Please refer to this guide for policies, procedures and information on teaching creative writing at Fordham University.
Creative Writing Faculty Guidebook
Table of Contents
Scroll down to access content or click on the below links.
Important Logistics
Access the Fordham Academic Year Calendar. Make sure to select your correct school.
Max Enrollment for Creative Writing classes: 15 students at Lincoln Center and 16 students at Rose Hill.
Classroom Locations & Class Roster: Approximately one week before the start of the semester you’ll be able to access the location of your courses and your class roster.
Log into my.fordham.edu
Go to hover over “My Pages” and select “Faculty”
Click on Faculty Services Dashboard (it’s the thumbnail picture on the left)
Click on Faculty Schedule
Select the correct Term: Fall 2XXX or Spring 2XXX
Click on CRN field to locate your course
How to Email Your Students via Blackboard
Login to Blackboard via my.fordham.edu
Click on “Tools” on the left-hand index
Click on “Qwickly Course Tools”
Click on Email
Requirements
As we continue to build community with Creative Writing students and faculty at Fordham, all creative writing classes attend two literary events. Please incorporate these into your syllabi. In this way, students will know to plan in advance to attend these events. (Credit for attendance at these events is usually figured into a student's participation grade for the class.)
Fall Semester: The Mary Higgins Clark Keynote Address AND one NYC literary event of the student's choosing. (This can be a virtual event.)
Spring Semester: The Reid Writers of Color Reading AND one NYC literary event of the student's choosing. We are asking all creative writing faculty to teach the Reid book as well.
Attendance at Faculty Meetings
Please fill out the Faculty Contact Form.
All new Creative Writing faculty members are observed 1- 2 times.
There is important correspondence (regarding grading, school closings, etc.) that comes from the Deans to your Fordham email address. It is important for you to either check your Fordham email regularly or have your Fordham email forwarded to your personal email address.
Teaching
All Creative Writing courses must include the following: (These elements should be integrated into your course design and clearly noted on your syllabus.)
At least 10 - 15 written pages turned in for instructor evaluation
At least 1 text (outside reading of some kind)
A grading rubric
We very strongly recommend using labor-based grading for Creative Writing classes.
Submitting Grades
Semester final grades are due within three (3) calendar days of the final examination date in the fall semester and within two (2) calendar days of the final examination in the spring semester. It is critically important that this deadline be observed in the spring semester to enable the clearance of seniors for graduation. Even one or two late ungraded classes can be extremely disruptive to the colleges and to many students. In the extraordinary event that this is impossible, the instructor must notify both the Office of Academic Records and the dean’s office. For more on grading policies, click here.
Login to my.fordham.edu
Click on the "Faculty" tab
Scroll down to the "Faculty Grade Assignment" section. You may need to click on "More" to see multiple classes.
Follow these Directions
Under “Hours Attended,” enter 37.5
Student Behavior Concerns
Because we teach creative writing, we often get to know our students' inner lives in a way other faculty may not and they may give voice to that stress. In fact, sometimes, what our students tell us through their creative work can be troubling, and we have no way of knowing whether the student is simply exercising his or her imagination, or whether it is an expression of emotional distress, be it mild or serious. Many of us have had this experience.
Under such conditions, especially if the work contains violent imagery or a character who is threatening harm to self or others, we can’t ethically treat this as business as usual. Under such conditions, you should ask the student to see you after class. At that time, tell the student you would like to meet with him or her privately. When you do meet with the student, explain that in reading the student’s work you wondered if the student was feeling troubled about something. You can, and should, say, "I'm wondering if you think you're in any danger of either hurting yourself or hurting others." See what the student says. If you’re reassured by what the student says, that might be that. If the student feels s/he is at risk of harming him- or herself or others, you should immediately walk the student over to the counseling center. If the student acknowledges being troubled in a way that you feel warrants intervention, gently tell the student that you are not a clinician, but out of your concern for the student you'd like to help the student get the help that seems warranted.
If the student acknowledges being troubled, please refer to these Faculty Guides for information on counseling and how to handle particular situations.
Counseling Center Information
Rose Hill Campus
441 East Fordham Road
O’Hare Hall Basement
Bronx, NY 10458
Phone: 718-817-3725
Fax: 718-817-3735
Lincoln Center Campus
155 West 60th Street
McMahon Hall Room 211
New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-636-6225
Fax: 212-636-6232
Information on how to contact Class Deans can be found here:
Communication
fordhamcreativefaculty@googlegroups.com
Creative Writing faculty members are given access to the Fordham Creative Writing Google Group: fordhamcreativefaculty@googlegroups.com. Important Creative Writing faculty information is delivered via this listserv. You may also use this listserv to share best teaching practices, opportunities for students, etc. with your colleagues. To minimize spam, you will be automatically be given access to the listserve during an academic year when you are teaching and removed when you are not teaching. Please do make liberal use of this email address and let’s share our questions, findings and successes. Let’s support each other and learn from each other.
Course Load
Adjunct faculty teach a maximum of one creative writing course per semester.
Writers in Residence teach two courses a semester.
Course Tutorials and Undergraduate Honors Theses: Only tenure-line and Writer in Residence faculty may direct these.
Creative Writing Faculty Meetings
Syllabus Recommendations & Language
ANTI-RACIST CREATIVE WRITING PEDAGOGY
We take an explicit stance toward incorporating anti-racist pedagogical practices within our classrooms. We strongly recommend that you read the two below texts.
The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop by Felicia Rose Chavez: We have acquired a free license for you to read this book. Access the book here. (You'll need to login with your my.fordham.edu credentials.)
The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop is a call to create healthy, sustainable, and empowering classroom communities. Award-winning educator Felicia Rose Chavez exposes the invisible politics of power and privilege that have silenced writers of color for far too long. It's more urgent than ever that we consciously work against traditions of dominance in the classroom, but what specific actions can we take to achieve authentically inclusive communities? Together, we will address how to:
Deconstruct our biases to achieve a cultural shift in perspective.
Design a democratic teaching model to create safe spaces for creative concentration.
Recruit, nourish, and fortify students of color to best empower them to exercise voice.
Embolden our students to self-advocate as responsible citizens in a globalized community.
Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses
The traditional writing workshop was established with white male writers in mind; what we call craft is informed by their cultural values. In this bold and original examination of elements of writing—including plot, character, conflict, structure, and believability—and aspects of workshop—including the silenced writer and the imagined reader—Matthew Salesses asks questions to invigorate these familiar concepts. He upends Western notions of how a story must progress.
LABOR BASED GRADING
We very strongly recommend using labor-based grading for Creative Writing classes.
See Asao B. Inoue’s
STATEMENT OF CARE
Your academic success in this course and throughout your college career depends on your personal health and well-being. Please feel free to talk with me about any difficulty you may be having that may impact your performance in this course as soon as it occurs and before it becomes unmanageable. Please know there are a number of campus support services that stand ready to assist you. I strongly encourage you to contact them when needed.
SAMPLE STATEMENT ON ANTIRACIST COMMITMENT (As given by Crystal Colombini)
As a cisgendered, straight, white professor, I am aware of my privilege in teaching your class this semester. My goal is to use that privilege to make this composition course not only inclusive and equitable but also explicitly antiracist, including by standing with Fordham University and the English Department in unequivocally supporting the vital truth of Black Lives Matter and its charge to all of us to recognize biases, confront privilege, and labor toward justice for all Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). During this semester, you can expect that we will discuss complex issues related to racial and other intersectional forms of social justice. My hope is that as we engage these issues, our virtual classroom will become what Lucia Pawlowski calls a “brave space,” in which members courageously and respectfully navigate difficult topics.
OTHER SAMPLE SYLLABUS STATEMENTS FOR EMPATHY, INCLUSIVITY, AND CARE
CHOSEN NAME POLICY
Some members of the Fordham community are known by a name that is different from their legal name. Students who wish to be identified by a chosen name can contact their English faculty members via email and request their chosen name and pronoun be used.
DISABILITY STATEMENT
If you are a student with a documented disability and require academic accommodations, you need to register with the Office of Disability Services for Students (ODS) in order to request academic accommodations for your courses. Please contact the main ODS office at Rose Hill at 718-817-0655 to arrange services. Staff at ODS can walk you through the process and arrange appointments depending on which campus you take courses. Accommodations are not retroactive, so you need to register with ODS prior to receiving your accommodations. Please see me after class or during office hours if you have questions or would like to submit your academic accommodation letter to me if you are already registered for accommodations with Fordham.
Classroom Observations
All new Creative Writing instructors are observed 1- 2 times.
Before the Observation
If these are available, your observer will read your student SEEQ evaluations.
Your observer will email you to request a syllabus and work out a time to visit your class.
After the Observation
Within one week of the observation, your observer will contact you on the results of the observation.
A second observation may be scheduled.
Observation forms can are completed and filed electronically via DocuSign
Academic Calendar & Payroll Schedule
For full-time faculty, click on "Faculty Pay Schedule"
For adjunct faculty, click on correct semester of "Adjunct Processing Schedule."