A 2008 Conference review

Found this review of the 2008 NEWCA conference on the PeerCentered blog:

http://bessie.englab.slcc.edu/pc/2008/04/newca-report.html#links

Must say, I agree about the fabulousness of the keynote.

 

Multiple approaches to online WC resources

All this year as I’ve been building up and revising our center’s website resources, I have been looking across the web at other centers’ sites for models.  

Here are some observations.

Featured Site: SUNY Dutchess WC Alumni Page

I’ve been looking for good ways to keep in touch with writing center alumni and to make their stories visible to current tutors and other alumni.  At the NEWCA conference this year, Tom Denton mentioned his center’s alumni webpage.  So I looked it up.  It’s wonderful!  Check it out.   I start us here at the page where Tom invites alumni to send material and join a discussion board, but be sure to go to the Alumni News page, too, to see how he arranges the news and images that former tutors send in. 

 

 

WAC and Writing Centers: Free DVD

Are you interested in ways writing centers can facilitate faculty development, enhancing writing pedagogy in many disciplines? 

Keene State College’s Center for Writing Director, Phyllis Benay, brought a number of Shaped By Writing, Too DVDs to the Burlington conference to distribute.  The stack was gone by Saturday afternoon, but if you’d like a free copy, follow the link above for contact information.

SIG report: WC Assessment & Research

Michelle Deal and Collie Fulford combined SIGs and hosted conversation across two sessions that explored the intersections of WC assessment and research.  In attendance were our conference host, Sue Dinitz of University of Vermont, and Tom Denton of SUNY Dutchess Community College; we were joined by Nichole Bennett-Bealer of SUNY Plattsburgh,  Sarah Blazer & Carolyn Steinhoff of CUNY Lehman, and John Hall of Boston University during the second hour.

Tom Denton asked the pointed question, “What counts as assessment?” prompting discussion of qualitative and quantitative approaches and the differences between internally driven and externally mandated assessment.   

What effect do external demands such as assessment for institutional accreditation have on our centers’ practices?  In this “age of accountability,” how can we ensure that what we study and assess is meaningful rather than dutiful? 

NEWCA “WC Administration” SIG (Sunday, 13 April 2008)

Pat Morelli (U Hartford) and Jennifer Jefferson (Endicott College), co-facilitators

As part of NEWCA’s first (and successful!) experimentation with Special Interest Groups (SIGs) on the last day of the conference, the SIG on WC Administration began its informal conversation with Pat tossing out a few talking points that are of interest to her – and because she was curious about other administrators’ perspectives about those aspects of WC administration. Those were budgetary challenges; WC Image / Credibility (the public face of the WC); and, the quality of relationships with first-year writing faculty and other WAC/WID initiatives. Interestingly, the conversation immediately turned to issues associated with working with students who have learning and other disabilities and the kinds of staff development that help train tutors for such tutoring sessions. This part of the conversation took half of the allotted time period!

Other topics that were covered, pretty much in the order that they came up, were communication with faculty; reporting mechanisms (chains of command) and institutional support; how and to what extent our writing centers address WAC/WID issues; session notes – various methods of record keeping, how they’re used, tutor training re: session notes. It was difficult not to note how much all of these topics intersected with the other NEWCA SIGS, and how much all of our concerns overlap.

The folks who attended this SIG were Thomas Brady, WC Director at Mount Saint Vincent College, Bronx, NY; Sarah Blazer, Writing and Literacy Coordinator at Lehman College, CUNY, Katherine Stathis, Interim Director of the Writing Center at Finger Lakes Community College, and John Hall, Boston University Writing Center Director. We are interested in learning more about your thoughts about the topics that came up. To what degree has your Writing Center trained its staff on working with students with disabilities? Have you developed effective strategies for communicating with faculty that you’d like to share? How have your record-keeping practices helped or interfered with the business of your writing center? We welcome responses to these or any other administrative topics.

Featured Site: The Rutgers Writers House

Since the topic of the new Writers House at Rutgers came up with weekend at the NEWCA conference, here’s the link to the YouTube video documenting this innovative writing space.

Do You Like Techno?

Well, this weekend I will be facilitating the NEWCA technology SIG at our annual conference. I have to admit that though I have a good understanding of technology I’m not always in favor of it. However, with “five year plans” and accreditation committees constantly talking about monies for technology, it is a necessary part of our writing center discussions. But how much is too much, or too little?

Tutoring the tutors

I’ve been working with a dynamite group of tutors at Keene State.  They give so much to other writers.  But I’ve noticed they’re less familiar with professional writing genres than they are the academic ones that comprise their daily fodder.    That’s probably true for many college students.  And because good writing strategies don’t necessarily transfer from one situation to another without some coaxing and coaching, I’m starting to pay attention to this gap in the comfort levels.

Lack of familiarity with professional genres matters for the occasional sessions where students may seek help with resumes, cover letters, internship or graduate school applications, teaching portfolios, and so forth, but I’m equally concerned to help our staff become comfortable writing in these pragmatic ways for themselves.   I want these remarkable tutors to be able to use writing as a means to move on from their work for the center, to gain access to different professional and intellectual roles.

So I’ve been doing informal advising/tutorials with tutors, especially the seniors.   I might snag a tutor for a brainstorming session, asking, “So what do you want to do after graduation?”  Often, tutors initiate tutorials: “Take a look at my philosophy of education,” or “How do I explain about tutoring in my resume?”  Those sessions can be really fun and productive.  

Here are a couple of resources I developed to help tutors make the transition to new professional situations.

• Tutoring as Professional Development
• Tutors: Describing Your Work

I’m interested, too, in learning about more resources for tutors as they leave or augment their writing center work.

The Poobahs of Writing or the Center of Debate?

Our center changed from using a traditional website to a blog based website last fall. We hoped that blogging on behalf of the Center for Writing might put into text some of the fascinating conversations about writing and teaching and learning that happen all over the college. These discussions rejuvenate our practices, but they tend to be ephemeral.

So instead of being the place to find definitive how-to handouts, we wondered if our new site could initiate meaningful discussion. Contention even. Not How-to-Signal-a-Quote but instead (or in addition) A-Signaling-and-Citing Debate. We seek multiple perspectives on interesting writing and teaching issues, not some disembodied voice of authority eminating from the Center for Writing as if we were the poobahs of academic writing.