ECWCA Newsletter Fall 2011 (large)

8/4/2019 ECWCA Newsletter Fall 2011 (large)

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East Central Writing Centers Association F

ECWCAWriting Center Data: What Do We Need

and How Should We Use It?

Diane Boehm, Jacob Blumner, Mary Ann Krajnik Crawford,

Sherry Wynn Perdue, and Helen Raica-Klotz

I am thrilled with this current issue of ECWCA. Not only should it begin to express thevariety of work going on in our geographic region, it should inspire each of us to findways to transform the how we conduct our writing center affairs. The pieces in thisissue give me reason to pause and consider how data can be collected and used to

document Writing Center work but also reveal Writing Center work to do. The piecesmake me ask myself how I might see Writing Center spaces as c ollaborative spaces forpersonal and group growth and as zones for open dialogue and change. I am taken

back to sessions Ive had to reflect on best practices and better practices in the future.And I am encouraged by the dedication directors, tutors, administrators, and

community partners have to Writing Center ideas and how these stakeholders revealtheir dedication through their work.

I hope you will gain something from this issue and find ways to challenge the ideashere or push them to the next level. Dialogues like the ones begun here are essential toour identity and wonderful ways for us to look beyond our individual center walls andat the larger region. I look forward to seeing more of your contributions in the next

issue and at our next conference!-Anthony Garrison

This Issue: A Note from the Editor

Fall 2011

Learning writing center methodology means to collaborate with others, not to assume we

the answers, but to help others find their ownbroad goals in mind even as we weave the n

others into our practice.

-Jeanne Smith et al. Kent State U

A Writing Center is always about peopletheir words, theirthoughts, and their aspirations. To understand our users, to tellour story, and to present our work professionally to colleagues andadministrators, however, we also need data. The data we collectand analyze depends on numerous factors: the programs andsystems we use to collect the data, the questions we bring to ouranalysis, and the arguments we wish to make about the qualityand quantity of our work.

This article compares and contrasts perspectives from fourdifferent Michigan universities: Central Michigan University,Saginaw Valley State University, University of Michigan - Flint,and Oakland University. Though our centers have much incommon, we also have significant differences in our perspectives,as you will see.

Table 1 provides an overview of data collection in our four centers,followed by commentary written by each center.

Continued on page 3

ARTICLES

Writing Center date: What do we needand how should we use it?

Queer Consulting: Assessing theDegree to which Differences Affect aWriting Consultation

The Accidental Writing Center:Program Growth through Negotiationand Collaboration

Communicating Across Borders:Consulting ESL Students Online

To Game or Not to Game: The Affects Gamifying Our Website

Notes of a Fortunate Writing CenterConsultant: What My Students withLearning Disabilities Have Taught Meabout the Writing Process

Assessing Our Success: The 2011 EastCentral Writing Centers AssociationConference

Tutor Voices

2012 ECWCA CFP

Calls for Papers

A Letter from the President of ECWCA

ADDITIONAL CONTENT

Regional Announcement

East Central Writing Centers Association Fall 2011

ECWCA is a newsletter published for the benefit of its members. Reproduction of its contents is permissible only for use by those writing center

professionals in our geographic region. All other reproduction requests should be made via e-mail at [email protected].

The Writing Lab Newsletter

The Writing Lab Newsletter(WLN) is a bi-monthly publication (September to June) for those who work in the tutorial setting ofwriting labs or centers (or in writing centers within learning centers). Articles focus on writing center theory, administration, and

pedagogy. The website, http://writinglabnewsletter.org , contains an open archive of past volumes.

Call for Papers: WLNinvites articles, reviews of books relevant to writing centers, and revisions of papers presented at regionalconferences. We also regularly include a Tutors' Column with essays by and for tutors. Recommended maximum length is 3000words or less (including the Works Cited) for articles and 1500 words or less for the Tutors' Column. Please use MLA format. Allsubmissions are peer reviewed. Send your manuscripts as attachments via e-mail to [email protected]. Foreditorial questions, contact Muriel Harris ([email protected]), editor, or Michael Mattison ([email protected]) or JanetAuten ([email protected]), associate editors.Subscriptions to WLNare U.S.$25 per year for subscriptions mailed in the U.S. and U.S.$30 for subscriptions mailed to Canada.International and digital subscriptions are also available by contacting [email protected]. Please orderWLN through ourWeb site: .

Call for Engagement!Submit content to ECWCA and keep the conversations going. There are many ways to contributeand be heard. ECWCA is a semiannual publication designed to open and extend conversationsbetween people invested in writing center work in our geographic region. Tutors, directors,assistant directors, administrators, tutees, and more are encouraged to engage in the dialogue.Below are just some of the ways you might consider contributing. We look forward to hearingfrom you all and advancing the work we do.

ArticlesTopics: Issues relevant to writing center work.Length: 1000-2500 words.Style: APA or MLA.

Tutor VoicesTopics: Opinion pieces/reflection piecesrelevant to you and your writing center work.Length: 500-750 words.

Center ProfilesTopics: Issues relevant to the operations ofyour writing center. Can include details aboutyour center and highlight individuals,projects, or other information.Length: Varies.

Regional Announcements Tutor Achievements

Director Achievements

Calls for Conversation

Resources

Photographs

And More!

Send submissions and inquiries [email protected]. Submissionsare accepted on a rolling basis. Newsletterissues are released in September/October

and January/February.

The deadline for the next newsletteris December 31.


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East Central Writing Centers Association

In my writing classes, I often teach ethnography. What Ireally like about teaching and doing ethnographies is thatethnography asks us to reconsider what is normal. Theidea is for the ethnographer to immerse him or herself into aculture to such a degree that he or she can see (or at least tryto see) the world from a different point of view. Anethnographer listens, observes, and participates until anunfamiliar community becomes familiar.

When we gather at the ECWCA conference each year, eachof us carries intimate knowledge of the writing centerswhere we work, research, or get writing feedback. Thosewriting centers are familiar and normal to us. Part of thejoy of the annual conference comes by listening, observing,and participating, and thus we learn to see how our ownassumptions and practices are not the norm; they are justsimply familiar. As with ethnography, these sorts ofdiscoveries at conferences have the potential to beenlightening to us. For that potential to be fulfilled,however, we have to be there and be open to new ideas.

Over the years of attending the ECWCA conference, I haveconsciously tried to set aside my own assumptions of whata writing center is and does in order to really listen. This iseasier said than done since conference pace is dizzying andthe travel and such make quieting down and being presentdifficult. Yet, even with the busy-ness of conferences, I amalways glad I attended and am surprised how long theideas planted at conferences stick with me. Even ideas Ihave no means or intention of implementing in my owncontext are helpful in how they show me other ways ofdoing writing center work, for giving me a sense of the

Letter from the President of ECWCA Jackie Grutsch McKinney

broader context in which we work.

What I want to underscore is something that you all aswriting center scholars, administrators, and practitionersalready know: we can learn a lot from another. The annualECWCA conference is like the tutorial writ large. It is atwo-way streetI need you to be there and you need meto be there. Please join me this spring in Indianapolis forthe 2012 conference by submitting a proposal (see the Callfor Proposals in this newsletter) or simply by attending.

Moreover, this very newsletter is another venue where welearn from one another if we all take an active role in it. Tothat end, share this newsletter with others you know whoare interested in writing center issues in the region orsubmit your ideas to the newsletter editor forconsideration (Anthony Garrison:[email protected]). I look forward to learningfrom you.

Sincerely,Jackie Grutsch McKinney

Meet the Associate Editor

Sri Upadhyay

Sri Upadhyay is a senior majoring inPsychology and English at Kent StateUniversity in Kent, Ohio. Aftergraduating this spring, she will pursueher Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology andcontinue working in academia andresearch. She will complete her Honorsthesis titled Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition in CollegeStudents and plans to bring the fields of Psychology and

English together in research on language acquisition andlearning processes, reading, memory, and metacognition.

The most inspiring part of the tutoring experience for her isthe opportunity to work with many different people onmany different projects, and the chance to teach and shareher passion for analysis, creativity, and love of the writingprocess.

Meet the Assistant Editor

Rori Hoatlin

Rori is a recent graduate of Grand ValleyState University (2010) in Allendale, MIwith a B.A. in Writing. She worked at theFred Meijer Center for Writing andMichigan Authors for one year. She iscurrently attending Georgia College & State University (GCSU) topursue her M.F.A in creative non-fiction. While at GCSU, she willbe working in the writing center as Assistant to the Supervisorand reading for GCSUs literary journalArts & Letters.

Being a writing consultant has showed her just how important thewords people pen truly are. She loves when she can help studentscommunicate their ideas in the way they want towhen studentsare able to stop worrying about the micro-level detailsthespelling, the punctuation, the grammarand start seeing theirwork in the big picture, then she feels like she has done her job.

What I want to underscore issomething that you all as writing

center scholars, administrators, andpractitioners already know: we canlearn a lot from another. The annual

ECWCA conference is like the tutorialwrit large. It is a two-way streetIneed you to be there and you need me

to be there.

ECWCA Conference 2012Friday, March 30 - Saturday, March 31

IUPUI Campus

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Its the End of the World As We Know It: Negotiating Change in a WritiCenter Context

The Mayan calendar predicts that the world will end in 2012. Writing center work is full oendings and new beginnings. Sessions end, semesters end, only to be replaced by somethnew...

We invite you to consider some of the ways you cope with change in your writing center. might consider how you train and integrate new tutors, your experience as a new tutor oradministrator, how you set up new spaces/rearrange old spaces, how you implement newpolicies or adjust existing ones to shifting circumstances, adjust to new administrative demtry new techniques, tweak old techniques, reinterpret and apply theory, integrate technoloutreach, assessment, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Proposals should include a 50-word abstract and a 500-word narrative description that comas specifically as possible on the role of the presenters, the participation of other attendeesthe contribution the session makes to writing center studies.

Proposals will be accepted beginning October 1, 2011.Deadline for proposals is November 14, 2011.

Visit ecwca.org for more details.

5th Annual NEOWCA Confere

Negotiating Identity and Ideology: WCenters as Agents of Change

Saturday, Oct. 15, 20119:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Kent State University at StarkNorth Canton, OH

Register online:http://www.stark.kent.edu/about/neow


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Writing Center Data CollectionInstruments

Data CollectionMethod(s)

(paper/electronic/combination)

Rationale forMethod(s)

How Data

Central MichiganUniversity(CMU)

1) Student Sign-In Sheets(on-site)

2) Student Web form forOnline

3) Student Surveys4) Faculty Surveys5) Consultant

Observation Form6) Graduate Assistant

Evaluations

1) Combination: paperand web form datatransferred to Excel

2) Student/facultysurveys are via SurveyMonkey (electronic)with paper formsavailable on-site

3) Consultantobservations andevaluations are papernotes, then written inWORD

The combination ofmethods gives speed,consistency, andconvenience, whileallowing us to store, sort,analyze, and report onlarge amounts of data. Itprovides good qualitycontrol over accuracy ofinput and immediateaccess to information butalso accommodatesmultiple sites easily.

1) AdministraReports

2) Billing for 3) Tutor Train4) Public rela5) Policy/pro

developme6) Forecasting7) Resource a8) Research

Saginaw Valley StateUniversity(SVSU)

1) SVSU Writing CenterSession Record2) Writing Center Tutorevaluation

1) Electronic; use campusLearning ManagementSystem (VSpace),adapted by SVSU stafffor our purposes

2) Paper intake formtransferred toelectronic SessionRecord of tutorialsessions

3) Electronic TutorEvaluation surveys

The interface with thestudent database providesadditional group data thatwould not be possible viaother methods.Advantages: ease ofrecord keeping, ability tosort data easily, speedyupdates and changes.

1) Staffing anddecisions2) Annual Repadministrators(accompanies request) and co3) Program pla4) Tutor trainin5) Research andevelopment oinitiatives (e.gfunded projectpresentations,publications)

University of Michigan Flint

(UM - Flint)

1) UM-Flint SessionRecord

2) Student Evaluation

1) Paper form transferred tocomputer

Paper form is convenientin sessions and digital

form is helpful for analysis

See SVSU

Oakland University(OU)

1) Session Log2) Student Evaluation

1) Print form from whichdata is collated into Excel2) Electronic data from ouronline scheduler

We want an immediaterecord of client andconsultant perception. Wecurrently dont have a wayto collate demographicdata with the session logelectronically

1) Administrat2) Needs Asse3) Consultant T4) Evidence -baresearch for puand for grant a

CMU: A Lesson from History

Its hard for me to imagine a writing center that wouldntreligiously keep usage data these days. Yet, that wasexactly the case in 1997/98 when the Writing Center atCMU lost its funding. When I became interim director tofinish out the school year, the program showed a budgetand almost no evidence of services provided. Questions

flew. Consultants were hired, trained, and paid, but whoaccessed their help? No one really knew. Apparently,some students came once, others returned, but no oneknew how often. Did most students come wanting topolish grammar and punctuation, or were sessionsfocused on developing ideas and fostering criticalthinking? Both, some said, but where was the evidence?Did students think sessions were helpful? N o one had

asked. The same was true of faculty: only a fewknew the program existed.

Thankfully, the CMU Writing Center was awarnew initiative grant for fall 1998 that revitalizlife. At the heart of that grant was a promise toand report accurate information about services assess the benefits to the students and campus

community. The program would need to beaccountable to its stakeholders: the dean, the pthe faculty, the consultants, and, most importanstudents. We have kept good on that grant proand the Center has been growing since. The Cenneeded to become data conscious if not exactly driven.

Continued form page 1

Table 1: Data collection in our four centers

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even love explaining why I wont edit papers.

Q:What advice might you give other advisors?

To the new kids on the block: Enthusiasm is yourgreatest asset. You wont get every situation right thefirst time, and you certainly wont know every use ofthe ellipses right off the bat. Heck, I dont know all ofthem. There might just be one. Who knows (insertscoffing at me being an advisor)? But your attitude inthe first few months is essential to smoothly adaptingto the ins and outs of center protocol. A warning,

though: dont mistake enthusiasm with blindambition. Listen to everyone and everything you hearabout the right way to do things. Next, filter out theegos, the academic, the absurd, and the personal, andthen slowly use the things youve learned to developwho you are as a tutor/consultant/advisor/etc.

To the battle-worn, overworked, wizened consultants.Take a breath and relax. Youve made it past theinfatuation stage with your work. Dont yearn for thatzeal the new kids have now; realize the subtle, lastingaffection you have for your work which is nowtempered with experience. Try something new once ina while, but dont forsake what time has provenworthy of your writers. Dont look down upondifferent ways of doing things as wrong, unless theyare wrong, but as unique. Offer your advice whereyou see fit, but more useful is developing a rapport

with new advisors which is conducive to themwanting to ask you questions unprompted.

Q: What do you wish you would have known

sooner?

There is not a single learning experience that Ive hadthat I would erase purely for the sake of flashing(climbing term) unknown circumstances the first timethrough. For me, part of the joy Ive had as an advisoris developing a protean, improvisational, minimalistic,and feminist approach to my advising. An example: Icouldnt have figured out most of those wordswithout having not known them at one point, which,in a center, not knowing vocab is a laughable offense.Writers are mostly forgiving, and, odds are, they donteven realize when you are a little too dominant or a

little too teachy. But it is getting to the point ofseeing the things you dont like in yourself that reallyleads to true development. Ive fallen in sessionsplenty of times, and Im sure I will again falter in thefuture, but I know it wont be the same things twice.

Q:What skills have you acquired, from being an advisor,which you will take with you throughout life?

How can I answer? Im going to avoid any sense that Ivemastered anything and list some things Ive learned toappreciate: I can only hope that I maintain a sense ofinterest in people. I hope I never have so much pride I writeoff a person simply because they have a question I had toask once before. Humility is something Ive learned fromthe center, and Ive still got a long way to go before I everconsider myself humble. I hope I can be as patient as I am inthe center. I hope I never forget that the best thing about my

college experience was my time spent as a writing advisor.

Emily Standridge

- Ball State University WritingCenter.- 5+ years tutoring.- English major.

During the last three years, Ihave been a Ball State University tutor and AssistantDirector as I worked on my PhD. This has been the mostrewarding of all my writing center work because I havegotten to do it all: I work with students at all levels ofwriting, I work with tutors to improve their tutoring, and I

work with faculty to learn the power of writing outside theEnglish Department. This semester, I begin my new job as afull-fledged writing center director at a small school back inEast Texas.

The pure joy of helping someone as they work on a writingproject remains the same after seven years of tutoring. As Iapproach anyone in the writing center, tutors, students, orfaculty, my aim is to work with them to figure outsomething, anything, that will help them with their currentproject and will make the next one easier. If I can achievethat, I have been successful.

Through this approach, I have learned many things: totackle one thing at a time, to negotiate with others so bothfeel satisfied rather than let down, to let people andsituations surprise me in the most positive ways.

The best advice I can give anyone in the world, butespecially those working in writing centers, is to tryingthings out. There is no single, sure-fire way to makeworking with other people successful. But in being open tothem and in trying new things, you can figure out whatworks best for you. If you can find that, you will enjoy thework as much as I do.


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To me, there is an important difference between beingdata conscious and being data driven. Being data drivenmeans seeing data as the end, a way of proving worthby doing whats required. To be data conscious meansbeing aware of what kind of data might be availablecompared to what information is important, for whatreasons, to whom, and at what cost. Data can bevaluable, but it is never free. Gathering, inputting,sorting, and analyzing data uses resources, which requiretime and money. Being data conscious means thinking incost-benefit terms about the bits and pieces ofinformation that we collect as related to the mission of

the Center.

At the CMU Center, we begin collecting data on paperwith sign-in session sheets and logs. These record agreat deal of information: who came, for how long, fromwhich class, whether native English speaker or ESL, thestage of a paper, what they want to work on, and, afterthe session, what actually was worked on. It takes timeto input those bits of information to an Excel spreadsheet.Consultants sometimes ask: Isnt there a computerprogram to do that automatically? Our answer hasconsistently been: yes, and no. Yes, we know there arecomputer programs that could automate our data system,but it would increase the problems as well. F or example,having four sites on one campus, as we do, wouldincrease the costs and complicate access. Time would bea significant cost factor, but only if students came toevery hour offered; our consultants work on data when

their appointments dont show up and walk-ins are slow.

More importantly, however, we continue collecting datathe way we do because we value what we learn throughthe process. We have international consultants who bringdiversity to our Center but who may not be ready toconsult with native English speakers; working with thedata immerses them in the life of the Center at the sametime that they learn American names and the variety ofwriting issues and concerns that students bring. Bycross-checking information, consultants gain anappreciation for accuracy and details. By inputting data,consultants see first-hand who is coming to the Center,from which classes; they begin to see patterns in the kindof issues being discussed and to identify gapswho isnot coming, from which classes, about what kind ofpapers or issues.

Consultants are also involved in the process of sortingand analyzing the data and creating the reports that weprovide to the dean and that we use to maintain separateservice contracts with other units on campus (off-campusprograms, athletics, and the foreign languagedepartment). In doing this, consultants begin to seethemselves and their work as part of a largerorganizational unit and its mission within the university,

and they begin to understand the multiple stakeholdersto whom they and the Center are accountable.

Data, like our writing centers, need to respond to theneeds of our students and our campus community. Ifwe believe that our writing center provides anindispensible service on our campus, then our datashould also be indispensible and serve as evidence thatsupports our core values. Being data conscious hasserved our Center well. By tapping a variety of fundingsources, CMUs Writing Center has grown into a large,well known program across campus, the place for

working with writing for students and faculty alike; ourevaluations, distributed regularly, have consistentlygarnered high praise. We now have four on-campussites and a large online service, staffed by 55 to 60 peerconsultants. In 2010-11, the Center held almost 16,000sessions, a number that staggered even us. Thats a lotof students, a lot of sessions, and a lot of data, but itswhat we do and what we want to do because it helps usto help writers.

SVSU: Data in the Center

The SVSU Writing Center collects sign-in data similar toCMU. Our center is primarily a walk-in center(appointments are limited to graduate students anddevelopmental students in an embedded tutorprogram). At our center, the data we consider essentialis our usage data: we need to know the number of

students who visit our center and the number of tutorialsessions completed every semester. Th is type of datacollection is de rigueurfor most writing centers; it is,after all, the basis for our centers funding and supportfrom our university administration.

However, our writing center studies more types of datathat inform our practices: data about our students, ourservices, and the state of writing on our college campus.These data frame our work in the centerthey shapeour tutorial sessions with students, our training of ourtutors, and our (constant) conversations about writingwithin the larger university community. In fact, we liketo think that all the practices we engage in at our center,both inside and outside these walls, are informed bydata, observational or numeric.

We use data to understand more about the students we

serve: their race, gender, ethnicity, language of origin,major, course standing, and GPA. If we have apopulation of students at our university whom we donot see inside our center, we can ask: why not? We canbegin to examine barriers that might prevent thesestudents from using our services, create ways to addressthe barriers and, through examining later data, see ifthese changes made a difference.

Q:When you think back on your time as a writing centertutor, can you describe a high point?

My favorite session occurred last winter as the semesterwas coming to a close and we were in our last week offinals. I had been working throughout the semester with aJapanese student who many other advisors in our centerhad been afraid to work with. He was very quiet, verysmart, and questioned everything; he wanted to know exactgrammatical rules and clear explanations for anysuggestions that we made, and he was always sure to tell uswhen we made a suggestion that conflicted with how hewas taught English.

As our last session came to a close, he asked, In America,do you say Thank you so much or Thank you verymuch? I was shocked at his question because he was notusually one to express great satisfaction with his sessions inthe Writing Center. Usually, he would let us know when wehelped answer his questions, and then he would leave forclass. But on this day, as he walked out of the Center tocatch a plane for Japan, he turned back and in his stern,quiet voice said, Thank you very much.

Q:What advice might you give other tutors/ consultants?

Be friendly! Writers come in to the Center looking fordifferent things, but I think the one thing that they have incommon is that they are looking for someone who caresenough to read their writing. Being friendly and expressinginterest in a writers work can make a world of difference in

a session; timid writers will open up, and frustrated writerswill calm down.

Q: What do you wish you would have known sooner?

I wish I would have known that not everyone wants to visitthe Writing Center. At Wittenberg, some professors requiretheir students to visit the Center during each semester,resulting in a few sessions that are painfully one-sided. Iwish I would have known how to better engagedisinterested writers so that the first few sessions I had withthem wouldnt have been such a shock and so that theywould have seen the benefits of having a session in theCenter.

Q:What skills have you acquired, from being atutor/consultant, which you will take with you throughoutlife?

Working as an advisor has made me more able to sharetrust and power and to collaborate. I have learned thatwriters trust me to guide them, and I have learned that Ihave to trust writers to take control of their own work.Sessions are about working together, each participant givingand taking and sharing, and none of that is possible withouttrust. Being an advisor has helped me be a leader, but it has

also shown me that part of being a leader meayou help others learn to lead, and when everywho shares the trust, works together they canbenefit.

Colin Payto

- Wittenberg UnWriting Center.- A little over ontutoring.

- English major.

Q: How has beiwriting tutor/consultant helped you in your

interactions with peers, either academically

professionally?

Well, to start off, I stare for minutes now everysee tutor/consultant in a questionnaire andover the proper and polite way to say Im an at my university while not sounding like a sndweeb. Or whatever. I guess being an advisorme down quite a bit in other areas, too. I stop analyze my speech patterns and my writing tosure it is grammatically correct, and then I stoand wonder if, after having inevitably messedsomehow, someone is thinking it ironic that I

advisor. That is the bad part of being slow: clerecognizing my insecurities. The good part is learned to be very patient in my listening so aactively participate in every conversation. Aftstarting my love affair with the Writing Centenoticed that people really like it when they casomeone is paying attention to them. Just anoto build a good relationship, I suppose. So, thehas made me very slow. Like a turtle. Not likeprocessors on my campus computers.

Q:When you think back on your time as a wcenter advisor, can you describe a high point

The firsts, of course: the first time I walked awget a drink mid-session to let a writer, well,know, write; the first time I had a session withstudent or a special needs writer and my first

Center conference presentation. But what Ivelately is that the small things bring greater higmy job than the grand situations. I love brainswith someone who speaks another language. showing the new advisors (whom I have dubplebes, affectionately) how to make coffee. Imost challenging sessions of all: my fellow ad


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For example, based on our data collection aboutdevelopmental writers at our university, we discoveredthat only one-third of students enrolled in English 080(developmental writing) visited the writing center from2006-2009. Why? After all, this was a population thatcould benefit from tutorial writing services, perhapsmore than most other students. T hrough furtherconversations with the First Year Writing Program, wesecured a university grant to imbed tutors in the 080classrooms to provide further support for these students.This program, which began in fall 2010, has already

demonstrated an increase in the number of writingcenter visits for these studentsa 45% increase for AY2010-11--not to mention the direct assistance given bythe tutors while in the classroom. This change hasaffected both students success and our universitysawareness ofand commitment todevelopmentalwriters on our campus. And these changes may nothave been possible without first knowing whichstudents were visiting our centerand which were not.

We also collect information evaluating the tutoringservices we provide, assessing what our tutors do well,and not so well, through student surveys completedafter tutorial sessions. Based on this data, we noted thatsome Nursing students felt the tutors did not have astrong knowledge of APA. Two of our tutors hadworked with the Nursing Department to create a seriesof presentations on APA, and this presentation was

adapted for a staff meeting, where the tutors learnedmore about APA format, specific to the NursingProgram. While a minor example, this too demonstrateshow the data we collect from student surveys informand shape our practice, allowing us to work with thestudents and the university as a whole.

UM Flint: What Data Wont Tell You

For years the University of Michigan-Flint WritingCenter has collected limited data similar to what manywriting centers collect: course, instructor name,department, and what was worked on in theappointment. Intermittently, we have done studentsatisfaction surveys. The data we collected hastraditionally been the kind that convinces administratorswe are a valuable service to students and they shouldcontinue to fund us, but that data provided littlemeaningful information about what was happening intutoring sessions. We used the data to targetdepartments and instructors who referred or didnt referstudents to us. We also looked at the data about whatstudents and tutors worked on in sessions as well assatisfaction surveys. Generally, students who use ourservices are satisfied and will recommend our services to

their friends and other students. I admit that we hdone all we can with data collection; many institudoing much more meaningful and thorough collecthan we do. And we are working to collect more different data that can better help us work with stand faculty on writing, speaking, and reading neeare a vital tool to ensuring success in our and any center.

But this short narrative is really a short cautionarydata, and I would like to offer considerations wheselecting and using data. F irst, the data that

administrators want or request may not be the movaluable data for them or your center. Administraoften want to things to be quantifiable or they manot know the kinds of information that would beson a writing centers activities.

Its important for writing center administrators toother administrators, faculty, and students about wwriting center does and what kinds of data show benefiting writers and the larger campus communexample, one of our deans asks us for usage data many appointment slots are filled with one-on-onmeetings with students. Th rough meetings, I havable to show him that, though usage is something it shows only part of the story. Our tutors visit clmeet with faculty; they do research, work on profdevelopment, and produce marketing materials. things dont show up on usage statistics focused o

on-one appointments.

The second caution I would like to forward is thacollecting and studying certain kinds of data, otheare inherently neglected. Ultimately, as SVSUs ndemonstrates, we regularly need to ask, Are we the right questions?

Finally, I would encourage readers to remember tof storytelling. A t every meeting, our staff membdebrief on positive and negative experiences in thcenter, and collectively we praise, commiserate, coand problem-solve to create a better writing centewriters and staff. Some may not consider storyteland it is difficult to fit stories into a quantifiable boappeases some administrators demands, but it is way to make meaning and meaningful change in center.

OU: Evidence-based Practice

Two years ago I gained a new colleague with whoshare a passion for writing centers and a disappoiwith writing center research. She was planning thiteration of WRT 320: Peer Tutoring in Compositio

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everything. ONE IN THREE! You absolutely NEED totalk about how this will affect the world in your Analysissection!

Ill never forget her reaction. She laughed slightly, thensaid, Thats not really what the Analysis section is for.Its mostly just to analyze the study, what they couldhave done differently, and what they discovered. It laysthe grounds for the next researcher. But it certainlydoesnt theorize or speculate about huge ripple effects. Inreality, this is only one study. One study could still bewrong. I sunk a little lower in my chair, consideringwhat she had said. I felt almost like I had been caught inthe check-out line at the grocery store, getting all workedup about an article in The National Enquirer. Sciencewasnt about psychoanalyzing how one study willchange the world. I might as well have told her to writean anthropological response in her Analysis section. Thatstudent, along with many others, helped open my eyes tothe reality that each field sees things a little differently.

I came to realize that if I was open to, aware of, andcapable of utilizing the information that I gained fromdifferent papers in the center, I could use thatinformation to unearth the values and demands of eachdiscipline. That knowledge could then allow me a specialinsight into each discipline that is usually only achievedby those fully engrossed in the field, and those insightscould help me later that week as a tutor, later that year asa student, or later in my life as a professional. A littleadvice to those who have the same lessons to learn as Idid: As writing consultants or tutors, we shouldnt treateach appointment as an isolated experience, but insteaduse every experience as a means towards become cross-discipline jedis who can wield the power of any majorand arent scared of anything, not even physics.

Eric Werner

-Wittenberg UniversityWriting Center.- One year as writingadvisor.- English and French majorwith a minor in CreativeWriting.

I like to use my work in the Center as a jumping boardinto getting to know people. Wittenberg is a smallcampus, so when you have a session with a student, it'svery likely you'll see that student again either in a classor in the lunch line or what have you. I already knowsomething about that student and it's much easier to starta conversation. It's nice to have something in commonright off the bat with people I wouldn't normally know.

As a tutor, my high point is anytime someone says"Thanks, that really helped," and I know that they reallyunderstood what we were working on in the paper. Inone instance, a good friend of mine came into the Centerand scheduled an appointment with me. The sessionwent really well and he was very appreciative of thechanges. Whats more, I got a look into what he waspassionate about by reading his paper and he got thechance to see me doing what I love to do. It was a greatmoment that really strengthened our friendship.

I think what really helps me is to think about "shelvingyour day." When you step into the Center, you're in theCenter. You can't worry about what's for dinner or anupcoming calc test, because that distraction and stressleak into the session. You get sloppy and rushed. Andmore likely than not, the student will feel distracted andstressed from their day too. I liken it to rock climbing.When you're climbing, every inch of your focus is onyour hold and feet positioning. If you think about falling,you're going to fall. If you think about dinner, well, youget the point. Call it Writing Center zen, call it what youwill. It really helps to shelve your day.

Something that being a writing advisor has forced me toconfront is the fact that not everybody thinks like me. Ican't always explain how to use a comma to someone theway I understand it. Honing that ability to creatively getideas across to people has forced me to get out of my

own head and, not only truly understand the conceptsmyself, but also to understand the student a bit better. It'salways good to appreciate how different we all are.

Leigh Hastings

- Wittenberg University WritingCenter- One year being a tutor.- English major.

Q: How has being a writingtutor/consultant helped you in

your interactions with peers,

either academically orprofessionally?

Working as an advisor has helped me in my interactions

with peers as I have learned to benefit from them asresources in the Writing Center. Just as writers come in tothe Center to work with me, I have gone to the Center asa writer to work with other advisors. Sharing my workwith others has helped me gain a greater sense of respectfor those who work in the Center and an appreciation fortheir genuine interest in collaborating with writers.


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course from which I hire new writing consultants(although Ive been fortunate to snag two seasonedones from Jacob at UM-Flint), and I was creating anembedded tutor program. We longed to demonstrate toher students, my consultants, and our non-departmental peers that the fields best practices werebased upon evidence-based practice or what RichardHaswell calls RAD: replicable, aggregable, and data-supported research. The majority of what we found,however, could be classified only as theory and lore(important precursors to evidence but not themselvesevidence).

This kinship has led to a rewarding research andpublishing partnership through which we have workedto create the studies we previously sought. Moreimportantly, it has encouraged me to rethink therhetorical purpose and audience of writing center data.Initially, I employed data to justify writing centerfunding to my direct supervisors, the Dean of Arts andSciences and the Provost. I have not found this type ofdata difficult to assemble or to frame. To be brutallyhonest, the higher ups are usually appeased bygrowing numbers, something I have been fortunate toexperience. When I can connect growing numbers toretention, even in a loose manner, I have been able topry open the institutional purse.

While I still collect demographic data and evaluationsto ensure the survival of my center, I am now in the

practice of creating surveys and interviews tailored tospecific needs and to diverse constituents, and I conducttextual comparisons of writing consultant and clientsession feedback to answer specific questions about ourservices. When I think I see a trend, I seek collaboratorswho are willing to look at the same issues in theircenters or classrooms, and/or I compare my findings tothose of OUs Office of Institutional Research. By doingso, I hope to challenge or validate the lens throughwhich I view my findings, to determine if our writingcenter programs are organic to OU student needs, etc.Today, I collect data for my consultants, my colleagues,and myself. Collectively, we need to know that ourpractices have efficacy beyond a large number ofclients, a colleagues recommendation, or a theory.

To argue for more data is not to neglect the importanceof the narrative that frames the data and the questions

that inspire its collection in the first place. In my view,evidence-based practice is an important but oftneglected part of the writing center story that we tell.

Reflections and Perspectives

Though our assessments have evolved in response tothe needs of our centers, they also align with the four

benefits of externally mandated assessment identified byIsabelle Thompson (33):

Externally mandated assessment can make oureffectiveness visible to administrators and, hence,increase our power and prestige on campus

Assessment involves our centers in a constantprocess of data collection and analysis and,hence, can enhance writing center research

The on-going collection and analysis of dataincreases the opportunities for reflective practiceand brings reflection to the forefront of dailyactivities

Routine assessment is the intelligent,professional, and ethical thing to do.

In the end, what data collection means for writing centersis that as we gain insight into the state of writing on ourcampus, we become agents of change, one of the basictenets of most writing centers missions. When weunderstand more about our practice, we can moreeffectively assist students in tutorial sessions. We canbecome a resource for faculty who have questions, seekguidance, or wish to try new approaches to writing. Wecan more effectively advocate for university programs tohelp develop and support student writing on campus.Clearly, it is not the data, but what we do with the data--how we read, analyze, and communicate the informationwe know--that makes a difference. And it is a differenceworth making.

Thus, from our collective perspectives, its useful forevery Writing Center to ask central questions about data:

What data are essential to have? Why? What data are useful to have? Why? What purposes do our data serve? How are our data used for assessment of our

work?

The answers to these questions allow us to makecomparisons with the past, keep our fingers on the pulseof current practices, and project the directions we wishour writing centers to take in the future.

Works Cited

Haswell, Richard. NCTE/CCCs Recent War onScholarship. Written Communication 22.2 (2005):198-223.

Thompson, Isabelle. Writing Center Assessment: Whyand a Little How. The Writing Center Journal 26.1(2006): 33-61.

-Diane Boehm has been Director of the University Writing Program atSaginaw Valley State University since 1995. Sh e founded and directsthe SVSU Writing Center, which conducts some 5,000 individual

F

Tutor VoicesJen Torreano

Leader of the Year, March 2011

- Grand Valley State University,Fred Meijer Center for Writingand Michigan Authors.- Three years experience, leadconsultant for two of those three

years.- English Language and Literaturemajor with a minor in Classics.

Q: How has being a writing tutor/consultant helped youin your interactions with peers, either academically orprofessionally?

Writing consultants discuss very personal issues withstudents, often by asking questions about the writingssubject matter, but also by discussing writing itself. I havenever met someone who is truly detached from his or herwriting, so part of the job of a consultant is to gain the trustof students and be encouraging while still being honest. Agood writing consultant tries to get to know a personquicklyby asking questions, noticing body language, andmaking other observationsand uses what she/he learnsto help the student become a better, more confident writer.These are skills that are useful in every sort of interactionacademically, professionally, and personally.

Q:When you think back on your time as a writing centertutor, can you describe a high point?

I have many favorite memories from my time as a writingconsultant, but this is one that sticks out in my mind. I wasworking with a nontraditional nursing student who wasfinishing her degree after taking twenty years off to be astay at home mother. She was two days away from turningin her first paper in twenty years, and she was terrified.Because she was so afraid of failing, she had spent anincredible amount of time doing research, writing, andrevising her paper, and it showed. After she read the paperaloud, I explained the things she had done right and usedthe positives to show her the areas that she could improve.She was so excited that she hadnt screwed up her firstpaper that I spent the rest of the day with a smile because Icould not get hers out of my mind. Its the greatconsultations I always remember.

Q: What advice might you give other tutors/ consultants?

Though consultants should always strive to improve, Ithink the most important thing is to trust yourself. Dont

worry about how a different consultant would resor what a professor will think (to a degree, of courRespond as an honest reader and your feedback wbetter than anything you say if you second guessyourself. This sort of answers the question below abut I was so afraid of messing up during my firscouple of months as a writing consultant that I wofreeze. Once I learned to trust myself and my naturesponses to the writing, I improved as a writingconsultant a thousand times over.

Q:What skills have you acquired, from being atutor/consultant, which you will take with youthroughout life?

Being a writing consultant improved my communskills in every waylistening, speaking, observinglanguage, all of it. But listening is probably the moimportant. Being a great listener is a rare and veryvaluable skill. The writing center taught me how toto have confidence, and to never underestimate homuch I can help someone or brighten a persons d

Allie OostaTutor of Year, March of 201

- Grand Valley State UniverFred Meijer Center for WritMichigan Authors.- Two years experience.- Writing major.

As a writing major, I navelbelieved that my writing skills could be useful to akind of student but only to a certain extent. A phor nursing major would sometimes enter the centerequest to work with a tutor whose major was sciebased. As a younger consultant, I respected thosestudents, and even thanked them, because physicsscary! Only later on in my career did I realize the mof writing centers where cross-discipline ideas hanin the air and tutors can learn from the students.

One specific afternoon, I worked with a nursing stI remember that her report was on the study of somdisease, and the results were shocking. The studyunveiled that one in three women were at risk fordeveloping this crazy paralysis that could lead to tinability to have children. I remember looking at thnursing student and saying, WOW! Can you belithis? I cant believe this! This could completely cha


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-Sherry Wynn Perdue is the Director of the Oakland UnWriting Center (OUWC), Joan Rosen Writing Studio, wprovided 6,500 writing consultations to undergraduate graduate researchers, faculty, and staff last year. Her inninclude Dissertation 101: A Research and Writing Intfor Education Graduate Students, a program she co-pilKresge Librarian Anne Switzer and which is described insummer 2011 issue of Educational Libraries.

-Helen Raica-Klotz is the current SVSU Writing Centercoordinator, a position she has held for five years. She isin the English Department, teaching composition and geeducation literature courses.

tutorial sessions each year. She is also the director of the SaginawBay Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project. Sheteaches writing courses, including both first-year composition andupper level professional writing courses.

-Jacob Blumner is the Director of the Marian E. Wright WritingCenter and Associate Professor of English at the University ofMichigan-Flint. He teaches writing classes that range from first-year writing to graduate writing courses. His research focuses onwriting centers and writing across the curriculum.

-Mary Ann Krajnik Crawford has been director of the WritingCenter since 1998 and is Professor of English at Central MichiganUniversity. She teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in

composition and linguistics. Her research areas include writingcenters, writing across the curriculum, ESL writing, and discourseissues.

Queer consulting: Assessing the degreeto which differences affect a writing

consultation

Curtis Dickerson & Jonathan Rylander

In our discussion at the 2011 ECWCA conference, QueerConsulting: Assessing the Degree to which DifferencesAffect a Writing Consultation, we hoped to add toconversations surrounding issues of difference and non-normative/queer moments in the writing center.Through a combination of our own experiences,interviews with other consultants who identify asLGBTQ, and the experiences of attendees to our panel,we hoped to provide new insight on one essentialquestion: How does a consultant react to discovereddifferences in a writing consultation? To us, focusingpurely on student needs during a consultation isdangerous. Or, perhaps better said, the student writerand his or her development is certainly still important,but equally as significant is the consultant who hasinherent rights in a workplace, namely for our discussion,to operate in a space free of discrimination or perceiveddiscrimination.

For individuals with queer identities, a discussion-basedoccupation can seem like a daily minefield of taboo topicsand insensitive, off-hand comments. How can a queerconsultant, or a consultant who perceives a queerstudent, possibly navigate such a potentially explosivelandscape?

No consultation is neutraleach one is full of identityassumptions and the political biases of both consultantsand writers. Yet, should the inherently unstable and oftenexplosive situations that we confront alter our practice asconsultants? Although we do not know the answer to thisquestion, we have noticed moments in writing centers

that seem to disrupt notions of what might be pas normal approaches to working with studewriters. Take, for example, Curtis reflection onconsultation that was suddenly thrown off tracstudent-writers comment:

As one student read his work aloud, he paused for a fseconds mid-sentence. I was looking at his computerwhether he was stuck on a word or thinking about thphrasing of the sentence. As I looked up, he was starinto another part of the library. Sorry, he said, HI laughed politely, and tried to get back to the paper. wouldnt let it go. Do you think shes hot? he aske

directly.

This was a problematic question for me as a gay manlaughed again, but as a consultant new to the job, I wcomfortable with outing myself at that moment. Thodoubt my face showed it, there was an intense war hbehind the scenes. A split second calculation of the pcons. Even if I did choose to out myself, how would Iit?

Besides, what would have been the point of overtly omyself? The paper the student brought had nothing LGBTQ individuals. This was less of a queer momenmore of just an awkward moment, yet one that still pin the position of deciding what parts of my life I coucould not share in a professional setting.

Since that moment happened two years ago, Ive ofte

wondered whether there was an added level of complthe situation. The students question was so far remothe subject at hand, I cant help but wonder if he plathat position intentionally. Perhaps he already sensewas gay, and this was his clumsy attempt to confronthe matter.

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accreditation processes, which was titled, LessonsLearned: Reflections on the Future. Three dinnerkeynote speakers took turns helping conferenceparticipants consider shared concerns about writingcenter assessment in a talk titled, Its Like aConsultation: Writing Center Assessment as a Means ofReflection and Revision. These speakers included EllenSchendel, director of the Fred Meijer Center for Writing& Michigan Authors at Grand Valley State University inGrand Rapids, MI; William Macauley, Director ofWriting at the College of Wooster in Wooster, OH; andBrian Huot, former director of the Writing Center at the

University of Louisville in Louisville, KY, and currentfaculty member in the Department of English at KentState University in Kent, OH.

Other Conference Business

In addition to the professional presentations and sharedconversations, the conference also featured six otherimportant activities: (1) a Silent Auction to support 2012tutor travel awards, which were suspended in 2011 dueto budget concerns; (2) presentations, tables ofinformation, and free materials from eight vendors; (3)an Ideas Exchange that allowed participants to sharecopies of favorite consulting strategies; (4) theannouncement and presentation of ECWCA TutorAwards (Jen Torreano, Tutor Leadership Award andAllie Oosta, Outstanding Tutor of the Year, both ofGrand Valley State University); (5) the announcement

and distribution of the first ECWCA Newsletter, whichhas been developed and edited by Anthony Garrison ofKent State University; and (6) the announcement of theresults of the Board of Directors election (Kim Ballard ofWestern Michigan University and Ashley Ellison of BallState University).

The ECWCA Silent Auction earned the association $545thanks to a number of generous vendors and conferenceparticipants. RichCo donated $200 to the auction;Bedford-St. Martins contributed two $50 gift cards toPanera and ten $5 gift cards to Biggbys Coffee as wellas a number of textbooks; Utah State University Pressprovided more than a dozen books, and Chef Arne ofSolvang, CA, provided 12 Danish Cookbooks. VariousECWCA participants and WMU departments provideda wealth of items that ranged from a basket of MichiganState University paraphernalia and WMU College of

Education and Human Development coffee mugs tocopies of her latest poetry book from Julia Moore,director of the Writing Center at Cedarville University.

Bedford-St. Martins also contributed $400 to ourconference to cover the majority of the expenses for ourbreakfast snacks and coffee both Friday and Saturday.

In addition, the publisher provided 250 copies of TheBedford Guide for Writing Tutors, 5th ed., which were givento all conference participants who wanted a copy. A tablefull of Bedford books was on prominent display, andconference participants could submit requests to havematerials mailed to them.

Other Donated Conference Items

To eliminate the cost of conference bags and swag, WMUWriting Center representatives solicited donations fromWMU departments and Discover Kalamazoo, a local

tourist office, which also negotiated the reduced ratesoffered at the conference hotels listed on the conferencewebsite. Various WMU departments provided pencils andmagnets, and Discover Kalamazoo provided maps andcoupon books to local restaurants. The WMU bookstoreprovided 350 plastic bags that we used to distribute theconference programs, pencils, magnets, city maps, andcoupon books.

Measuring Conference Success

While conference participants suggested the eventincluded many successes, from launching the careers offirst-time presenters and starting new friendships tosharing useful ideas and providing citations for futureworks about writing centers, perhaps the best way toconsider the value of the conference is by reflecting onwhat participants took with them in terms of a better

understanding of writing centers, heightened awareness ofwriting center assessment and strategies for use in writingcenter activities, and germs of ideas about futurepublications and presentations. Those things will extendthe 2011 ECWCA for years to come, and I, for one, hopeparticipants will consider turning their presentations intoarticles for journals devoted to writing center theory andpedagogy, such as The Writing Lab Newsletter,The DanglingModifier, Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, and The WritingCenter Journal, as well as to other publications devoted towriting instruction, mentoring, higher education,assessment, and tutoring.


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In the end, I ignored the question completely. I didnt see anybenefit to the consultation, so I let it drop.

What is most interesting about this students direct andheterosexist questionwhich perpetuates not onlygender stereotypes but sexist thinkingis that it takesthe focus off of the writing project and seems to forceCurtis queer identity into the spotlight. But should aconsultant, when confronted by a queer moment likethis, try to challenge the students (possibly misguided)normative worldview, or is that not the consultantsresponsibility? Does the inherent discussion-based

nature of a consultation put the consultant in an activistrole, when confronted by perceived narrow-minded orbackwards thinking? During our panel in March, oneaudience member asked whether we thought it wasasking too much of consultants to become activists anddisrupt the kinds of normative and stereotypicalthinking that could potentially harm certain groupsespecially when these comments are not in the studentsactual piece of writing but made during the broaderdiscussion. As we reflected more deeply on thisquestion, both of us began to disagree on the extent towhich consultants should become activists.

On the one hand, Jon argues that we should view thewriting center as an activist space. In talking aboutresearch that he conducted in relation to LGBTQconsultants, he shared the following reflection toaddress his point:

When talking with other LGBTQ consultants, I wassurprised to find that Aloysiusa consultant I interviewedtalk about ways in which his writing center supported hisactivist actions on campus. He said,

And while in working at the writing studio, well, itwas kind of strange because during my senior year at[my undergraduate university], several others and Iwere also trying to create a group for gay and lesbianstudents on campus. And [the writing centerdirector] was part of the effort for that, she was reallyinto it and thought it was just so wonderful so shewould cut out articles from the newspaper and postthem in the writing studio and things like that.

As I heard Aloysius say this I was immediately taken aback.

Whenever I had thought about queer issues and LGBTQidentity, specifically, in the writing center, I often thoughtabout the negative or less desirable scenarios, such as how torespond to a students homophobic piece of writing. I thus didnot expect to hear a consultant describe his writing center asa space that helped him launch an on-campus activist group.Yet since the interviews, this particular response has led me

to think about the potential of consultants to become activistsin ways that go beyond helping students become betterwriters.

On the other hand, Curtis finds that the consultant isfirst and foremost a worker, an individual who washired to increase the quality of writing on a campus onestudent at a time. He argues that asking consultants toengage in activities or discussion beyond what isrelevant to the textsuch as supporting the rights ofLGBTQ people on campusis better left in the hands ofstudent organizations and support resources for queer-

identifying individuals. Yet this is not to say that hebelieves employees should be indifferent orunsympathetic. Ideally, all institutional employeeswould be strong advocates for non-normativeidentifying peoples, but he also thinks that asking aconsultant to view himself or herself as an activist,when the vast majority of employees are not expectedto have this mentality, is unfair. For him, either allemployees within an institution should be charged withcombating backwards worldviews, or none should. Theconsultants position has clearly stated goals, butforcing consultants to view themselves as an instrumentof change in the social and political climate of aninstitution is an unreasonable request for a part timeemployee, and potentially disruptive to theconsultation.

If authors within a collaborative article disagree, thensurely an easy answer will not be found. The debate isparticularly muddled when a consultant is expected tobe an activist, but does not feel comfortable promotingthe social and political direction that the writing centerdirector seems to be advocating. We merely pose thesequestions for consideration and discussion, in the hopesthat a consensus can eventually be reached. More studyis certainly necessary, but the issue remains a currentand important one, particularly for queer identifyingconsultants.

-This piece is an extension of a group presentation. We would like tothank Chelsea Milligan and Lucy Manley for contributing to ourpresentation and discussion in Kalamazoo, MI.

Curtis Dickerson is pursuing his bachelors degree in EnglishEducation at Miami University. He has been employed at the HoweCenter for Writing Excellence at Miami for two years. He can be

reached at [email protected].

Jonathan Rylander recently completed his M.A. in Composition andRhetoric at Miami University. He worked at the Howe Center forWriting Excellence at Miami during the spring of 2009 and fall of2010 school years. He can be reached at [email protected].

The 2011 East Central Writing Centers AssociationConference included a number of firsts for ourassociation as well as a number of successes. Held atWestern Michigan University (WMU) in Kalamazoo,

MI, from March 3 through 5, our associations 2011annual conference occurred earlier in the spring thanany other conference; drew participants from faroutside of our conference area (California, Nevada,Florida, etc.); involved the largest number of highschool consultant presenters (26) ever at ourconference; and was structured by a Call for Proposals(CFP) focused on one current writing center topicassessmentalthough slightly more sessions on topicsnot related to assessment were presented.

The conference was attended by 310 high school,undergraduate, graduate, and professionalconsultants/tutors, writing centerdirectors/coordinators, writing centerassociate/assistant directors, faculty members,administrators, librarians, and students. Forty-seveninstitutions from two countries (South Korea and the

US) and eight states (MI, OH, IN, IL, PA, CA, NV, andFL) were represented in 88 sessions that lasted 75minutes each for a total of 110 hours of sessions. Sixty-seven single topic workshops and talks were presentedby ECWCA members, including one workshop led bythe vendor RichCo; fifteen sessions that combinedtwenty-nine presentations into multiple part panelswere offered; and three double-session workshops(150 minutes each) were presented during back-to-back sessions.

Conference Theme

The ECWCA Board approved a conference Call forProposals (CFP) different from any CFP in ECWCAhistory. Although the 2011 ECWCA Conference CFP,titled Centering Assessment: Roles, Relationships,Respect, Resistance, clearly indicated any writing

center topic would be considered for inclusion in theconference program, the CFP also focused on writingcenter assessment and, as the excerpt below shows,explored the purpose of attempting to structure awriting center conference on that topic:

. . . [W]riting centers have always faced demands toprove their worth to students, faculty, staff,

administrators, parents, and taxpayers.Weve often answered those demands witharguments based on program assessment, butanother type of assessment has also always

functioned at the heart of writing centerconsultations, as consultant and writercollaborate to assess the writers needs, afocus that encourages conversation andinsights . . . As the first regional conferencedevoted to assessment of our work, we seekto center writing center assessmentdiscussion, in several connotations of theverb. Through quality panel discussions,round tables, workshops, and poster sessionswe hope conference participants will focus,equalize, highlight, and pinpoint writingcenter assessment theory, practices, issues,and ideas.

Of the 104 individual and panel talks and workshooffered during the two-day conference, 48 addresswriting center assessment. Am ong other topics, sedevoted to assessment considered program assessm(including Assessing High School Writing CenterWhat We Can Do and How We Can Do It, Asses(and Advocating for) What We Value: DocumentinContributions to Students Learning Processes in CWriting Programs and Writing Centers, and A FFellows: Creating and Assessing a Writing FellowsProgram); assessment theory (including EvaluatioCapacity Building in Writing Center Assessment What Writing Centers Really Value: Applying DyCriteria Mapping to Writing Center Work); assessstrategies within tutorials (including Assessment ofto Begin Sessions Through Inquiry: The PracticalApplication of VARK and The SOAP Note: A ClApproach to the Assessment of Writing) and assespolitics (including Using Assessment for SustainabStrategies for Staying Effective in a Volatile EconomEnvironment, Writing Center Data: What Do Weand How Should We Use It? and Self-Assessmen

Dangers and the Challenges.)

In addition, luncheon keynote speaker, Dr. Eileen former WMU Writing Center director and ECWCAConference host and current WMU Vice Provost foInstitutional Effectiveness, offered a talk about wricenters roles in institutional assessment and

Assessing Our Success: The 2011 East Central Writing CenAssociation Conference

Kim Ballard, [email protected], Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI


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The Accidental Writing Center: ProgramGrowth through Negotiation and

Collaboration

Jeanne R. Smith, Doug Sheldon, Heather Kaley WillMcSuley, Allison Machnicki, and Joe Greenwell - Kent

State University

We did not begin with the aim of creating a high schoolwriting center, but with the more modest goal of improvingour tutor training program. In the process of working

toward that goal, we reached for opportunities, joined withvarious partners, and journeyed through a process ofnegotiation. Our university writing center, the universityadministration, our service-learning office, our Englishdepartment, the incoming tutors, various communitypartners, and the different constituencies of the high schooleach came to the project with differing agendas. Managingthis potential conflict and remaining flexible resulted inmuch more than we ever set out to do: we created a newwriting center, improved our tutor training program,enhanced the university writing centers reputation, andestablished a service-learning program.

Negotiating the Agenda Part 1: The Writing Center, TheUniversity, and The Community

Our writing center had always wanted a 3-credit hour pre-service training course but had never been able to launch

one, so we settled for a 1-credit hour course during a tutorsfirst semester of employment. A new opportunity, however,presented itself. In response to a grant offered by theuniversitys new service learning office, we proposed TheWriting Center Project. It would be a way for our pre-service tutors to learn writing center theory in a 3-credithour course, while serving as volunteer tutors inestablished literacy programs in the community. The servicelearning grant opportunity allowed faculty to re-envisionany course as a service-learning experience leading tosignificant opportunities for undergraduates to participatein disciplinary research. Because writing center work andtutor professional development have always dovetailedwith service learning and undergraduate research, the grantrepresented an opportunity to formalize and recognize thetutors experiential learning as central to our universitysundergraduate teaching and research missions.

We solicited community partners who would accept ourprospective tutors into their programs: adult literacyprograms, programs for immigrants learning English,university bridge programs. Som e prospective communitypartners had had negative experiences with service learningprograms and needed to be persuaded that we would notrelease untrained, unsupervised students into theirorganizations, creating substantial additional work for

them. Other community partners needed to bthat service learning is not the same as free lathat the service is a learning experience wovecourse content. Conspicuously absent from tpartners, though, were the area high schools--because university entities often do not want perceived as large outsiders imposing agendaschools.

Offering a new course outside the normal chaproposing and vetting a new course at the uniposed substantial logistical issues for our Engdepartment, and made the course difficult to

These difficulties ensured that the only studenenrolled were very committed to service and lconcerned about degree credit requirements. this group of students, one proposed developown community partner site and program: stawriting center at the local high school. The reclass elected to take on the high school as our community partner for our first semester. Anproject began.

Negotiating the Agenda Part 2: Starting OveSingle Community Partner

Our initial meeting with school officials reveathey had wanted a writing center for years bunever been able to start one. While the Englisdepartment Chair was eager to host our studeneither she nor any of her teaching staff woul

time to coordinate the center. The Principal econcern over how we would sustain the writinot wanting to see his building come to rely oto have it evaporate after a semester. We offethe high school site first, before offering futurestudents other community partner site choiceproject earned the very enthusiastic support oChair and Principal. The school viewed the ustudents as not only tutors supplementing clainstruction, but also as mentors and role modestudents.

For our project to function, one student tutor served as the liaison between the university acommunity partner. Before beginning the prprovided the high school with a list of ourservices. Tutoring sessions would provide disfrom the classroom teacher but also create a b

between the student and the educator. The stwould witness a mentor performing writing tproviding a model of writing-in-action, demothat writing is a craft learned through practicerevision, and mentoring. If the state of Ohio rstudent to ...[c]ompose writings that convey message and include well-chosen details, (En

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accredited four-year college in the United States-- justin different ways. As frequently lamented in writingcenters, we are not editors. But we are consultants, andwe have the responsibility to be responsive to ourstudents. Robinson (2009) argues we must encourageour students to build intrinsic motivation and helpthem view the Writing Center not as a grammar-checking station, but as an eye-opener to the use oflanguage in college. Robinsons idea is realized atBeacon College. In fact, with 5,106 visits in the2010/2011 academic year from a population of 150students, the Robert & Jane Weiner Writing Center,staffed with only one Director, one full-time WritingConsultant, and two part-time Peer WritingConsultants, it was more than apparent we did nothave time to pick at grammar. What we did was payattention to our students individual needs. Ourstudents, motivated by the companionship we offeredas they navigated the writing process, and respondedaccordingly: 5,106 times.

Writing is a terribly frustrating process. It is long,arduous, requires many times of being told you arewrong, to do it again so you can be less wrong, and tryit one more time - but in MLA format. Our studentsneed us to stick it out with them when the going getstough, when they feel like they have absolutelynothing else to give.

Many writing centers require papers be pre-typed andprinted out before a writing consultation. However,this practice seems to encourage the widemisperception of the writing center as a final editingservice. This requirement also suggests consultants willnot watch you eek out a first paragraph; they have toomany other students to see; this is not in their jobdescription; it is too agonizingly mind-numbing forthem; the writing center does not want to deal withyou if youve got nothing. But what if you really feellike youve got nothing? What if youve gotdysgraphia? I consider myself fortunate to work withstudents with learning disabilities, students for whomthe very act of transferring a single thought to paperseems an impossible task. I am honored with theinvitation of a blank page because that is an invitationfor a journey together.

The Robert & Jane Weiner Writing Center is a place of

active writing. Students at various stages of the writingprocess sit at computers or tables, whichever theyprefer, and the writing consultant(s) providesconstructive inquiry, suggests an outlining ortechnology aid, and addresses concerns as they arise.The students stay for as long as they wish, talk to eachother about their writing, always have access to help,and most importantly, are never just another session.

Because of this consultation style, I am privy to manyadventures at once.

Writing centers at universities with student populations inthe tens of thousands may scoff at the idea of an open andhighly-individualized writing center. Anything can be donewith only 150 students to handle, they may retort. I am notsuggesting all writing centers adopt this approach and betrampled by their students. Instead, I challenge my fellowwriting center consultant to show the student seeking yourexpertise that even if time is limited to thirty minutes,during that time the student will not be alone. It is time youwill spend showing the student not what you know, butuncovering what she knows. You will help one find thetreasure he didnt know he had. And who can resist anadventure like that?

References

North, Stephen M. (1984). The idea of a writing center.College English, 46(5), 433-446.

Robinson, Heather M. (2009). Writing center philosophyand the end of basic writing: Motivation at the siteof remediation and discovery. Journal of BasicWriting, 28(2), 70-92.


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Language Arts Academic Content Standards) thenthe tutors duty is to create an environment that willnurture a students ability to create competentwriting and sustain that competency in futurewriting. Student writing must also exhibit . . .[proper] grammatical structures in written work,(English Language Arts Academic ContentStandards).

The school librarian worked with us to develop awork space in a section of the school libraryexclusively for our tutoring center, providing storagespace for tutors belongings and access to the

schools wireless internet. The school library is theoptimum choice for the development of a writingcenter because the location is well known andaccessible to all students, faculty and staff.

Initially, we involved only the Principal and theEnglish Department faculty members. Over time,the scope of the project widened, involving theparticipation of other departments. The teaching staffwas made aware of our presence because it isconsidered a courtesy to all departments that thefaculty be made aware of outside tutors in contactwith their students. Making these connections letthe school know that our tutors would be able tomeet the needs of not only English students, but alsoof students from any class that required academicwriting. As a result, we received many studentsfrom disciplines outside of English.

Our tutors were also expected to be ambassadors tothe school faculty. If a faculty members questioncould not be answered by a tutor, the liaison wouldbe readily available to meet with that teacher.

Our overall approach to the high school was toprovide service. We were responsible for meetingthe demands of the community partner with not onlyskilled tutoring, but also with the professionalismneeded to sustain a relationship with the school.

To better communicate with a community partner,the liaison must be familiar with all rules andregulations demanded by state standards. If weencountered a serious disciplinary problem, weneeded the full cooperation of the administrativestaff. The liaison needs knowledge of the state and

local regulations to ensure a productive workingrelationship between school and university. Wefollowed the proper chain of command to handlediscipline, and followed state regulations. If aproblem could not be solved by the tutor, thelibrarian would contact the schools vice principals(who are charged with the schools disciplinary

responsibilities). The location of school administrativeoffices was made known to all tutors and whichadministrator to contact in case of an emergency. Each tutorcarried a criminal background check because all personsworking with high school students must have both federaland state background checks before they can set foot on theschool premises (Background Check FAQ). Alladministrators (from vice-principals to administrativesecretaries) were informed of our incoming tutors.

Negotiating the Agenda Part 3: If You Build It, Will TheyCome?

We quickly learned that faculty buy-in does not necessarilyequal student buy-in. After the rush of excitement of startingthe writing center, lack of student traffic came as a harshdose of reality. Even with the unwavering support of theEnglish Chair and the Principal, we were not reaching thevolume of students we had expected. We had to find ways toprovide service, whether the students seemed to want us ornot.

The Chair arranged for us to participate in a workshop daywith her classes, in order to publicize the writing center andto introduce the students to the tutors. Each of the tutors(Will, Heather and Doug) worked with several students fromthe high school. Our morale boosted by our first studentcontact. We became a semi-permanent fixture of the highschool library, and that stability sent an important messageto students and faculty: we werent going anywhere.

To bide our time in the library, and to show the students thatwe worked hard too, we researched differences betweenuniversity and high school tutoring. We adopted theproblem of student reluctance to approach our tutors as ourcollaborative research problem for the semester. We readscholarship on high school writing centers and used what wefound in conjunction with what we learned from observationin our workshops. We concluded that the tutoring objectiveswere similar in high schools and universities, but that highschool tutoring required a more firm style and greaterconfidence than university tutoring. Having not yet tutoredfellow college students -- let alone high school students whoexpected us to have all the answers -- we jumped into theproject feeling ill-prepared. However, as we continued, wecollected experiences and knowledge, and learned a littlewith every step.

First Lesson: We Really Dont Have All the Answers

Being pioneers, we did not realize the troubles we wouldface attempting to create the high school writing center. Wefailed to understand what our presence communicatedunintentionally. We had support from the Principal and thechair of the English department; however, it seemed thatmuch of the school viewed us with suspicion, our presencecommunicating that we young college students thought we

21). Our experiment with the writing centerexplorations website, using these definitions, did notmeet the requirements of play because students hadto post at least once a week. T his was not voluntaryparticipation; the students did not willingly acceptthese goals or rules. The students did not have anyother means by which they could fulfill this graderequirement, so their only choices were to blog, losethose points toward a 4.0, or drop the class. Forcedplay is not play at all.

Conclusion:

While we have not given up on the concept of gamingand gamification, we believe that we need to proceedwith caution and trepidation. We take Bogost (2011)seriously when he asserts that game developers andplayers have critiqued gamification on the groundsthat it gets games wrong, mistaking incidentalproperties like points and levels for primary featureslike interactions with behavioral complexity (para.11). Furthermore, gamification is not a quick fix;adding points will not save a website or instantlycreate interest. Gamification works when it is wellthought out, the mechanics heavily consider theaudience that you are trying to work with, and mostimportantly the people want to participate. In ourwriting centers case, this was our latest of numerousattempts to motivate content creators to provideresources for our campus and community, but itwont be our last. Despite lackluster statistical results,this study succeeded by reminding us that fun,motivation, and work are a tricky formula, and thatunderstanding audience is always the most importantpart of our work.

References:

Bogost, I. (2011, August 8). Gamification is bullshit:My position statement at the Whartonsymposium [Web log post]. Retrieved fromhttp://bogo.st/wm.

Carse, J. P. (1987). Finite and infinite games: A vision ofplay and possibility. N ew York, NY: Ballantin

McGonical, J. (2011). Reality is broken: Why games mabetter and how they can change the world . NewNY: Penguin.

McGonical, J. (2011). Reality is broken: Why games mabetter and how they can change the world . NewNY: Penguin.

Thompson, C. (2011, March). Clive Thompson on hogames make work seem like play. Wired,19(3). Retr ieved fromhttp://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02mpson_living_games/

John Lauckner, is a Masters student in Digital Rhetoric andProfessional Writing at MSU and a TA and Graduate WritConsultant at Writing Center at MSU. His research intereson alternative learning spaces, videogames, beer, and learn

Dianna Baldwin, PhD is the Associate Director of the WritiCenter at MSU. Her research interests primarily focus ontechnology in education in many forms, including gamific

virtual worlds, and social media. She also dabbles in blogstudying comics.

Notes of a Fortunate Writing CenterConsultant: What My Students with

Learning Disabilities Have Taught Meabout the Writing Process

Caroline Le, M.A.

In the Robert & Jane Weiner Writing Center at BeaconCollege, the only accredited four-year college in the countryexclusively for students with learning disabilities,

Michael likes to use Kurzweil, a program which allowshim to listen to his assignments, his textbooks, and his ownwriting, aloud; David prefers I personally read articlesfor U.S. Government class to him, and Tom uses Word Q,a box of word suggestions which follows as he types. Oncewe are finished with our one-on-one writing consultations,I know they will continue to have questions as they edit, soI keep myself available to answer them, long after I have

officially signed off on his visit. I must be as famwith my students needs as I am with the writinI am trying to show them. I need to meet my stuwhere they are--not wait for them to find me.

According to Stephen North (2004), Writing ceattempt to produce better writers, not better wthrough a student-centered process-oriented apwhich chiefly means talking to writers about wBecause of their learning disabilities, my studenme with no option but to deal with all of theseelements. I am extremely fortunate to frequentl

encounter the anxiety and frustration of not beunderstood; I am forced to create individualizedialogue and struggle, my students same struwith dissecting the communication process.

The fundamentals of college-level writing arat Beacon College just as they are at any other


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knew it all. We started by visiting classrooms to workwith the students and to explain what we do. We neverplanned to go against what their teachers had wantedthem to do or criticize them. In fact, our objective was theexact opposite. We wanted to work alongside theteachers and give their students extra help with theirwriting. The teacher has only so much time to work witheach student, and yet there is always insufficient time toget everything done. Our objective was to give theteachers a little breather and help them and theirstudents. Though some teachers were on board, somesaw us as an overreaching university and did not wantanything to do with us at first. We needed to better

understand the needs and concerns of the faculty andstudents.

Adapting and improvising are important skills in anytutoring session. We realized we needed to adapt to oursituation and learn from our mistakes. Our first misstepswere assuming enthusiastic support from all faculty andassuming student motivation to write. High schoolstudents do not see writing as cool or fun. They wantto fit in socially, and fitting in does not include academicwriting and research. This social pressure to avoidacademic writing did not seem real to us until weexperienced it.

Dealing with the maturity level of high school studentspresented us with anothe

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