The CCCC position statement on student veterans (2015) reminds writing program administrators (WPAs) of their responsibility to prepare faculty to understand not only the challenges these returning students may face but also the assets they bring with them. This essay argues that writing programs must develop faculty education programs that go beyond solo workshops to articulate what it means to be veteran friendly. Specifically, this essay identifies and describes a special-interest-group (or SIG) model for instructor education. This SIG relies on a micro-curriculum to promote a mode of “uncoverage” in learning about student veterans (Reid, 2004). Instructor reflections from a pilot program identify and define characteristics that help to articulate what veteran friendly means in local contexts including awareness of student-veteran issues, empathy toward student veterans, and confidence in working with student veterans.

Two-course writing sequences are valuable because they extend the time that students spend focused on developing as writers and researchers, yet they cannot rely on a “more is better” argument to justify their ongoing implementation, especially when general education curricula are shrinking and one course often looks much the same as the other. This program profile describes how West Virginia University is adopting a proactive stance on preserving and advocating for two-course writing sequences by recasting its second, sophomore-level course as an essential building block in the formation of undergraduate research identities. By combining axiologies of research identities with those of genre, metagenre, and metadisciplines, the program at West Virginia University is reshaping and repositioning its writing curriculum to more adequately address the diverse needs of students on pathways to many different disciplines.