While every sector of American life has been affected by the difficult financial times, higher education is experiencing a profound crisis that threatens the very foundations of education and the meaning of intellectual endeavor. The impact of the financial downturn has been both economic--in the form of lower enrollments, rising tuition, and…

In this article, the author addresses a problem encountered in her own professional life as a teacher of writing in the context of computing, a teaching field often referred to as "computers and writing," "electronic writing," or "computer-assisted writing instruction." The problem she has observed has to do with teaching technology in a…