Author: Jennifer Conrad

Pink and white lotus flower floating on a body of water

Writing Centers as Spaces of Recovery

Disability and Writing Centers, Diversity and Inclusion, Graduate Students, Social Justice, Writing Centers

By Maggie Hart, University of Minnesota—For many writers, and tutors, the writing center is a place to slow down, to rest, and to recover. // I began to understand the importance of recovery differently after completing treatment for blood cancer. Just a few months before I began graduate school, I was in a hospital room receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia. Then, I was sitting in seminars, reading complex theory, and trying to think clearly again. I quickly learned that recovery is not the clean narrative we often imagine when we talk about “beating” illness. For me, and for many other survivors, recovery is slow and uneven. Some days are clear, productive, and focused, and others feel foggy and fragile. Progress happens, but sporadically. The body and mind renegotiate their capacities constantly. […]

May 12, 2026

How to Discuss GenAI in Writing Consultations

AI Writing, Graduate Students, Tutor Publications, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Writing Center Research, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Brady Hall and Emma Bapst, Miami University of Ohio—AI has become part of our writing center ecosystems. Whether we like it or not, students use it in their processes. Some professors require it in their courses; others ban it completely. This leaves students caught in the middle, trying to satisfy competing interests. As students perform to try to satisfy their instructors, they are learning a “hidden curriculum,” or knowledge that travels behind the network of traditional classroom education with regard to AI. These contexts permeate writing center experiences as well. With coexisting perspectives of AI refusal and acceptance, it can be difficult for writing center consultants to feel comfortable addressing AI use with students at all. 

April 14, 2026
This photo depicts the Horseshoe, a greenery space with lush grass and trees in the middle of UofSC’s campus. The photo shows students sitting together in groups. The Horseshoe is across the street from the Byrnes building where the UofSC writing center is housed.

Listening and Learning: The Exigence of Creating Community Through Feedback

Graduate Students, Higher Education, Student Voices, Tutor Training, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Writing Center Research, Writing Center Staff, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Sam Hyatt and Meg Hultgren, University of South Carolina—As doctoral students serving as Assistant Directors (ADs) in the Writing Center (WC) at the University of South Carolina during uncertain academic times, we’ve had the unique opportunity to navigate leadership roles while still actively engaged in graduate study. Our tutoring staff is also distinctive—comprised entirely of English graduate students, primarily MAs and MFAs in their first year of school—which has shaped the collaborative and academic culture within our center. // Our overlapping roles as students, tutors, and leaders has been both challenging and rewarding, […]

May 13, 2025
A computer with writing on it in front of a classroom filled with writing center professionals writing

Reuniting in the Write Place: Rediscovering Community at the IWCA Collaborative

IWCA, Writing Center Conference, Writing Centers

Introduction by Jennifer Conrad and Ellen Cecil-Lemkin—The 2023 IWCA Collaborative took place in Chicago on Wednesday, February 15 and marked our first return to in-person conferencing since 2019, the year prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The original call for proposals centered on a consideration of “writing center relationships, partnerships, and coalitions,” as well as the benefits of shared embodied presence with colleagues across the field of writing center studies. For us, there was a special energy about returning to a shared physical space, getting to see […]

February 27, 2024

A Warm Welcome for Our New Teaching Faculty

From the Director, Madison Writing Assistance, Staff Introductions, UW-Madison Writing Center Alumni Voices, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Academic Staff, Writing Center Staff, Writing Centers

In August 2023, thanks to the support of English Department and the College of Letters & Science (among others), UW-Madison’s Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum programs welcomed two full-time teaching faculty, Abigail (Abby) Letak and Seth Umbaugh. 

January 30, 2024
Small, blocky shapes of towns, fields, and pastures surround the graceful swirls and whorls of the Mississippi River. Countless oxbow lakes and cutoffs accompany the meandering river south of Memphis, Tennessee, on the border between Arkansas and Mississippi, USA. The "mighty Mississippi" is the largest river system in North America. (photo credit: United States Geological Survey)

Call for Proposals, Fall 2023

Writing Centers

Another Word is currently seeking proposals for blog posts. We seek proposals from writing center administrators, professional staff, undergraduate and graduate tutors, and those invested in writing center studies on a broad range of topics related to administering, tutoring, training, and working in the writing center. 

September 29, 2023
Photo depicts a banner designed by interior architecture student Isabella Robinson for the Writing Center.

Hello again!

Writing Center Receptionists, Writing Centers

The Writing Center at UW-Madison is pleased to announce a return to in-person appointments this fall! We’ll be offering these in our main Writing Center and in our eight satellite locations across campus. Our main center opens on Wednesday, September 8, while satellite locations start up in week four of the semester, on Sunday, September […]

September 7, 2021

Ongoingness: Reflections from within a Pandemic

Graduate Students, Higher Education, The Online Writing Center, Writing Center Academic Staff, Writing Center History, Writing Center Tutors

By Jennifer Conrad—When we entered the spaces of online learning a year ago, few of us could have guessed what the time would hold. On the one hand, this past year has been one of shared experience: all of us are finding our way through a global pandemic, with all of its uncertainty, political and social unrest, boredom, loneliness, and other associated experiences. On the other hand, this time has been one that is deeply individual: each of us passing time in our quarantine “bubbles.”

March 16, 2021

“Focus on the Now,” or Embodiment in a Virtual Dissertation Writing Camp

Graduate Students, Higher Education

By Calley Marotta and Jennifer Conrad—In May of 2020, two months after the sudden jump to online-only instruction necessitated by COVID-19, our writing center held its first virtual Dissertation Writing Camp. Co-sponsored by UW-Madison’s Graduate School and facilitated by Writing Center instructors, the central goals of this camp have always been to support writing and its production during a compressed timeline and to provide dissertators with a community of fellow graduate student writers engaged in the same effort. The decision to host this long-running camp online rather than in person felt provisional, and yet necessary amid so much upheaval.

November 10, 2020

Celebrating 50 Years of the UW-Madison Writing Center

Uncategorized, UW-Madison History, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center History

On November 8, 2019, the UW-Madison Writing Center hosted a day packed chock-full of activities and events to celebrate its 50 years on campus. To provide a taste of the Writing Center’s evolution over time, we’ve included the slide show that Emily Hall and Nancy Linh Karls, Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum Interim Co-Directors, provided during their afternoon remarks. […]

November 18, 2019