Michelle Cox – författare

Winner of the 2021 Association for Writing Across the Curriculum/WAC Clearinghouse award for Best WAC Monograph

A 2008 survey of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programs found that nearly half of those identified in a 1987 survey no longer existed twenty years later, pointing to a need for an approach to WAC administration that leads to programs that persist over time. In Sustainable WAC, current or former WAC program directors Michelle Cox, Jeffrey R. Galin, and Dan Melzer introduce a theoretical framework for WAC program development that takes into account the diverse contexts of today''s institutions of higher education, aids WAC program directors in thinking strategically as they develop programs, and integrates a focus on program sustainability. 

Informed by theories that illuminate transformative change within systems—complexity, systems, social network, resilience, and sustainable development theories—and illustrated with vignettes by WAC directors across the country, this book lays out principles, strategies, and tactics to help WAC program directors launch, relaunch, or reinvigorate programs within the complicated systems of today’s colleges and universities. Acknowledging that every WAC program grows out of a specific institutional context and grassroots movement, this book is a must-read for everyone currently involved in a WAC program or interested in exploring the possibility of one at their college or university.

Since 1995, Michelle Cox has been an active participant in online chatrooms, gaming sites, and lobby activity. She is also a nurse who was a regular visitor to the Physicians Online room, a place that became more to her than just a chatroom. The people who made Physicians Online a phenomenon became a family. There, doctors, nurses, and other professionals shared their lives together. They extended their relationships beyond the keyboard, meeting for lunch, events, parties, and much more. The face-to-face parties were legendary, and now Michelle welcomes you into her memories.

To protect the innocentand the infamousshe has changed or altered the screen names of the real-life characters who populated her online haunts. Even so, each and every story is inspired by reality. The community was involved in drama, sex, outrageous parties, and even murder. Physicians Online invented the word cyber-bullying before it became a world-wide term.

In this personal narrative, Michelle shares true and amazing stories about her experiences with this online group with the hope of conveying just a little of what she felt in the early days of Internet communities.