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YU News

Fitzgerald Wins Editorial Award

Dr. Lauren Fitzgerald, associate professor of English and director of the Wilf Campus Writing Center, has won the Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. Since 2008, Dr. Fitzgerald has co-edited The Writing Center Journal with Melissa Ianetta, associate professor of English and Director of Writing at the University of Delaware. Founded in 1980, the Writing Center Journal is the oldest, most selective, most widely circulated peer-reviewed journal in writing center studies, which is that branch of writing studies focused on one-to-one writing instruction, and the means by which writing centers can best contribute to their institutions’ writing cultures. The Phoenix Award goes to the most improved journal, regardless of its state at the time the renovations began. A weak journal that has become excellent is eligible, but so too is an admired journal that manages to become dramatically better. Submissions must feature significant editorial change and may also feature change in design and other aspects of the journal's publication. Fitzgerald and Ianetta made several refinements to WCJ, including a complete change to the journal's look. Other additions: a well-received new feature, “Theory In/To Practice,” that spotlights innovations in teaching; a series of writing workshops at several international conferences for aspiring WCJ authors; and the targeting of special issues to foster the growth of the field. On this last front, “An Alternative History: WCJ at 30” has been the best-selling issue of the journal to date.