Grounded in the authors’ dissatisfaction with academic leadership after the 2016 presidential election, this article complicates the idea of the WPA-as-manager by introducing the framework of feminist, transformational, and intersectional writing program leadership. As writing program administrators, the authors identify the problems with calls for civility and neutrality post-election, particularly as these calls came down to the many nontenure-track faculty and graduate students teaching first-year writing. The authors introduce two methods of moving beyond writing program management to include greater attention to community engagement and leadership post-Trump: through revising curricula and course materials and by diversifying professional development opportunities. WPAs may find themselves in a rare moment where the pedagogical approaches for which we have long advocated—attention to marginalized voices, representation of complex arguments grounded in material realities, validation of the rhetorical import of nonacademic texts—are immediately practicable as a condition of civic engagement. Curricula and course materials may convey these commitments beyond the classroom. Further, the authors address the need for greater attention to professional development for faculty, particularly focusing on addressing the needs of vulnerable populations. They discuss two professional development resources beyond individual campus resources: the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) and the University of Michigan’s Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR). By grounding this renovated image of the writing program administrator as a writing program leader, situated theoretically in leadership studies, the authors extend the work of scholars who see the WPA as a site of radical advocacy.

This program profile describes recent changes to the process for preparing graduate teaching instructors (GTAs) in North Carolina State University’s first-year writing program. The authors—one a non-tenure-track faculty member and the other a tenure-track faculty member—describe the philosophical, ethical, and practical concerns in scaling teacher preparation to accommodate rapidly growing cohorts of MA and MFA GTAs. By providing an example of cross-tier collaboration, the authors propose an approach to GTA preparation that takes into account that many of these novice teachers will begin their teaching careers as contingent faculty colleagues.