Rhetoric Overview

Hampden-Sydney's Rhetoric Program is based on a 1978 faculty resolution that states, All Hampden-Sydney graduates will write competently. The Program is designed to assure that all graduates can write clearly, cogently, and grammatically.

The program consists of course work and examinations, supported by a writing center staffed by faculty and peer tutors.

Placement:
Entering students write a diagnostic exam. While some may be exempted from writing courses because they demonstrate proficiency in writing, most students will enroll in Rhetoric 101, in which students learn to write expository and argumentative essays and to edit their work effectively, and then in Rhetoric 102, in which students hone their writing skills, learn to write researched essays, and work intensively on "rhetorical grammar" so that they can communicate their ideas in effective prose. Students who need preparation for the regular sequence of Rhetoric courses are enrolled in Rhetoric 100, a course that also focuses on argumentative writing and that helps students learn to write prose free from what the college identifies as major sentence-level errors.

Program requirements:
In each rhetoric course, students compose and revise numerous essays and take final essay and editing examinations. At the end of their sophomore year they write a three-hour timed essay on a topic not foreign to their experience. Rhetoric students may also participate in an annual essay contest. No student may be graduated from Hampden-Sydney College without attaining and demonstrating proficiency in writing.

The value of the Rhetoric Program:
While the rhetoric requirement may sound formidable to many freshmen, those who apply themselves to the task of learning to write well find the requirement fair and manageable-and well worth the effort. Hampden-Sydney graduates regularly tell us that in competitive situations - in professional and graduate schools, as well as in the job market-they have had a considerable advantage over other candidates because the rhetoric program gave them the ability to think clearly and write concisely - skills employers and graduate schools consistently demand and reward.

Class size:
All rhetoric classes have a 14-student maximum enrollment so that professors have sufficient time to read and grade their students' essays carefully and so that they have time to meet with their students in individual conferences at least twice each semester.

Unified goals among sections: Despite the relatively large number of sections of rhetoric that the College offers each semester (from 20 to 30), the staff works together to ensure unity of goals for the courses. The staff achieves a measure of standardization by sharing a common text (currently The Bedford Handbook, 5th ed.), by basing syllabi on a common set of guidelines for each course (though there is considerable variety in how individual instructors design their courses), by participating in several workshops each year, and by creating and administering common final essay and editing exams. There are also frequent staff meetings--one every three to four weeks--so that instructors may discuss particular problems in the Program and, more generally, goals and standards appropriate to the Program.

Staffing the Program:
In addition to the new position being added in 2002-2003, there are currently three full-time tenurable positions in the Rhetoric Program. The co-directors of the Writing Center hold two of those positions; a specialist in Oral Rhetoric and director of the Speaking Center holds the third. Other rhetoric instructors are members of academic departments throughout the College, especially the Departments of English and Classics. Professors from Modern Languages, Chemistry, Biology, Political Science, Religion, Philosophy, and Fine Arts teach classes in the Program when their schedules allow them to do so. This year five adjunct associate professors of Rhetoric and four lecturers in rhetoric complete the staff.