Do colleges teach writing at all?

Stanley Fish writes:

As I learned more about the world of composition studies, I came to the conclusion that unless writing courses focus exclusively on writing they are a sham, and I advised administrators to insist that all courses listed as courses in composition teach grammar and rhetoric and nothing else. This advice was contemptuously dismissed by the composition establishment, and I was accused of being a reactionary who knew nothing about current trends in research.

If Fish could not succeed in his attempts on convincing academic colleagues about the urgency to reform the way we teach writing, what chances do lesser mortals like me have, eh!
At our campus we have "writing intensive" courses that do a poor, poor, job of improving students' skills in writing, primarily because they come to these content courses without getting anything much from the writing and composition courses. I served on the "Writing Intensive Committee" on campus, and three years ago I wrote to the chair of the committee:

[I] have been particularly concerned about the need to emphasize writing skills. For two reasons: one, because of my own personal experiences when I switched to the social sciences after an undergrad in engineering; second, Orwell said it best for me that thinking and writing are related--bad thinkers are bad writers too--and, therefore, students' inability to write well is not in itself a problem as much as it being a symptom of less developed thinking skills.

It will be neat to get into some serious discussions on WI itself--whether it is working, what else can be done, ....

It was quickly obvious that such a framework would not be welcomed by academic colleagues and I ditched the idea. And now I am out of the commiittee too!