Tim McCormack directs the first-year writing program at John Jay College.  Under his direction the Writing Program earned the Certificate of Excellence from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the most prestigious national award a writing program can earn. McCormack has written on issues of language, student literacy, assessment and writing program administration for The Journal of Basic Writing, English Education, Composition Forum, Journal of the Council of Writing Program Administrators, and The Teachers College Record. McCormack is currently at work on a book-length ethnographic study of first-year writing courses at the City College of New York and Bronx Community College, titled The Dividing Line.  This research chronicles the impact of high stakes placement testing on student learning outcomes, retention rates, and time to graduation in senior and community colleges.

At John Jay College, McCormack has taught developmental writing, freshmen composition, business writing, journalism, introduction to literature, and graduate courses in writing for administration and writing the Master’s thesis (at the CUNY Graduate Center).  He also teaches the ENG 7900 Teaching College English course for Graduate Teaching Fellows.  

Prior to arriving at John Jay College, McCormack taught writing, research, journalism and literature at New York University (NYU), City College of New York (CCNY) and the College of Staten Island, and he also worked extensively at all levels of writing program administration, including in high school-to-college bridge programs, writing centers, first-year writing programs, WAC programs and graduate-level writing programs. McCormack is also a certified Zamboni driver, a career he undertook to pay for graduate school, and he is always looking for another rink to drive on.