Questions arise about WPE testing

When should graduate students be required to take the Writing Proficiency Exam?

The Academic Senate discussed a motion to require graduate students to take the WPE in their first semester at Cal State Long Beach during a meeting Thursday.

Henry Fung, associate dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, said that graduate students who have not completed the WPE previously should do so during their first semester.

Currently, graduate students must complete the WPE prior to advancement to candidacy, the stage when their program of study has been approved by their department and they have fulfilled both course and degree requirements.

Fung said that if the motion is passed, students needing assistance with their writing skills could be detected earlier, avoiding delays to their advancement to candidacy.

"If students run into trouble, then we can help them and keep them from delaying their graduation," Fung said.

Students who receive a degree from a CSU which required a proficiency exam to measure writing skills are usually exempt from taking the WPE as graduate students.

After the motion was introduced, the Academic Senate began discussing the validity of the WPE, and whether the exam is biased and discriminatory toward different groups and non-native English speakers.

Lecturer Mark Wiley of the English department said the motion should be referred back to a committee for further deliberation because the test is discriminatory and has varying impact on different student populations.

"The WPE comes down hard on non-native speakers," Wiley said. "They don't score very high."

Wiley said the university is misguided to use the WPE as a type of validity for academic writing.

Dean of Graduate Studies Keith Polakoff said he's not in favor of standardized testing either, but "we don't have a choice, these rules are not mandated by us."

The motion failed and was referred back to a committee for further discussion.