One thing about the program will never change, Sommers says: its emphasis on revisions. She says students must learn to rewrite their own work. So Sommers is asking Expos teachers to spend more time in individual conferences with students in order to work out the kinks in different drafts.
The new Expos director also has a number of long-term projects at various stages of development.
The program is compiling a booklet on the use of sources in academic writing for dispersal throughout the College. Sommers and others in Expos are expanding their work as consultants for core classes and sophomore tutorials.
In Dunster House, Sommers and Suzi Naiburg, an Expos teacher and the new senior tutor, have arranged for a special non-resident writing tutor, Kerry Walk, to join the house staff. Sommers hopes that one day writing tutors, which have been a successful part of Yale's composition program, will be standard fare in the undergraduate houses.
"The idea is that we want someone close at hand to work with students on all phases of writing," Naiburg said this week.
Four-Year Rule
Sommers is non-committal on the most controversial subject amongst those who work in Expos: the four-year limit on teacher tenure.
Dozens of current and former teachers as well as some University officials blasted the rule in a three-part Crimson series last October. They said the rule forces good teachers to leave Harvard just as they are hitting their stride in the Expos program. And it distracts from the business of teaching.
"I don't think students are served by a four-year rule," teacher William Rice said like fall. "If there's a four-year rule, people will wind up going out on the job market before their time is up."
"I don't understand a system that forces people out after four years," James D. Wilkinson '65, director of the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, said last fall. "If good teachers want to stay around for 30 years, we should let them."
Sommers says she is more concerned with making teachers happy than with the limit on tenure. While teachers say she has considered extending the limit to five or six years, Sommers will only say the matter is likely to be discussed by the Standing Faculty Committee on Expos at some point this year.
For her, the four-year rule is not nearly as important as improving the quality of writing instruction at Harvard.
"It's wonderful to work in an environment where we have support to try these initiatives," she says. "Being director of the writing program at Harvard carries enormous opportunities.