The Association for Writing Across the Curriculum and the WAC Clearinghouse sponsor awards that recognize contributions to the WAC community through scholarship, service, and achievement. Nominations are solicited prior to each International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference, and awards winners are announced at the conference.
The following members of the WAC community have been designated as Distinguished Fellows of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum. This award recognizes distinguished scholars (i.e., scholars in field for at least 15 years) who have made significant contributions to the field of WAC through scholarship, service, and achievement. This is an award that continues beyond the year in which it was made.
Linda Hirsch is the Director of the Liberal Arts Degree and Co-Coordinator of the Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum (WRAC) program at Hostos Community College/CUNY, a Hispanic Serving Institution located in the south Bronx, one of the nationÆs poorest Congressional districts. She was a pioneer of WAC at CUNY in 1999, working with planning groups to create and implement the UniversityÆs 24-campus-wide mandated WAC Initiative, which still exists today. Under her guidance, the Hostos WRAC Program continues to evolve and is cited as a model across CUNY.
As WAC Coordinator, Hirsch has also examined the unique, reciprocal relationship of CUNY graduate student Writing Fellows and faculty. In 2011 she published the co-authored piece, ôThe Writing Fellow/Faculty Collaboration: Paradigms of Teaching & Learning across the Curriculumö which explores the dynamics of this relationship, and which is standard reading in CUNY WAC professional development seminars. This article is one of more than a dozen publications and more than 60 conference presentations going back to the late 1980s that demonstrate the impact of her work at Hostos/CUNY and on the larger WAC/WID community of scholars.
Hirsch is the recipient of the 2023 Hostos Community College Presidential Medal of Honor for Outstanding Faculty Member. She received a NISOD Excellence Award in 2005, is the co-founder and past President of the CUNY Writing Centers Association, and is past President of the CUNY ESL Council. She currently conducts WAC professional development workshops for faculty and Writing Fellows at campuses and schools both within and outside of CUNY. She has also served as Content Consultant on the ChildrenÆs Television Network (PBS) series Ghostwriter, a TV program designed to enhance childrenÆs literacy skills. Based on all these accomplishments and contributions to WAC/WID over 40 years, the award committee unanimously agrees that Linda Hirsch deserves to be named a Distinguished Fellow.