Conference Theme

This year's conference theme, Re: Writing -- Our Profession, Our Practices, Our Principles, invites us to share ideas and perspectives on the following issues:

Writing faces an existential crisis due to AI, which threatens writing’s significance as a human skill. Composition as a profession has veered away from essential rhetorical and stylistic skills, instead embracing topics in Social Science, Psychology, pop culture, and other fields. This shift has led to student disengagement as they find these topics hard to relate to. AI's allure adds to the problem, potentially creating disengaged students relying on AI for their writing needs.

The conference theme urges us to reassess our practices. While social and cultural concerns are valuable, we must find a balance. Indeed, AI can aid writing, but it requires moderation. If we want to focus on human engagement and genuine learning, how can composition faculty return writing to the forefront?