Book Award from National College Association includes Four COCC Educators

July 18, 2023

Four educators from Central Oregon Community College are co-authors of a chapter featured in a published collection of equity-centered college processes that recently received the 2022 “Best Book Award” from the Council of Writing Program Administrators. The work was one of 11 chapters compiled in “Writing Placement in Two-Year Colleges: The Pursuit of Equity in Postsecondary Education.”

Stacey Donohue, Ph.D., professor of English, Jane Denison-Furness, Ed.D., former assistant professor of English, Tony Russell, Ph.D., instructional dean, and Annemarie Hamlin, Ph.D., vice president of academic affairs, collaborated on “Welcome/Not Welcome: From Discouragement to Empowerment in the Writing Placement Process at Central Oregon Community College.”

The book features diverse perspectives from two-year college instructor-scholar-activists, across the U.S., sharing stories and strategies aimed at reforming writing placement assessment to advance educational access and equity.

The association’s award committee highlighted the collection’s diverse theories and practices to provide models to reform placement processes, composition instruction, programmatic reform, and even larger institutional changes at two- and four-year colleges.