The New Normal ─ Pressures on Technical Communication Programs in the Age of Austerity

As colleges and universities across the country continue to deal with regular decreases in state funding, technical communication programs, in particular, are being forced to “do more with less.” As budget cuts become the new normal, the long-term health of technical communication depends on our ability to evolve and adapt to an array of internal, external, and technological pressures. The New Normal: Pressures on Technical Communication Programs in the Age of Austerity explores the ways technical communication programs are responding to conditions of economic austerity and investigates how smaller programs, or programs situated in smaller institutions, use increasingly limited resources to meet the challenges of increased student demand, the responsibilities of teaching service courses effectively, the technological demands for online education, and the constant pressure to prepare our students appropriately for the ever-changing needs of the job market in technical communication. More specifically, the contributors to this collection are overtly conscious of the marginalized/peripheral status of technical communication programs within both small and large institutions. This awareness allows them to articulate specific ways that austerity has had a direct, and local, effect on a particular technical communication program and to describe short- and long-term strategies for creating sustainable futures for a technical communication program, despite cuts and marginalization.

DENISE TILLERY is an associate professor of rhetoric and writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has published thirteen articles and presented more than twenty papers at national conferences on topics including environmental communication, gender and rhetoric, and program design and administration. She serves on the editorial board for Technical Communication Quarterly and is a reviewer for Technical Communication Quarterly, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, and Science Communication. Tillery has also served the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing as liaison to the Modern Language Association. ED NAGELHOUT is a professor of rhetoric and writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He has coedited two collections (Contrastive Rhetoric: Reaching to Intercultural Rhetoric, 2008; Classroom Spaces and Writing Instruction, 2004), published seventeen articles, and presented more than eighty papers on a variety of topics, including writing program administration, teaching in digital environments, technical communication, and writing in the disciplines. He has served as coeditor of the ATTW Bulletin (2003–2010), as a Stage I Reviewer for CCCC, and as a reviewer for Online Writing Instructor, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, and Journal of Business and Technical Communication.