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This essay revisits and expands on Gary A. Olson and Joseph M. Moxley's 1989 article "Directing Freshman Composition: The Limits of Authority" by looking at revised notions of writing program administrators' work and authority in 2012. Whereas the original essay surveyed only department chairs, our study includes data from both department chairs and directors of first-year writing to explore issues of authority. The essay complicates Olson and Moxley's notion of authority, distinguishing among power, authority, and influence, and examining how they inflect the work of directors of first- year writing. In addition, common assumptions about the connections between WPAs' tenure status and authority are re-examined in light of survey results.
Not long after its 1989 publication, Gary A. Olson and Joseph M. Moxley's "Directing Freshman Composition: The Limits of Authority" became the article for discussing writing program administrators' roles within their departments and who had, and who should have, authority or power within the first-year composition program.1 Attempting to ascertain how much and what kind of authority WPAs had over the first-year composition program, their study asked 250 English department chairs-with 143 responding-about the roles of directors of first-year composition and their participation in the creation and implementation of policy affecting the composition program. The results offered insights into the power and authority issues, concerns, and experiences of directors of first-year composition in the 1980s from the perspective of those with whom they most frequently worked.
Olson and Moxley's article remains one of the few large-scale surveys about non-WPAs' views on the power and authority held (or not held) by writing program administrators, and it has generated much discussion in composition studies.2 Some authors discussed ways of "becoming" more powerful (White) whereas other research cited Olson and Moxley to explore more specifically the issues over which WPAs should have authority (Gerrard; Miller; Harris; Holdstein).
Still other research pointed out the patriarchal and traditional assump- tions implicit and explicit in the survey questions and its results, as well as the administrative model being investigated. Jeanne Gunner noted that Olson and Moxley endorse a tenured director who controls program hiring and policymak- ing, a model that "perpetuates the traditional power relationship that exists between the WPA and writing instructors, especially those who do not hold tenure-track...