The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program supports and promotes writing throughout the university. WAC works with faculty to develop and teach Writing Intensive courses, offers workshops on writing pedagogy, provides resources for faculty and students, runs the annual Braun Writing Awards, organizes Write Nights, and develops programming to support writing across the curriculum.

Writing Intensive courses are designed by faculty in the disciplines with support from WAC to integrate writing purposefully into major coursework. By taking at least two courses in their major that are designated as Writing Intensive, one at the 200 level and one at the 300/400 level, students build on skills they developed in their First-Year Writing courses. In these courses, students practice writing with the conventions, forms, genres, styles, and processes relevant to the work required in their field while also engaging in writing that promotes critical thinking in their area of study. For example, Exercise Science majors learn to write patient progress notes and scientific articles based on their own original research studies; Education majors learn to write lesson plans; and Fashion Design majors learn to write design statements. 

WAC also provides workshops at opening and mid-year professional development meetings for faculty and at the end-of-year Faculty Institute. It also offers additional workshops as relevant throughout the year. Previous workshops have focused on issues such as providing feedback on student writing, using Generative AI (GenAI) in writing instruction, and identifying and responding to plagiarism. WAC works directly with any interested faculty member to design and implement writing assignments and activities into their classes, and it provides resources on best practices in writing pedagogy to support faculty using writing in their courses.

WAC also runs the annual Ruth Paetz Braun Undergraduate Connected Learning Awards, which is made possible through the generous support of Ruth Paetz Braun, class of 1954, in honor of her 50th reunion from Lasell University. The purpose of this program is to support annual writing awards for undergraduate students in conjunction with the University's annual Connected Learning Symposium in April of each year. Learn more about the Braun Writing Awards and read some recent winning pieces.