ABSTRACT
This chapter situates the challenges of relaunching the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, a special-mission university focusing on technical skills and hands-on learning in STEM fields. Directed by the author as a then newly hired faculty member, the program needed to address formal feedback from employers and informal feedback from faculty that indicated students needed more support in written communication before reaching upper-level classes or professional situations. Introducing and working through the PLIA (Populations, Landscapes, Infrastructure, and Assessment) framework described here, the chapter shares how this WAC director analyzed local context and leveraged existing resources to meet the needs of these undergraduate STEM writers.
