The Department of English is excited to announce that Associate Director of First-Year Writing Ashleigh Hardin has received a 2022 Affordable Learning Exchange (ALX) Grant. The Affordable Learning Exchange initiative aims to increase accessibility and reduce the cost of course materials to make classes more accessible to students.  

Hardin was encouraged to apply by her fellow faculty members and previous ALX grant recipients, Susan Williams and Christa Teston, as well as by her colleague, Associate Professor Scott DeWitt. She plans to use the grant in the course English 1110.01: First-Year English Composition, part of Ohio State’s general education requirement. Hardin wants to utilize Open Educational Resources (OER) and library resources, like the open-access textbook Writing Spaces, in place of traditional textbooks in the course. “Using these free materials will remove a financial barrier to making the course accessible for students,” she says.  

Hardin is particularly interested in utilizing OER because it not only cuts the cost of course materials, but students will also “be exposed to a greater diversity of voices than they would find in a traditional composition textbook.” Additionally, she plans to hire a student worker to create promotional material for OER to share with their peers. She hopes that by seeing the benefits of these resources, more students will become advocates for OER. 

Another aspect of Hardin’s goal is to create a seven-week version of the course, which would offer students the opportunity to add a course mid-semester. “Last semester we saw a number of international students in this very situation,” she says. All these plans aim to make the course more accessible and affordable for students.  

Congratulations again to Associate Director of First-Year Writing Ashleigh Hardin!