By Dr. Julie Birt and Dr. Christy Goldsmith

When teaching and service demands compete with time for writing, faculty often struggle to sustain their own scholarly work. This article argues that writing retreats are an essential institutional strategy, drawing on survey data from 2018 and 2024 that highlight persistent writing barriers and growing retreat demand. The findings suggest that writing retreats provide structure, accountability, and community, and help faculty reclaim writing as legitimate, supported work.

Introduction

For many faculty—especially those with teaching appointments—writing is the work that never quite fits into the day. Heavy teaching loads, advising, and service often push scholarly writing to the margins, even as publishing remains closely tied to professional advancement and intellectual fulfillment. At our university, teaching faculty are often required to complete a big writing project, such as a book or textbook, to earn their full teaching professor appointment. Recent research in our writing program (Goldsmith & Birt, 2025) suggests that as writing intensive courses increasingly rely on teaching faculty, these disconnects might become more common. Similar shifts are now evident among the faculty writers who attend Campus Writing Program (CWP) writing retreats. For more than 15 years, the CWP has prioritized support for faculty writing by offering regular writing retreats. To better understand their impact and to justify the continued use of university funding and space, we conducted a program evaluation drawing on both recent and historical data from retreat participants.

Program Description and Evaluation

The Campus Writing Program is housed in the historic Conley House, which has long served as a site for writing retreats for all faculty, not just those who teach our writing intensive courses. During each retreat, the entire first floor is reserved for writing and includes three large rooms furnished with conference tables and side chairs. The Campus Writing Program or sponsoring units provide coffee, snacks, and a catered lunch. Programming is intentionally minimal. Retreats begin with a brief welcome, introductions, and goal-setting, after which participants work independently on their writing projects. 

To better understand how the writing retreats have changed over time related to faculty roles, writing challenges, and support needs, we examined responses from two identical Qualtrics surveys—one from 2018 and one from 2024—completed by those who participated in the retreats. Participants reflected on their academic roles, the kinds of writing they work on, what makes writing difficult, and what they find most valuable about the retreats. Open-ended responses also gave faculty space to share, in their own words, how the retreats support their writing and what they hope to see in the future.

Program Outcomes

Overall, we observed a modest increase in participation by newer, non-tenure-track faculty (12% in 2018; 15% in 2024), alongside a substantial increase in graduate student participation (8% in 2018; 26% in 2024). On average, respondents attended four to five retreats during the 2023–24 academic year, suggesting that participants found the experience valuable enough to return multiple times.

Across both 2018 and 2024 surveys, faculty respondents identified “not having enough time to write” (19% in 2018; 25% in 2024) and “having many teaching responsibilities” (19% in 2028; 13% in 2024) as their primary writing challenges. Although non-tenure-track faculty are not required to publish, the types of writing completed during retreats remained consistent across both data sets. Common outputs included research articles, grant proposals, conference submissions, and book chapters.

The faculty also reported similar benefits from retreat participation across years. Protected writing time (25% in 2018; 21% in 2024), access to a quiet space (17% in 2018; 16% in 2024), and a sense of community with other writers (12% in both years) were the most frequently cited benefits. While food and refreshments were appreciated, respondents did not identify them as the primary value of the retreats.

Differences emerged, however, when participants were asked about future needs. In 2018, respondents most often requested more frequent retreats (61%) and continued provision of food and drinks (57%). In contrast, 2024 respondents overwhelmingly emphasized the need for more retreats (87%) offered more frequently at the Conley House (71%), in addition to requesting more off-campus retreats (44%). As we offer more writing retreats per year, the demand continues for even more retreats. These findings suggest that faculty interest in more writing retreats has intensified and that demand now extends even beyond the current offerings.

Participant Feedback

Recent retreat participants (2024) shared consistently positive feedback when reflecting on their experiences. Most importantly, the connection to the writing process is noted, which is an added bonus for us as a writing program. One attendee noted:

Honestly, it has been one of my best academic experiences. Everyone has been so amazing. I attribute much of my success to the staff and retreat environment at Conley. I’ve also gained a more comprehensive understanding of the writing process. I used to think it was merely structures, words, grammar, but now I understand it’s such a complex and rich activity.

Participant comments also highlighted the role of retreats in supporting concrete scholarly productivity. As one faculty member explained:

It’s hard to quantify now, but each time I participate in a writing retreat, I make tangible progress on writing projects. At the moment, I know that I’ve completed a grant proposal, two book chapters, at least one conference proposal, and a blog post on my current research project.

In short, our survey results show that the retreats help faculty move writing from an abstract goal to tangible, ongoing scholarly work.

Many 2024 attendees further emphasized how retreats helped them balance teaching responsibilities with writing. One participant reflected that “[the retreat] gave me a drive to work on all of my neglected research work because of my teaching duties,” while another noted, “Writing retreats provide me with invaluable time and accountability to dedicate time to my writing projects and to say no to other demands on my time.” Nearly half of the respondents underscored the importance of this dedicated time, particularly the opportunity to write alongside like-minded colleagues. Taken together, these responses suggest that writing retreats offer more than time on the calendar; they create a supportive, collegial space that enables faculty to prioritize writing and make steady, meaningful progress.

Future Plans and Challenges

As more non-tenure-track faculty teach writing intensive courses and attend writing retreats, the Campus Writing Program faces an important strategic decision. We can expand support for faculty writing by increasing the frequency of retreats, as many participants have requested, or we can redirect resources toward workshops, pedagogical support, or incentives for contingent faculty. Often, these retreats are the first introduction to the CWP staff for non-writing intensive faculty. During the 2023–24 academic year, 211 faculty attended CWP workshops, while retreat attendance totaled 366—suggesting that retreats reach a broader segment of the faculty population, including individuals who may not typically attend writing intensive teaching-focused programming. 

Research also indicates that non-tenure-track faculty often experience challenges related to professional identity in the absence of recent publications (Lynch-Biniek & Cox, 2024). Our findings suggest that writing retreats help faculty reclaim writing as legitimate, supported work rather than an activity often deferred due to teaching and service obligations.  As budgets tighten, prioritizing shared time and space for faculty writing can yield significant returns. At a moment when faculty are asked to do more with less, writing retreats offer something increasingly rare, such as time, recognition, and community. Together, these resources support academic writers across all ranks, especially teaching faculty who play a central role in writing instruction across the curriculum.

Acknowledgements

This project wouldn’t have been possible without the background data collection and analyses begun by my colleagues, Amy Lannin and Lina Trigos-Carrillo, in 2018.

References 

Goldsmith, C., & Birt, J.A. (2025, conditional acceptance). Sustaining faculty governance in a changing academy: A longitudinal study of the Campus Writing Board. Submitted to 2025 International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference Proceedings. 

Lynch-Biniek, A., & Cox, A. (2024). Time, non-tenure-track labor, and the academic knowledge economy in English studies: Let’s break the scholarship machine. College Composition and Communication, 75(4), 675-703. https://doi.org/10.58680/ccc2024754675

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About the Authors

Julie A. Birt is the Assistant Director of the University of Missouri’s Campus Writing Program. Julie’s research follows her interests in helping post-secondary instructors use writing in their college classrooms to reach all students, especially those with a rural background.

Christy Goldsmith is the Associate Director of the Campus Writing Program and an Assistant Teaching Professor of English Education at the University of Missouri. She teaches education and qualitative research methods courses. Christy’s research around writerly identities, multimodal literacy practices, and faculty development explores the tensions inherent in writing instruction.