Louisiana Tech University’s Technical Writing Program is launching a new fellowship opportunity for Technical Writing undergraduate and graduate students seeking experience in academic editing and publications management.
The Eunice C. Williamson Technical Writing Fellowship in Academic Editing and Publications Management is a collaboration between Louisiana Tech’s Technical Writing Program and the WAC Clearinghouse. The fellowship gives Technical Writing students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in a variety of academic editing and publications management roles while also helping students build their skills for future careers in editing, publishing, and related fields.
As Dr. Kirk St.Amant, coordinator of the Technical Writing Program at LA Tech explains, “The fellowship provides Technical Writing students with both the breadth and depth of professional experience needed to succeed in the editing and publishing industries of today – and tomorrow.”
The fellowship’s external partner, the WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum) Clearinghouse, is a nonprofit publishing organization that produces open-access, peer-reviewed books, journals, and instructional resources on writing studies and related disciplines (see wacclearinghouse.org). More than 250 scholars on six continents serve as editors, peer reviewers, and editorial board members, and the Clearinghouse partners with numerous professional organizations and publishers—including the National Council of Teachers of Writing, the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum, the University Press of Colorado, and Parlor Press—to pursue its mission of providing free access to scholarly and professional publications.
Williamson Fellowship recipients will collaborate with representatives of the WAC Clearinghouse Editorial Management Team to engage in a variety of practices related to academic publishing and working with an academic publisher. Specific fellowship activities will be negotiated in advance by the fellowship recipient, a representative of the WAC Clearinghouse, and Dr. Kirk St.Amant, director of the Louisiana Tech Technical Writing Program.
As Dr. Mike Palmquist, founding editor and publisher of the WAC Clearinghouse explains, “One of our key goals is long-term sustainability. Partnerships such as the Williamson Fellowships bring younger scholars into our publishing collaborative. Their new ideas and insights about open-access publishing will make a tremendous contribution to our collective work.”
To be eligible for the Fellowship, applicants must be full-time Tech students with a declared Technical Writing minor or be enrolled in the Graduate Certificate Program in Technical Writing. Eligible applicants must have completed at least three Technical Writing courses, be juniors or seniors (undergraduate) or in their final year of study (graduate), and have a 3.0 cumulative GPA and 3.5 GPA in Technical Writing coursework.
To learn more about the Williamson Fellowship, please contact Dr. Kirk St.Amant at stamantk@latech.edu.