Transnational curriculum design for intercultural learning in writing programs

Institutions of higher education in the United States continue to witness a dramatic increase in the demographic diversity of their student populations, both domestic and international. Thus, US college campuses have entered into an area of "superdiversity" (Vertovec 1025) in which engaging with difference is imperative. "Superdiversity" indicates that higher education institutions must re-envision their structures and practices in order to afford institutional ethics that value and systematically support all students, preparing them for effective collaboration in multicultural work and education environments in global contexts. The "profound implications of [diversity] for institutional change and reform" (Weiser and Rose 6) include writing programs: superdiversity offers writing programs opportunities to rethink the delivery of writing instruction. Transnational work at the writing program level provides a framework for the specific ways globalization and diversity can impact US-based writing programs in terms of their assumptions, values, choices, and practices regarding writing instruction and assessment (Martins 4). However, transnational work traditionally links two campuses in different countries, a model out of reach to many universities. In this chapter, we present an intercultural-competence-focused, one-campus approach to transnationalizing US writing program administration from within, suggesting a range of structures and practices that incorporate global, transnational perspectives. We believe the integration of transnational work into US writing program structures and responsibilities can positively impact the nature of writing experienced in writing classes, and ultimately the efficacy of individual courses and program curricula.