Category: Covid

large, round stained glass window in the ceiling surrounded by white ceiling details and a level of bookshelves and seating for students

Creating Space: Building a Writing Center for Graduate Students

Covid, Graduate Students, Writing Center Tutors

By Dr. Yvonne Lee, Lehigh University—Working with graduate writers is currently a topic being discussed in the literature, and much of what is being discussed is the uniqueness and liminality of the situation in which graduate student writers find themselves (Jewell & Cheatle, 2021; Lawrence & Zawacki, 2018; Russell-Pinson & Jafarian, 2020; Simpson et al., 2016). To many, graduate writers should already be experts in writing in their fields. To others, they are novice insiders who are still learning the practices and expectations of their fields.  […]

September 6, 2023
First-Generation Students sitting in their organizational home looking attentively towards an invited speaker, Emilio Manuel University of Utah Student Union.

Nomadic Pedagogy and the Writing Center

Covid, Higher Education, Technology, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Writing Center pedagogy, Writing Centers

By Mario Ramirez-Arrazola, University of Oklahoma—In writing center work, It is hard to refrain from thinking about the writing center as the client’s endpoint, and yet it is important to recognize the varied movements and progressions that bring writers to us. Before entering the space of the writing center, they have had to travel through a journey of self-contained experiences, which affected them in either grand or negligible ways. When they walk out, perhaps never to be seen again, their stories don’t stop there. […]

October 25, 2022
A woman sitting behind a laptop resting her face in her hands. A red coffee cup is to her right; a desk lap on the left shines on her shoulder. She looks despondent and overwhelemd.

Pandemic Transitions: Be(com)ing a New Writing Center Director During COVID-19

Covid, Higher Education, Writing Centers

By Amanda May, New Mexico Highlands University—Picture it: Tallahassee 2020. I was preparing to send my dissertation to the committee for my defense after a tumultuous final semester as assistant director. No part of writing center experience or scholarship prepared me to help transition from in-person services to fully online services in response to the pandemic, facing challenges similar to those described by Marilee Giles and colleagues. To make matters more difficult, I was also on the job market. […]

June 7, 2022

Continuing the Discussion: Tutoring and Social Justice in Virtual Spaces

Covid, Peer Tutoring, Social Justice, Student Voices, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Writing Center Staff, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers, Writing Fellows

By Veronica Hayes and Faith Kim—One year ago, the annual Joint Staff meeting between the University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate Writing Fellows program and the Writing Center marked the last time the Center’s full staff gathered in person before students were sent home and our work shifted online. At the annual meeting, Fellows typically give presentations on the research they conduct in their Writing Fellows tutor education seminar, English 403. Those presentations lead to collaborative and meaningful exchanges between Fellows and Writing Center instructors, who appreciate the opportunity to engage with original research on tutoring. […]

April 13, 2021

Staying Networked: Writing Centers, Social Media, and Pandemic Shifts

Covid, Higher Education, Technology, The Online Writing Center, Writing Centers

By Amanda May—My investment in writing center social media usage and non-usage grew out of my personal and professional social media practice. I still remember going to the Southeastern Writing Center Association’s 2016 conference and meeting Molly Wright, who ran the Facebook group Writing Center Network. At the time, that was my only connection to the writing center field because I was the sole writing center employee on campus. Molly convinced me to join Twitter because of #wcchat, a biweekly professional event that writing center administrators and tutors used to discuss writing center issues. […]

March 30, 2021