Jenn Stewart, Emily Thompson, Anna N. McDonald, & Andrea Schurr

Institutional Context

Chamberlain Arch: brown academic building with archway and steps on the right and plenty of trees on the left

Writing Program

The UTC English Department's Composition Program serves undergraduate students across all university degree programs. Its mission is to help students develop critical thinking, analysis, and writing skills. Composition students learn to synthesize information from multiple texts and perspectives, respond to the needs of diverse audiences, and adapt their writing for different contexts, purposes, and technologies.

The program consists of three courses: ENGL 1010, Rhetoric and Writing I; ENGL 1011, Rhetoric and Writing I with Tutorials; and ENGL 1020, Rhetoric and Writing II. All three courses are general education requirements for incoming students. Each academic year, we offer approximately 165 sections of these courses.

The Composition Program courses are taught by approximately 25 non-tenure-track, full-time faculty and approximately 25 adjunct, part-time faculty. These faculty teach courses of between 15 and 20 students in face-to-face, hybrid, and fully asynchronous online modalities. Each year the program serves approximately 3,000 UTC students.

Studio

The University of Tennessee Library Studio opened in January 2015 as part of the new Library building. Originally planned to be a small area with a recording studio and a couple of computers, it was expanded to approximately one-third of the public floor by the time the building was finished. It contains a small audio suite, a video/photography suite, and an open lab with 24 computers and 3D printers. The Studio is led by a director, with two tenure-track faculty librarians, three full-time staff, and four to six student workers rounding out the team.

Known as the library within the library, the Studio circulates a collection of A/V equipment ranging from easy-to-use, one-button items to complicated pro-sumer devices. The goal of the space is to cover all levels of hand-holding, and the team is happy to show anyone how to use any of the equipment. Generally, it collects equipment to support multimedia assignments, from simple teacher licensing videos to podcasts and documentaries. The Library supports it with a budget, which helps keep equipment in good working order and allows it to be refreshed when cameras reach the end of their life cycle.

The three tenure-track faculty librarians teach between 100–200 class sessions/year. Working with faculty colleagues to develop multimedia assignments, the librarians then develop classes to teach skills and concepts related to the assignment. The team works with departments across campus in addition to English, including Biology, Philosophy, History, and Art.

Because the space is part of the Library and not tied to any one college or major, it is able to encourage new approaches to research communication across campus. The Studio is the collaborative, creative space anyone can visit to learn a new skill whether they have been assigned to do it or they just want to try it out.