Wheaton Wins National Recognition for Writing! The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), an association within the National Council of Teachers of English, has awarded the Wheaton College Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Program the 2010-2011 Writing Program Certificate of Excellence. The certificate, which is awarded to a maxmimum of 20 writing programs a year, is based on the ability to demonstrate that the program imaginatively addresses the needs and opportunities of its students, instructors, institution, and locale; the program offers exemplary ongoing professional development for faculty; the program uses current best practices in the field of composition and rhetoric; the program administrator has academic credentials in writing; the program uses effective, ongoing assessment; the program uses effective placement procedures; class size is appropriate; and the program models diversity. The award selection committee notes that Wheaton has an exemplar program for a small college. The Wheaton WAC program offers extensive faculty development and support. Faculty workshops are held regularly on various topics related to the teaching of writing such as helping students work with sources in research-based writing and giving feedback on student papers. The program also offers faculty consultations and meetings, as well as class writing workshops led by writing experts. The committee praised Wheaton for capping first-year writing courses at 16 students and demonstrating a strong institutional commitment to the program, evidenced by a number of new hires. The Wheaton program's innovative, collaborative, cross-disciplinary work was further commended by the committee. The Writing Program Certificate of Excellence was presented and publicly announced at the 2011 Conference on College Composition and Communication in Atlanta, Georgia in April.