May Workshop Overview

Workshop FAQ

For additional information, see May Workshop FAQ and Calendar.

Pictures

Pictures of workshop participants from 2005 and 2006. We hope to have a few pictures from 2007 up shortly!

Schedule

For a look at this year's activities, see the 2008 Student Information Packet (use bookmarks to navigate) or the 2008 Faculty Workshop Schedule. It includes the following, among other things:

• an overview of the schedule
• a detailed annual review w/  committee info
• a detailed presentation schedule
• a list of faculty office hours (*not* open hours; schedule appointments)

Memo explaining the mandatory nature of workshop (pdf).

Dates

The May workshop dates for 2008 are Monday, May 12th - Saturday, May 24th. Your accommodations will be available on Sunday, May 11th (arrive on Sunday so you will be ready for activities on the 12th), and you are encouraged to stay Saturday night the 24th, when we will have our farewell dinner for you.

Guest speakers

• Robert Johnson (author of User-Centered Technology)
• Mary Sue MacNealy (author of Strategies for Empirical Research in Writing)

Cost & Credit

Financial Planning & Billing

The flat fee for the workshop will be approximately $1500, which will include room, most board, and all activities. In addition, plan your summer finances to account for courses:

• If you have not yet finished coursework, plan to spend the normal amount for two 3-credit courses Summer I  (one of which you will work on during the workshop).
• If you are preparing for qualifying exams, plan to enroll in at least one credit of ENGL 7000.
• If you are working on your dissertation, plan to enroll in at least one credit of ENGL 8000.

Because the workshop is listed as a Summer I course, you will be billed for it and for your summer courses at the same time. Most likely, you will see the following:

• Tuition (for your courses)
• Mandatory fees (university fees applied when you enroll in courses)
• Course fees (currently $4 per credit hour*)
• Room and Board (part of the May Workshop)
• Special Inst. Fees (the rest of the May Workshop fee plus your distance learning fee, which is currently $140 per 3-credit course*)

*last updated May 2007

Workshop (no course credit) vs. Courses

The workshop does not carry any course credit, although participants will be engaged in lab activities every day. These lab activities are a prerequisite for the summer-long courses in Usability Testing (new students), Document Design (second-year students), and other courses with a lab component (currently New Media Rhetoric, taken by third-year students). In fact, they comprise a huge portion of those courses.

What this means is that you will attend the workshop and you will also sign up for a summer course (usability testing, document design, and so on). They are two separate things. Since you will have done all of your lab work for your course during your workshop stay, you won't have that much to do to complete your course credit: a report and a final exam, most likely. Therefore, you will be able to take a second course in the summertime, one which will be more of a normal course experience, thereby staying on track to take 4 courses per calendar year.

Rationale

The reason the workshop is not the same thing as a course is somewhat complex.

1. Participants will be in Lubbock even after they're finished with coursework, so it doesn't make sense for the workshop to be equated to a course.
2. The workshop serves to build the tacit knowledge that residency in an on-site program develops, and residency experiences don't equate with course credit.
3. Billing and tracking of this event was going to be considerably complicated if it was a course because it's too short for a normal course and we would have to propose exceptions to the rules to get course credit.
4. The workshop involves many, many events that are not part of organized coursework and it was going to be difficult to "make" you do all those extra things for course credit.

So this arrangement was what ended up being workable with the various entities involved, including student business services, the dean, the graduate school, and the president's office.

Registration

You will register for the May workshop when you register for summer and fall classes. Registration begins April 1st, 2008. See the May Workshop FAQ for more information on how to enroll.

Contact

Workshop coordinator is Susan Youngblood (susan.youngblood@ttu.edu)

Graduate secretary is Christy Barbee (christy.a.barbee@ttu.edu)

Last Update: May 09, 2008