Unearthing the story behind Lafayette’s College Writing Program

Ethan Eisenberg ’28 (far left), Emma Hetrick (center left), Bianca Falbo (center right), and Jessi Kleiber ’27 (far right) are teaming up this summer to research and digitally document the College Writing Program’s history. | Photos by JaQuan Alston

By Stella Katsipoutis-Varkanis

Bianca Falbo, associate professor of English and CWP director

Tucked away in Room 319 of Pardee Hall, home of Lafayette’s College Writing Program (CWP), are boxes of decades-old files discovered throughout the building over the years. What they hold tells CWP’s origin story—a story that, until now, has remained elusive.

This summer, Bianca Falbo, associate professor of English and CWP director, and Emma Hetrick, CWP coordinator, are working alongside student researchers Ethan Eisenberg ’28 and Jessi Kleiber ’27 to dive into these archival materials—which include anything from Writing Associate (WA) narratives and student writing samples to payroll documents and program evaluations—and digitally document CWP’s history.

Emma Hetrick, CWP coordinator

“Lafayette is one of the first schools in the U.S. to have a writing associate program and to have writing as a primary part of the curriculum,” Hetrick says. “There’s a lot to learn from the program’s rich history, and it’s really exciting to have the opportunity to take an in-depth look at the past in a way that will help shape what the program could be in the future.” With CWP preparing to celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, the timing of the project couldn’t be better.

As a Bergh Family Fellow and EXCEL Scholar, respectively, Eisenberg and Kleiber have dedicated their summer to advancing the research project, which began in 2023. Since May, they have played a key role in evaluating, organizing, and digitally archiving the physical documents while conducting their own research to construct a comprehensive, accessible timeline of CWP that can eventually be shared with the Lafayette community and beyond.

Ethan Eisenberg ’28, history and math double major and writing associate

Working with Special Collections and College Archives, and interviewing various CWP alumni as well as Patricia Donahue, professor emeritus of English and CWP founder, Eisenberg and Kleiber have gained hands-on experience with primary sources while uncovering the program’s history and learning the archival process. “We’ve had a lot of conversations with students about what it means to construct an archive and tell a history, what counts as evidence, what should be saved or discarded, and how to make those decisions,” Falbo says. The students, she adds, are also helping to organize a fall panel of former WAs who will speak to the campus community about how their experiences in CWP shaped their lives beyond Lafayette. “I can’t imagine working with better, more interested, and more dedicated students than Jessi and Ethan,” she says. 

Jessi Kleiber, English major and writing associate

Kleiber, an English major and WA who also worked on the project last summer, says the panel will highlight CWP’s lasting impact and inspire current student writers. “Student writing is valuable, and we want to help students to become better writers—not necessarily by an academic or industry standard, but in the sense of whatever better writing means to them,” she says. “We want them to feel more confident in expressing themselves and their ideas.”

Because research on undergraduate writing programs at small colleges remains relatively limited, Falbo hopes the team’s work will also contribute to scholarship in the field. “Larger institutions can learn from colleges like Lafayette, which has a robust and successful writing program, a rich culture of investing in students’ writing since our founding, and close interaction between faculty and students,” she says. “It’s like filling a gap in disciplinary history.”

For Eisenberg, a history and math double major and WA, Lafayette’s close-knit campus culture is what makes student research at the College especially meaningful. “We actually get to know our professors as people too, and it’s pretty exceptional we get to collaborate with them on their research,” he says. Eisenberg, who hopes to earn a graduate degree in history and eventually pursue a career in historical research, adds that working closely with Falbo and Hetrick has allowed him to directly apply classroom learning and sharpen skills essential to his future profession. 

Falbo hopes the research project, which began in 2023, will continue preserving CWP’s history for decades to come.

Kleiber, who hopes to pursue a graduate degree in either English literature or rhetoric and composition, says participating in the CWP history project has helped her find her voice. “I’ve gained a sense of empowerment and feel like it’s OK for me to say what I want to say in my writing, and how I want to say it,” she says. “It’s also helped me grow my critical thinking skills, going through the process of figuring out what we want the narrative to be and making sure we’re encompassing as many perspectives as possible. Getting to talk about student writing has been the best part of this experience for me.”

The excitement of discovery has Falbo looking forward to the project’s future, which she hopes will continue preserving CWP’s story for decades to come. “It’s the kind of project where you don’t actually know what you’re going to find because you’re doing something exploratory,” she says. “I can’t wait to see what else we find that we didn’t even know was there.”