATAW, WDHE, and EWCA conference and have reviewed abstracts for EATAW, IWCA, and WDHE. I am particularly interested in exploring how national culture influences academic culture, specifically with regard to potentially oppressive institutional practices; and how international dialogue results in reconsideration of long-held assumptions about academic literacies and writing instruction. I believe that by serving on the board I can contribute more effectively to a dialogue that promises to enrich the theory and practice of teaching writing across national and cultural borders—and more specifically, to continue to highlight the relationship between literacy and social justice.
Jim Donohue
I have been involved in teaching and researching English for academic and workplace purposes for 20 years. Working in corporate communications in the Netherlands, I began using systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and later obtained a PhD for research into the use of SFL in the teaching of academic literacy. I am currently Head of OpenELT, the English Language Teaching Unit of the Open University, UK, involved in writing online distance courses in EAP. At EATAW, in 2007, I co-presented the project ‘Developing Academic Literacies in Context’, a collaboration of universities from Australia, England and United States led by Wollongong University. At the 2009 EATAW conference I presented on my current research into the writing of Health and Social Care students. I am particularly interested in how we can:
I bring committee experience from many years work in community development and academia and have been a member of the EATAW board for the past two years.
Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams
I have been an active member of EATAW since 2001. I have participated in every EATAW conference and was the organiser and host of the EATAW 2009 Conference. I am committed to the values of cross-national exchange on academic writing that EATAW promotes and have felt honoured to serve as Chair of the EATAW Board 2009-present.
I was first elected to the EATAW Board in 2007. As a board member I have worked with colleagues to prepare and launch, in 2011, EATAW’s new journal: the Journal of Academic Writing.
My past service on the boards of the European Writing Centers Association (EWCA) and as EATAW’s ex-officio member to the International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) has also enabled me to help raise international awareness of the work of both of these European academic writing organisations.
I am the Head of the Centre for Academic Writing, Coventry University, England, and have taught and tutored writing in both US and UK universities. My research interests include the historical development of academic writing teaching in different national contexts, teaching writing in the disciplines, and online pedagogies for teaching and tutoring writing.
Magnus Gustafsson
I am a current board member since 2009 and I first joined EATAW in 2005. I have found the association an important one and working on the board is a very rewarding honour that I have learnt from these two years. Our work since 2009 has focused on transitioning into a new website, establishing a journal for the association and getting its first issue out, and organizing the EATAW listserv. We have also tried to support the organizing committee for EATAW2011 as far as possible of course.
My background is one of running the Centre for Language and Communication at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden and promoting EATAW concerns in our educational environment. Our work with multiple and progressively arranged integrated communication oriented interventions for engineering education is one that I have tried to share with EATAW colleagues at the EATAW conferences since 2005. My other interests of EATAW relevance include:
Should I be elected to stay on the board I would like to focus on working towards criteria for the EATAW journal. Another issue I would want the board to consider is regional, national, or language-based networks for EATAW including effective ways of organizing these without losing EATAW impact. A final and more daunting issue is that of trying to address the challenges facing teachers of academic writing today as far adapting to rapidly changing and increasingly more demanding higher education conditions.
Stefanie Haacke, M.A.
Regarding the immense potential of writing as a medium for clarification of standards, ideas, language conventions and - as Michael Carter puts it - “ways of doing, knowing and thinking” in any field and context I would like to contribute to the further promotion of European Writing in the Disciplines initiatives and programs.
Together with Andrea Frank, the founder of the Bielefeld Writing Center, and with Swantje Lahm, who started to work with us in 2002, I collaborate with teaching staff in developing writing intensive classes in the disciplines. I have been an EATAW member since 2002. I have an M.A. (Magister Artium) in Philosophy, History of Religion, and Art History (FU Berlin), and I started working as a writing consultant and teacher at the Bielefeld University “Schreiblabor” (the first Writing Center at a German University ever) in 1998.
I am ready to stand for a candidacy as a board member because I want to play a part in contributing to EATAW as a framework for sharing ideas, learning from each other, and promoting the cause of teaching and learning with writing in the different European languages and university traditions.
Halyna Kaluzhna
I have been an EATAW member since 2003, and have attended and presented at EATAW conferences held in Budapest, Athens, Bochum, and Coventry. I see EATAW as a medium for creating the community of professionals and researchers willing to share their knowledge and learn from each other.
In the recent years I have been involved in a number of academic writing projects. I participated in setting up the first English writing center in Ukraine (Ivan Franko National University of L'viv) and served as the Center director for five years. I also took part in designing curriculum and developing academic writing courses (National University “Kyiv Mohyla Academy”). In 2008 I took part in organizing the first Ukrainian conference on teaching English academic writing, which was held in Lviv. At present I am involved in maintaining the work of a writing group for junior researchers at Lviv University.
For the past two years I have served on the EATAW Board as a membership secretary. If selected to the Board I would like to be involved in membership issues and also to do my best to engage more professionals from post-Soviet and East European countries.
Íde O’Sullivan B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
Íde is a Writing Consultant in the Regional Writing Centre at the University of Limerick. Íde was actively involved in the inception of the Writing Centre and has played a significant role in the development of the Centre. Íde is involved in the design, delivery and evaluation of writing-support interventions, including teaching academic writing at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, grounding writing centre initiatives in good practice and sound theory.
Íde’s PhD investigated the role of corpus consultation literacy in enhancing language learners’ writing skills. She has published in the Journal of Second Language Writing, ReCALL (CUP), Revue Française de Linguistique Appliquée, AISHE-J, and the SEDA Special Supporting Academic Writing among Students and Academics. Her current research focuses on adapting academic writing development to particular national contexts and on enhancing peer-tutoring in academic writing. Other areas of interest include second language acquisition research and the development of new literacies.
Íde has been a member of the EATAW community since 2008. She is hosting this year’s EATAW conference. Íde is committed to enhancing the EATAW journal and international exchange on academic writing. She will work closely with the next conference organisers to ensure the success of EATAW 2013.
