ABSTRACT
The issues of scholarship, promotion, and tenure within composition studies have very different meanings for two-year college writing faculties than for writing faculties at four-year institutions. Teaching writing has historically been the main work—for some faculty it has been the only work—of two-year college English faculty. Few English community college faculty members present at conferences or contribute to professional journals. It may be, as several sources the people have cited suggest, that greater commitment to research would enhance involvement and teaching of two-year college writing teachers. Too often, at community colleges, tenure and promotion reviews have been administrative activities closed to meaningful input from one’s colleagues. The current approach—overem-phasizing scholarship and publication at some kinds of institutions while giving it inadequate emphasis at others—contributes to a widening gap between writing faculty at two- and four-year institutions that cannot be bridged merely by efforts to include more two-year authors in scholarly journals or to create two-year college sections in professional organizations.
