WIC’s History by the Numbers

By Lindsay Schwehr, WIC GTA

The Writing Intensive Curriculum has seen steady  growth since WIC courses became mandatory for all OSU undergraduates in 1993-1994.  The program saw a change in director in its early years: passing the gauntlet from Lisa Ede to Lex Runciman and Jon Olson. Vicki Tolar Burton, hired in a tenure-line position in English, took the program’s leadership in 1993. Over the years, there have been over 23 Graduate Teaching Assistants and Interns—each extending a hand to the growth of the curriculum.

The WIC team collected data from the WIC curriculum from over the past 25 years: ranging from 1994 to 2019. This data explores WIC courses over the years as well as faculty involvement in the WIC curriculum. Here’s what we found:

• In the early years of the program, there were often two faculty seminars per year. Some of these seminars were pre-1994 in preparation for the WIC requirement to become a graduation requirement for the 1994 graduating class. Due to budget cuts, since the early 2000’s, only one seminar has been offered per year. In a WIC Faculty Seminar, faculty members are paid a stipend of $500 (up from $250 prior to  2013) to attend five sessions in which they learn about WIC pedagogy and strategies that are useful when teaching a WIC course. Below you will find the cumulative number of faculty members that have taken the seminar, shown in five-year intervals. 
  • 1994: 167
  • 1999: 260
  • 2004: 346
  • 2009: 402
  • 2014: 484
  • 2019: 561
• While taking the WIC Seminar is not required for faculty who are teaching a WIC section, it is highly recommended. Below you will find the cumulative number of faculty who have ever taught a WIC course, shown in five-year intervals.
  • 1994: 163
  • 1999: 354
  • 2004: 527
  • 2009: 869
  • 2019: 1,020
• From 1994 to 2019, undergraduate student enrollment increased by 119%.
• As the undergraduate student population continues to grow, faculty must meet the demands of student needs. Below you will find the number of faculty teaching a WIC course each year.
  • 1994: 76
  • 1999: 125
  • 2004: 131
  • 2009: 140
  • 2014: 176
  • 2019: 180
• WIC courses come and go with changing needs in the majors, offering the undergraduate students well-designed Writing Intensive courses in their major with which to fulfill their Baccalaureate Core WIC requirement. Below you will find the cumulative number of individual WIC courses at Oregon State University. 
  • 1994: 110
  • 1999: 159
  • 2004: 205
  • 2009: 235
  • 2014: 275
  • 2019: 308
• From each of these individual courses, there may or may not be multiple sections taught in a year. Below you will find data surrounding the number of WIC sections taught in their respective year (example: while there were 110 courses offered since the birth of the program in 1994, only 98 sections were taught during the 1993-1994 school year).
  • 1994: 98
  • 1999: 181
  • 2004: 205
  • 2009: 230
  • 2014: 314
  • 2019: 325