Sept. 17, 2002
PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools Moves
to Mount Vernon Campus
Program Leaves Folger Shakespeare Library
By Thomas
Kohout
In a one-year agreement reached this summer between the The PEN/Faulkner
Foundation and The George Washington University, the literary foundations
prestigious Writers in Schools program will make its home on the Mount
Vernon Campus.
For us its so wonderful to be in an academic setting with
access to so many resources, says Carolyn Ruffs Spellman, Writers
in Schools coordinator. She explains that the program simply had outgrown
its space at the Folger Shakespeare Library, where the rest of the PEN/Faulkner
Foundation is based. The programs new digs are located in the
toney confines of the Webb building overlooking the new athletic fields.
They wanted to find the right kind of environment to move into,
says Executive Dean of Mount Vernon Campus Grae Baxter. When the
chair of the PEN/Faulkner program contacted President Trachtenberg,
he thought first of Mount Vernon because we are developing the campus
as a center of academic excellence. With the atmosphere and focus on
campus, it seemed like a compatible environment.
President Trachtenberg sees this as a part of our overall commitment
to reach out to the community and build partnerships. This is really
a connection, a vital and intellectually-based, connection with an important
cultural organization in our community. Our hope is that the Mount Vernon
Campus can find ways to participate in this series in some synergistic
program, perhaps with the University-wide writing initiative.
Writers in Schools is a literary arts outreach program committed to
developing the next generation of readers and writers. The program connects
area high school students with prominent authors and copies of their
latest works.
Its amazing how inspiring this is for kids, says Spellman.
To them any author is famous, so this is a really overwhelming
experience.
Spellman explains that the program helps to teach writing and cultivate
new generations of fiction readers by providing works of fiction, supplied
by the publishers, to the schools, as well as classroom materials to
help teachers integrate these books into their curriculum. Then the
authors visit the students for a class period and talk to the students
about fiction and writing. The 14-year program has been so successful,
says Spellman, that Ford Motor Company underwrote a national program.
The Writers in Schools series in now up and running in Detroit. They
will launch an additional program in Kansas City this fall, another
in Atlanta by January, and they hope to set up shop in Los Angeles by
summer 2003.
Students across the country are coming into universities and,
even though they had straight As, and they are talented, intelligent
students, they cant write, says Baxter, citing the growing
need for programs such as Writers in Schools. [Students] just
arent being prepared in their elementary, secondary, and high
schools.
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu