Aaron Dawson: “Theorizing Practice, Stating the Mission”

Aaron Dawson’s “Theorizing Practice, Stating the Mission: Investigating Language at the Industry-University Interface in Professional Writing Program Descriptions and Mission Statements” considers how industrial flows of influence are represented in professional writing program descriptions and if the goals stated there are mirrored in what ideally functions as an academic filter– the university’s mission statement. Dawson suggests we zoom back our critical lens in an effort to recognize that what happens in a classroom happens because it fits within a university setting and has passed through a filter. In this way, the filter (the mission statement) serves a powerful function and (whose rhetoric) is also worth closely examining.