The New Normal

As colleges and universities across the country continue to deal with regular decreases in state funding, technical communication programs, in particular, are being forced to "do more with less." As budget cuts become the new normal, the long-term health of technical communication depends on our ability to evolve and adapt to an array of internal, external, and technological pressures.  The New Normal: Pressures on Technical Communication Programs in the Age of Austerity explores the ways technical communication programs are responding to conditions of economic austerity and investigates how smaller programs, or programs situated in smaller institutions, use increasingly limited resources to meet the challenges of increased student demand, the responsibilities of teaching service courses effectively, the technological demands for online education, and the constant pressure to prepare our students appropriately for the ever-changing needs of the job market in technical communication.  More specifically, the contributors to this collection are overtly conscious of the marginalized/peripheral status of technical communication programs within both small and large institutions. This awareness allows them to articulate specific ways that austerity has had a direct, and local, effect on a particular technical communication program and to describe short- and long-term strategies for creating sustainable futures for a technical communication program, despite cuts and marginalization.

Denise Tillery, Ed Nagelhout

INTRODUCTION: Austerity and Marginalized Academic Programs Why This Collection? Why Now? Denise Tillery and Ed Nagelhout SECTION ONE: Building Connections and Growing Sustainably CHAPTER 1 Keeping the Target Off Our Backs: How to Build a Sustainable Technical Communication Program in Times of Austerity Barry Maid CHAPTER 2 A Response to Austerity: Using Ecopreneurship to Build a Sustainable Writing Major Amanda Bemer and Teresa Henning CHAPTER 3 Reading University Ecosystems: Bolstering Sustainability and Revising Growth for Technical Communication Programs Colleen A. Reilly CHAPTER 4 Take a Leap of Faith and Hit the Gym: The Impact of Austerity on Professional Writing at a Private College Madeline Yonker and Michael J. Zerbe SECTION TWO: New Teaching Models: Adapting Technologies Strategically CHAPTER 5 Frugal Realities: Hacker Pedagogy and Scrappy Students in an Online Program Julia Romberger and Rochelle Rodrigo CHAPTER 6 Service-ELearning in the Online Technical Communication Classroom: Keeping Our Pedagogies Relevant in an Age of Austerity Tiffany Bourelle CHAPTER 7 Balancing Standardized Web-Based Pedagogy With Instructor Autonomy in Technical Writing Courses Dirk Remley CHAPTER 8 Working Conditions, Austerity, and Faculty Development in Technical Writing Programs Ed Nagelhout, Denise Tillery, and Julie Staggers SECTION THREE: External Challenges and Opportunities CHAPTER 9 Googling Academe Timothy D. Giles, Angela Crow, and Janice R. Walker CHAPTER 10 Strategic Partnerships Promote High-Demand Technical Communication Courses Lynn O. Ludwig CHAPTER 11 Using Situational Advantages Strategically to Address Challenges Faced in Creating a Bachelor of Science in Technical Communication in an Environment of Austerity Corinne Renguette, Marjorie Rush Hovde, and Wanda L. Worley Contributors Index