University Advancement

Public Relations and Strategic Communications

NEWS RELEASE

Northridge English Professor Selected for Fulbright Senior Specialist Program

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Nov. 3, 2006) -- Irene Clark, professor of English and director of composition at Cal State Northridge since 2002, recently joined a select group of U.S. faculty and professionals who pursue research and academic projects abroad as part of the Fulbright Senior Specialists Program.

The Fulbright program notified Clark in September of her acceptance into the senior specialist program, which provides short-term—from two to six weeks—grant opportunities for American academics who would like to engage in research and teaching opportunities abroad.

Clark hopes to take advantage of this opportunity to pursue a scholarly direction that has influenced much of her professional life: writing and the teaching of writing.

As a senior specialist, Clark would like to spend six to eight weeks in fall 2007 at Queen Mary University, London, where she would teach and conduct research in the field of academic writing.

The author of numerous articles and five books on writing, Clark is at work on a new book, "Writing the Successful Thesis and Dissertation/Entering the Conversation," to be published by Prentice Hall in spring 2007.

While teaching academic writing at historic Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where graduate students must publish in English as a means of entering the academic community, Clark observed that "it wasn’t the language that was the problem; it was students’ unfamiliarity with the genre of academic writing, which is the case whenever students attempt to write for a new discourse community."

Her interest in helping students acquire genre awareness led to a journal article called "Thesis Proposals as Genre," which gave Clark the idea for a book on additional aspects of thesis and dissertation writing.

"Students need to know how to develop a workable idea, how to write a literature review, how to revise," she said, adding that the book also will include practical information such as choosing an advisor and working with members of a dissertation committee.

Clark is working on a fourth edition of another book, "Writing in the Center: Teaching in a Writing Center Setting," which won the National Writing Centers Award several years ago. "Writing centers now exist in countries all over the world," she said, and "it is necessary to inform the book with an international perspective."