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Graduate course offered in conjunction with GPACW conference

           The College of Liberal Arts at Dakota State University is sponsoring the fourth Annual Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing (GPACW) conference April 19-22. Thirty regional scholars will be presenting papers. The keynote speaker will be Gail Hawisher, a University of Illinois professor who is a nationally recognized computers and writing scholar. The editor of a major journal, Hawisher has been published extensively and is extremely well-known in the field of computers and writing. 

This year marks the first year DSU has had the opportunity to host the conference. “It should be a great opportunity to show off DSU’s facilities,” said Deb Knutson, DSU assistant professor of liberal arts who is co chair of the conference.

In conjunction with the conference, a one-hour graduate course is being offered by DSU professors Deb Knutson and Michelle Glaros.

“We came up with the idea of the graduate course to try to broaden the audience base for GPACW,” said Knutson. “Nearly all of the attendees last year were college educators, and while we value the opportunity to share our research and experience with our colleagues from other universities, it seemed unfortunate that elementary and secondary educators were left out.”

“We thought that if we were able to offer a 1-hour graduate course in conjunction with the conference, it might be more appealing to elementary and secondary educators who are interested in computers and writing,” added Knutson. “Since those educators have to regularly earn credits for re-certification, we thought they might be more likely to sign up for the conference if there was a course in conjunction with it.”