The PW program does more than just provide students with a college degree: we prepare students to be lifelong learners who can apply what they learn in classes directly to careers in digital and technical writing, editing and publishing, managing communications, and writing for community and nonprofit organizations.

The Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University provides the first year writing experience for most MSU students. We also have a successful major in Professional Writing and share the Experience Architecture major with Art, Art History and Design. We have three strong graduate programs in Rhetoric and Writing, both MA and PhD degrees. We touch the lives of around 7,000 students every year.

Founded in 1944, WRAC began as the Department of Written and Spoken English. Such a department was fairly unique at that time, and our faculty were active writing and speech researchers and important to how writing instruction developed in higher education in the post-war period.

Today, we continue to lead and are committed to preparing excellent communicators in the culturally, technologically, and economically dynamic environments of the early 21st Century.

Our researchers are national leaders in digital writing, cultural rhetoric, literacy studies, composition, and professional writing. Our faculty lead research groups such as the Writing in Digital Environments Research Center and Matrix, the Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online. Our teachers are committed, creative, and above average. Every single one of them.