One of the most important developments or events in the unit's history
In 2004 CEU's Center for Academic Writing was awarded the "Writing Program Certificate of Excellence" by the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the world's largest professional organization for researching and teaching composition. To date, CEU's CAW is the only European writing program to have ever received this prestigious award. The award recognizes, among other factors, the contribution made by the CAW in imaginatively addressing the needs and opportunities of its students, instructors, institution and locale; in using current best practices in the field; and in modelling diversity and serving diverse communities.
CEU's Center for Academic Writing hosted the EATAW (European Association of Teaching Academic Writing) conference twice in its history, in 2003 and 2013.
The most important development in 2014-15
- After 17 years as Director of the CAW, John Harbord left CEU in July 2015. Agnes Toth was appointed as Acting Director of the Center for AY 2015-16.
- To assess PhD writing needs at CEU, the CAW carried out a survey among PhD students from 11 doctoral programs and interviewed PhD heads as well as other interested faculty members between April and July 2015. The Center looked at existing writing-related support, students' confidence in their writing skills, and students' as well as PhD heads/faculty's interest in future writing support provided by the CAW.
Other important developments in 2014-15
- In AY 2014-15 the Center provided 3868 consultations (515 more than in the previous year) and offered 449 hours of writing courses along with 20 optional writing-related workshops.
- In AY 2014-15 the Center offered language courses in six languages (Hungarian, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese), which were attended by 576 participants.
- The Center introduced two new PhD courses in Gender Studies and Environmental Sciences and Policy, which have been integrated into these PhD programs' curriculum.
Engagement with external entities in 2014-15
- In 2014, the Center hosted a presentation and research skills workshop at CEU for doctoral and post-doctoral humanities and social sciences scholars in the framework of OSI's Central Asia Research and Training Initiative (CARTI).
- In 2014 at the Max Planck Institute in Halle, Germany, the Center was involved in a dissertation writing workshop for criminologists of all Max Planck Institutes in Germany
- CAW contributed to two writing courses for publication at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest in 2014.
- In 2015, the Center hosted a PhD writing course for students in the department of Political Science and Sociology at the European University, St. Petersburg, Russia.
- Under the Erasmus Teaching Mobility Scheme, the Center was involved in two workshops to doctoral and post-doctoral researchers at the European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy in 2015.
Faculty distinctions in 2014-15
Academic Writing Instructor Andrea Kirchknopf was awarded the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) book award for first books in the area "Literatures in the English language" for her monograph , entitled "Rewriting the Victorians: Modes of Literary Engagement with the 19th Century" (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2013). Kirchknopf is the first Hungarian researcher to win this distinction.
Major events in 2014-15
In 2014, to promote language learning, the Center organized the "Chinese Cultural Day", which drew more than 250 visitors engaging in activities such as calligraphy painting, Chinese mask painting, trying on Chinese wedding gowns, or completing a Chinese photo puzzle. In September 2015, Dr. Kimberly Gunter, the Director of Rhetoric and Composition at Appalachian State University, visited the Center to conduct research on how best to prepare multilingual students for writing in their major undergraduate departments, graduate programs and in academic publishing. She also gave a public talk entitled "Genre's Infrastructures and Ruptures in Fanfiction and Students' Academic Writing."
