07/23/2026

July 2026 Update for CWPA Members

Hello CWPA Members: This month, I have the pleasure of sending this monthly update on the eve of CWPA’s national conference being held at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, WY! I am looking forward to this week’s conference, learning from all of you, and connecting with attendees over coffee and dining hall meals as many of us return to this space and place to recognize the 40^th anniversary of the Wyoming Resolution.

At this year’s conference, we are revisiting the issue of labor and what we have accomplished and still need to achieve when it comes to labor and equity in our field. So I’d like to begin by recognizing the service of Kelly Kinney, Chair of this year’s conference, as well as the Conference Planning Committee and University of Wyoming Conference Hosting Team members.

Conference Planning Committee

• Kelly Kinney, Chair
• Kelly Blewett
• Daryl Lynn Dance
• David Green
• Callie Kostelich
• Erin Lehman
• Amanda Presswood
• Christal Seahorn

University of Wyoming Conference Hosting Team

• Kelly Kinney, Chair
• Allison Gernant, Assistant Chair
• Abdalrahim Abuwarda
• Rick Fisher
• April Heaney
• Virginia Herboldsheimer-Hicks
• Shifa Ijaz
• Michael Knievel
• Joseph Saufley
• Nancy Small
• Misty Brodiaea Springer
• Kathleen Walker

Planning and hosting committee members: thank you for your labor. Thank you for what you’ve generously given to the organization to make this important event a reality.

As I wrap up my year as your president, I’ve been reflecting on our work. Here are some of the things I’ve worked on this year in service of you and this organization:

• We have offered nine (9) monthly webinars and four (4) recruitment sessions on topics like writing center scholarship, tenure and promotion, balancing administrative responsibilities, mapping program labor, and creating accessible and inclusive communities. The majority of these webinars have been free for members, and several were free for nonmembers.
• Following through on one of the “Renewing Our Vows” recommendations, we formed an Ad hoc Committee to Review the CWPA Website and completed an audit of the CWPA website. This group also made website edits and updates, and put together a list of recommendations for the CWPA Executive Board (EB)
• I continued efforts to maintain nine (9) active CWPA Committees and to form one new and much-needed committee. We launched the CWPA Recruitment Committee, thanks to the leadership of Talisha Haltiwanger Morrison, this spring. This new committee hosted four (4) free webinars as opportunities for potential members to interact and connect with CWPA leadership and discuss the benefits of membership.
• We have also supported the organization’s return to an in-person national conference at the University of Wyoming—the timing and place critical for meaning-making as we reflect on the 40^th anniversary of the Wyoming Resolution. Additionally, I’ve also been working to create a structure for the organization to offer in-person and virtual conferences on a rotating schedule that will be more predictable and accessible for members.
• We have scaled up the CWPA EB to bring us back to a full roster of nine members, as called for in CWPA’s by-laws. The CWPA Nominating Committee, led by Jacob Babb, took on and accomplished this important work.
• Finally, I was honored to be able to bring the WPA Statement on the Five Knowledge Domains of First-Year Composition (4.0) over the finish line in partnership with the WPA Outcomes Statement 4.0 Task Force and CWPA EB. The CWPA EB unanimously approved the statement on March 4, 2026, and the statement was posted as a free and open resource to the CWPA website in April 2026. We offer our deepest thanks to the Task Force co-chairs Antonio Byrd, Al Harahap, and Michelle Bachelor Robinson; and to the task force members Sheila Carter-Tod, Stephanie Kerschbaum, Cruz Medina, Bernice Olivas, Shelley Rodrigo, and Amy Wan. I’m truly amazed by this group of dedicated and brilliant scholars who chose to share their labor and expertise with CWPA.

The more time that I’ve spent with the new Five Knowledge Domains document, the more impressed I am by the ways the statement encourages us to consider our institutional context to rethink and reshape writing outcomes. This is the first outcomes statement CWPA has published that seats faculty in the author’s chair.

So, this month I’m thinking about labor and my own context, as a NTT/contracted faculty member at a two-year, open-access college. And I hope you’ll pause to consider your own context, your constraints, your privileges—and how these things affect your work, your students. What shapes does your labor take and make at your institution, with faculty, and within CWPA? What contextual constraints and privileges influence the experiences your students have in your online or face-to-face classroom(s)?

I’m also thinking about where the organization stands and what next steps the organization should take. There is much work to be done across this organization. Thinking about our context, this is a similar situation across many small professional organizations within our field and across higher education at large. Frankly, I’m seeing the ways support for the professional development of WPAs, Chairs, Coordinators, Directors, and Leads is being withdrawn by institutions. In many ways, CWPA is the beneficiary of the working conditions of our members. How should professional organizations pivot when writing programs as well as higher education are struggling because of the ways they’re being devalued? How do we speak to destabilizing forces within and beyond our field?

After spending the past year leading this organization, I see clearly the value this organization offers members, particularly during challenging times. And I humbly offer a few recommendations and parting thoughts as you step into the capable hands of President David Green and Vice President Darci Thoune, and the 2026-2027 CWPA EB.

We need to offer members clear benefits with their membership, being mindful that most of our members pay out-of-pocket for their professional memberships. One of my ongoing initiatives as Past President is to work alongside the WPA Outcomes Statement 4.0 Task Force and CWPA EB to offer free-to-members webinars centered on the WPA Statement on the Five Knowledge Domains of First-Year Composition (4.0) throughout the next academic year. These collaboratively developed sessions will aim to unpack the Five Knowledge Domains statement and offer usability guidance and practical resources for attendees.

Additionally, we need to balance new ideas (from emerging and developing scholars) to meet the current challenges that are facing us, alongside the organizational traditions that bring meaning and offer consistency and stability. For example, we should continue to offer a virtual conference and low-cost webinars while also upholding traditional events like the CWPA Summer Workshop. Both of these events foster community—one of the hallmarks of this organization—and support members in different ways.

Finally, seeing the depth of talent across this organization, we need to look for and encourage others to serve as leaders within CWPA, and to be a part of this organization’s future. I return to the point I made at the beginning of my presidency that we need to keep the doors open and invite people in—and I'll add, we should lift them up. Teaching at an open-access institution for the past fifteen years, I firmly believe invitations for belonging should be generously voiced and sent, and sent again. A warm, full-throated welcome represents the very best of this organization.

To all of the Chairs, Coordinators, Directors, Leads, and WPAs (with or without the title) doing important writing program work, I again welcome you to CWPA. You belong here, and I invite you to labor alongside us to continually re-envision and rebuild the future of this organization.

Yours, 

Erin Lehman, CWPA Past President