White House invites two from Grand Valley

Writing faculty members Charlie Lowe and Keith Rhodes were invited to the White House October 7 as part of a contingent of 10 people from the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA).

The meeting was part of an ongoing initiative organized by Wellstone Action and the White House Office of Public Engagement to connect community leaders with Executive Branch activities. Rhodes is currently secretary of CWPA and Lowe was co-editor of a free textbook, Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, a collection of Creative Commons licensed essays for use in the first year writing classroom, all written by writing teachers for students.

Lowe said that in the morning they met with Mark Doms, chief economist, U.S Department of Commerce, to share the administration’s projections on the economy for the next several years. “In the afternoon, we met with liaisons from the Department of Education and the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, where we had an open and active exchange, mainly focused on issues of students’ transition from secondary schools to college,” said Lowe.

With virtually a quorum of CWPA’s board present, group members were able to meet on their own afterwards and discuss strategies for influencing current discussions on core standards and curricula, to become better aligned with the best scholarship and expert practices in the field of composition research.