By Jonathan Cardew & Dr. Irina Negrea

Celebrating its second anniversary, The WACademic has grown into a vibrant digital third space where educators gather to share their discoveries and reflections without the pressures of formal publication. Reviewing a successful year of 23 publications and a leap in global readership, this retrospective celebrates our community’s explorations of two key areas: balancing the human voice with artificial intelligence (AI), and cultivating inclusive, empathy-driven spaces for faculty and learners. Looking ahead, we are excited to open our doors wider to outside contributors and new formats, proving that a multi-authored blog is a deeply rewarding way to connect and flourish together. 

Here at The WACademic, we editors are scratching our heads and blinking in disbelief at the speedy passage of time, but, like parents, we are also gazing upon the numbers, the interactions, and, of course, the excellent scholarly content with no small amount of pride. What progress we have made in just two years!

As we’ve reflected on this milestone, we’ve also been thinking a lot about spaces—communal spaces in which to learn, grow, and share. Our trusty blog continues to provide this vital third space for faculty at Purdue Global and beyond to exchange pedagogical practices, research projects in progress, and reflections on writing across the curriculum without the constraints of a more formal publication. As Carter and Nguyen (2024) observe, this type of third space “encourages a more egalitarian status among participants because it operates based on shared interest rather than on institutionally prescribed relationships” (p. 279). Basically, we provide a cool space, and we know it.

So, without further ado, we’d like to share some numbers, highlights, and themes from Year Two, while also looking ahead to Year Three and the blog’s future. 

Numbers! Numbers! Numbers!

In the last academic year, we published a total of 23 unique blog posts: 15 from the English and Rhetoric Department at Purdue Global, six from other departments, and two from outside Purdue Global. A total count of 30.4K words constituted these articles. But what we are particularly proud of is the uptick in our numbers across the board. This past academic year saw 4.4K views, up from 3.6K last year, with 2.8K unique visitors, up from 1K last year. Our wonderful readers seemed to enjoy the content because we saw 2,622 likes this year, up from 400 last year, as well as 89 thoughtful and engaging comments. In all, we had 74 new subscribers, up from 63 last year. And, as is fitting for an institution with the word “global” in its name, our readers accessed the blog from 44 countries and counting. Thank you, dear readers, wherever you are.

Themes We Covered

One of the themes our colleagues addressed last academic year is the intersection of human voice and AI. We explored the tension between technological efficiency and authentic human expression and concluded that while AI is powerful, it cannot replicate the “intricate joys and pains” of the human experience (Musante; Erickson). Our authors investigated the limitations of AI-generated content: AI produces “emotionally correct but strangely uninhabited text” that exists in a “corporate fog” (Johnson, W. A.) and lacks the specificity of a human voice. Even so, we realized that as educators, we need to transition from banning AI to its ethical integration, treating the output as a starting point for human judgment, rhetorical awareness, and revision (Gussis). Our students need to be prepared for a workplace that will ask them to be “auditors, critics, and stewards” of AI output (Kaltenbach). We also recognized that “newer isn’t always better.” Sometimes our students prefer traditional texts to AI-generated video announcements (O’Neil). While specialized fields like aviation are exploring how AI can assist in safety reporting, human judgment remains paramount (Taylor & Ives).

Several prominent AI platforms were evaluated–Perplexity, NotebookLM, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grammarly, and Microsoft Copilot–with their advantages and pitfalls (Hohensee). AI prompting as a rhetorical act (Johnson, W. A.) was framed as a modern skill requiring awareness of audience, purpose, and context. Some contributors contrasted the AI tendency toward uniformity with humans building a voice based on originality, brevity, consistency, simplicity, and clarity (Smith; Cardew). Finally, we agreed that choosing the “hard way” of original writing is an ethical choice that demonstrates integrity (Erickson).

One other thematic area our contributors addressed was cultivating inclusive pedagogy and collaborative communities. We discussed empathy-driven, proactive instructional design and the importance of community and “teamship” in digital environments, for students and faculty (Haber; Teitler & Vice; Vice; Birt & Goldsmith). The concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) was promoted as an important shift from reactive accommodations to proactive design that ensures all students feel like “legitimate participants” (Lee) from the start, and we hosted a series of posts on accessibility (Stevenson; Love). Contributors offered strategies for military-affiliated learners (Riley & Stevenson) and students in recovery, who require more flexibility to manage academic stress (McAdams & Negrea).

As part of fostering an empathetic academic community, instructors can build the confidence of students who are anxious and “don’t see themselves as writers” through metacognitive practices, gamification, and “descriptive feedforward” (Bianco; Pearson; Watson). Of note was the shift from the authoritative professor to a mentor or guide who uses “empathy, positivity, and connectivity” (Haber)—one who helps students develop their voices as writers through low-stakes writing, repetition, and growth-oriented feedback (Fields), and who uses deliberative democracy to develop professional soft skills and “build bridges between perspectives” (Caseldine-Bracht; Wink). Even math was made friendlier by written assignments that connected it to personal experience (Meymaris).

One final theme was the isolation of online teaching; our authors advocated for collaborations and for writing retreats, as they allow faculty to “thrive” and reclaim their creative identities (Teitler & Vice; Birt & Goldsmith). Events like the PG Literary Festival helped educators rejuvenate and rekindle their creative sparks (Healey), and faculty were encouraged to step out of disciplinary silos to become leaders in writing across the curriculum (WAC): across the globe (Keathley) and across their organizations (Kaltenbach). Finally, contributors addressed intentional peer recognition (Johnson, L.) as a form of servant leadership that sustains momentum for students and faculty in digital spaces.

The Future of The WACademic

As we look to the future, we want to become an even more welcoming third space for our community. To do that, we are inviting more contributions from colleagues outside our own department, school, and university, because the most exciting insights happen when we bring diverse perspectives together. We are also eager to diversify our content with a variety of formats, especially seeking more pieces focused on WAC, as well as data-driven, quantitative research, and interviews. As our writers told us, embracing this collaborative approach can be very rewarding; in fact, recent research shows that multi-authored academic blogs managed by editorial teams are powerful tools for breaking down disciplinary walls, sparking unexpected new research partnerships, and making scholarly work more accessible to the public (Scoles, 2025). Of course, a true community relies on conversation, so we would also love to see more interaction and friendly chatter in our comments section.

Ultimately, communities need space for shared values, collaboration, and growth, and we are proud that we have achieved this at The WACademic. What began as an idea for bringing together conversations about writing across the curriculum has grown into a vibrant community of practice, a third space where educators, scholars, and practitioners are willing to share their experiences, challenges, discoveries, and evolving ideas. As we continue to find new ways to engage our readers and promote this blog far and wide, we ask that you, dear reader, continue on this journey with us. Write with us, share with us, question with us, and help us imagine what the next year of The WACademic can become.

References

Note: All blog entries referred to by the authors were submitted to The WACademic during the 2025-2026 academic year.

Carter, S., & Nguyen, T. T. T. (2024). Doctoral pedagogy in digital third space: An investigation of academic blogging. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 61(2), 276–287. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2022.2157303

Scoles, J. (2025, June 30). The unexpected benefits of academic blogging. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/unexpected-benefits-academic-blogging

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About the Authors

Jonathan Cardew is a full-time faculty member in English and Rhetoric at Purdue Global, where he edits The WACademic blog. He is the author of A World Beyond Cardboard (ELJ Editions, 2022) and In Andromeda (Paper Bill Press, 2026). He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Originally from Romania, Dr. Irina Negrea has lived in the United States for 30 years. She has taught at Lehigh University, New Jersey City University, and Shaw University. She is now a full-time faculty member of Purdue University Global’s Department of English and Rhetoric and Editor-in-Chief of The WACademic.