UWF’s High School Articulation Conference began as a dream of Carol Hulse and Linda Moore in reference to their teaching of freshmen and the research they were doing on students’ transition from high school to college. Much of the research stresses that students are largely unprepared for the responsibility of and vast amounts of reading and writing required in their college experience. Instead of passing the buck to high school teachers for this lack of preparation, Hulse and Moore decided on a more pro-active approach suggested by research: creating opportunities for high school writing teachers and college writing teachers to come together to discuss issues of student reading and writing and approaches to producing better prepared students.

UWF’s first High School Articulation Conference, held in March of 2008, was patterned after The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s John J. Haggerty High School Articulation conference, now in its 35th year. Dr. David Jolliffe, professor of Literacy and Composition at the University of Arkansas and co-author of Everyday Use, served as keynote speaker at the first conference, which invited English teachers from Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties and stressed the theme of “Plagiarism.”

In expanding the conference for 2009, two more counties, Okaloosa and Walton, and history teachers from these county high schools were added to the list of those invited to attend. In addition, the Department of History at UWF joined the Department of English and Foreign Languages in sponsoring the conference. The 2009 conference featured Dr. Hephzibah Roskelly, Director of Composition and Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, as keynote speaker. Dr. Roskelly is co-author of Everyday Use, a text used nationally by many Advanced Placement teachers.

Plans for expanding future High School Articulation Conferences include the addition of high school and college foreign languages teachers, as well as high school and college research librarians.