Description
Amy Lee, Heidi Estrem, and Cody Bursch
Writing Program Administration
Edited by Christopher Carter and Laura Micciche
Information and Pricing
978-1-64317-636-9 (paperback, $26.95); 978-1-64317-637-6 (PDF, $19.95); 978-1-64317-638-3 (EPUB, $19.95) © 2027 by Parlor Press. 162 pages, with notes, bibliography, and index.
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About This Book
“The workbook-style approach is as unique as it is useful.” — Jackie Hoermann-Elliott
“A resource like this one will ensure that future leaders of CWPA and other writing-based organizations have a ‘road map’ for meaningful, collaborative leadership.” — Susan Thomas
A Leadership Atlas for Writing Program Administration presents writing program administration as a collective, situated practice of leadership that develops over time. Writing program administrators work amid shifting institutional priorities, limited resources, and complex relationships. Drawing on interviews with experienced writing program leaders, interdisciplinary leadership scholarship, and their own experiences, Amy Lee, Heidi Estrem, and Cody Bursch offer a framework for navigating these demands through listening, collaboration, critical reflection, feedback, and revision.
The authors describe WPAs as writing leaders in progress. Their account connects leadership with core insights from writing studies: leadership is contextual, ideological, relational, rhetorical, and pedagogical. The atlas and wayfinding metaphors help readers map the people, places, histories, values, and decisions that shape their work.
This interactive guide includes five invitations to develop a leadership identity, map networks of support, examine default approaches, and connect teaching with leading. Six critical-moment cases invite readers to analyze context, values, and impact. Reflective pause exercises and “Wayfinding” passages, contributed by Molly Vasich, help readers examine their leadership identities, strengthen their networks of support, and develop responses to challenges.
For new, experienced, and returning writing program administrators (WPAs), this book supports professional learning across roles and career transitions. It will also interest writing center administrators, writing across the curriculum (WAC) and writing in the disciplines (WID) leaders, faculty mentors, graduate students, and others engaged in rhetoric and composition, writing studies, and higher education leadership.
About the Authors
Amy Lee is a professor in Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota where she has held multiple leadership positions, most recently, department chair and director of first-year writing. She came to the University of Minnesota to be part of the General College whose mission of access, equity, and social justice resonated with her commitments, her core values and her work as a teacher-scholar.
Heidi Estrem is the Chief Academic Officer at the Idaho State Board of Education, where she leads statewide policy for all state public higher education institutions. Heidi joined the Board Office after twenty-two years as a faculty member and program director, first at Eastern Michgan University and then most recently at Boise State University. Throughout her career, she has advocated for students with a focus in her research on first-year writing curricular structures, writing placement processes, and teaching approaches in general education.
Cody Bursch is a professor of English at Arizona Western College, where he teaches first-year composition. His scholarly interests include composition pedagogy, listening, and rhetoric of trauma and empathy.
Photo of Amy Lee by a kind stranger on a street in California. Photo of Heidi Estrem by Idaho Career Technical Education. Used by permission. Photo of Cody Bursch by Arizona Western College. Used by permission.