Rhetoric Across the Curriculum (RAC) embraces the educational movement known on many campuses as Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC). We use the label rhetoric to encompass oral and visual expression, but the goals and philosophy of RAC are closely aligned with those of the larger WAC movement. For an overview of WAC and its origins, we recommend Colorado State University's The WAC Clearinghouse and the Purdue Online Writing Lab.
The notion that writing should be taught across the disciplines became the guiding principle of the Writing Across the Curriculum movement that emerged in North American universities in the 1970s and 1980s. But it is not a modern idea; it was also a foundational principle of the ancient Greek and Roman discipline of rhetoric. The term rhetoric sometimes evokes disdain in modern culture; we often contrast the phrase mere rhetoric with substance or with truth, and we lament the use of rhetorical tricks to manipulate or deceive an audience. But these caricatures bear little resemblance to the classical ideal of rhetoric as a rigorous discipline with moral, intellectual, and practical dimensions. Roman rhetorician Quintilian wrote the most comprehensive manual of rhetoric from antiquity until the Renaissance, the Institutes of Oratory. He argued that the arts of speaking, writing, and reading were mutually reinforcing and should be taught in a variety of different contexts, from theater to politics, each of which had its own vocabulary, style, and purpose. The WAC movement is ultimately grounded in the ancient practice of rhetoric and its attention to audience, purpose, and context.
In the late 1980s, Calvin College began to embrace the Writing Across the Curriculum movement. In 1991, the faculty approved the creation of a college-wide Academic Writing Program, charging each academic department to develop its own departmental writing program that integrated writing and critical thinking at multiple levels of the curriculum. In 2010, the Academic Writing Program was renamed the Rhetoric Across the Curriculum (RAC) Program, in recognition that the teaching of oral and visual rhetoric also belonged under the aegis of the cross-disciplinary program. Departmental writing programs, many of which already incorporated aspects of oral and visual rhetoric, were accordingly renamed departmental rhetoric programs. In 2023, the RAC Program moved from departmental programs to rhetoric-intensive courses. Faculty in all courses are encouraged to use writing-to-learn and speaking-to-learn activities and to offer students explicit instruction when they assign writing and speaking. Designating particular courses as rhetoric intensive helps departments ensure that their rhetorical outcomes are integrated into academic programs, and such courses serve as a locus for assessment.