Welcome to New TAs

The following notes are taken from my remarks to our new TAs on the first day of their three-week orientation.  New TA Orientation and our year-long mentoring program for new TAs are led by Camille Newton and Zach Waggoner.

Shirley Rose (August 3, 2009; LL 316; 8:00-9:00)

Welcome to the 2009 New TA Summer Orientation for Arizona State University Writing Programs. We’re very glad you’re here and happy to see you again, and in some cases to be seeing some of you for the first time in person after communicating with you by mail, email, and phone for the last few months.

I’m Shirley Rose, Professor of English and Director of Writing Programs at ASU. Like most of you, I’m new here. I’m excited to be beginning my work in this writing program, which most of you probably already know is one of the largest in the country, teaching nearly 11,000 students every year. What you may not know is that our writing program—and in particular our mentoring program for new TAs—is also one of the most highly regarded in the profession of English studies in the U.S. Over the next three weeks, you’ll be learning why.

During this morning’s first session, we will have introductions to other members of the ASU Writing Programs administrative team and to your orientation leaders for the next three weeks, but I’m going to ask you to join me right now in thanking them all with a round of applause for everything they’ve done over the past several months and more to prepare us all to make a good start.

The 24 of you who begin your work in ASU Writing Programs this morning come from diverse cultural and social, intellectual and disciplinary backgrounds to study together in the English Department’s seven graduate programs and to teach together in the First-Year Composition program here on the Tempe campus. Two of you come to Tempe from another country, some come from the other side of the country, some come from just down the road; some of you have studied at small private liberal arts colleges , others at large public research universities; some are here for ASU’s nationally recognized Rhetoric and Composition graduate program, others for our high-profile MFA program or our well-known Linguistics program; or perhaps you’re here to study with one of our many highly regarded award-winning literature faculty or with English Education faculty who are national-level leaders.

That diversity of experience and interests you bring is one of our strengths: we recognize it; we respect it; we draw on it. Our purpose and our promise for our mentoring program is that you will develop as a teaching professional: whether you are one of our new TAs who have never taught before or one who comes with five or more years of teaching experience, the three weeks ahead, along with your English 594 your course this fall, and the practicum next spring are designed to give you the support—and the challenges—you need to sustain continuous growth and renewal as teachers.

The diversity of this group is just one source of our program’s strength. Our unity of purpose is another: The shared goal of everyone who teaches in the First-Year Composition program—from the first-year, first-time TA to the seasoned lecturer-- is to help ensure that first-year students at ASU make the strongest possible start to college careers that will prepare them for meaningful and productive lives and work.

Welcome to ASU Writing Programs, thank you for choosing ASU for your own professional academic preparation, thank you for the commitment you have made to teaching our first-year students, and remember to drink lots of water.