Category: Racial Justice

Kneeling people, fists raised during a Black Lives Matter protest

“Try and Fight that white Supremacy:” Tutors on Antiracist Praxis

Diversity and Inclusion, Higher Education, Racial Justice, Social Justice, Tutor Training, Writing Center pedagogy, Writing Center Research, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Faith Thompson, Salisbury University—After Victor Villanueva’s 2006 catalyzing speech at the International Writing Centers Association Conference, calls for antiracist practices at writing centers have been echoed by many scholars such as Frankie Condon, Laura Greenfield, and Neisha Anne-Green. These calls have offered insight into ways that racism shows up in writing centers, including student work brought to tutors that perpetuate racism and racist ideologies […]

February 21, 2023
Emily Bouza and her English 201 class stand grouped at the front of a college classroom, all facing the camera.

Disciplinary Writing Interviews and the Need for Linguistic Justice Across Professions

Classes, Racial Justice, Social Justice, Student Voices, Undergraduate Students

By Emily Bouza and her English 201 class—How do writing conventions change among different disciplines? How can we move toward greater linguistic justice in writing for different disciplines? These are the questions our ENGL 201: Intermediate Composition course sought to answer this semester. Each of the 19 students in Emily Bouza’s section of this class interviewed a professional in a career they are interested in pursuing to find out more about the nature of writing in those professions. We decided to share […]

December 13, 2022
Bree Newsome climbing up a flag poll and removing a Confederate flag.

Allyship & Co-Conspiracy in an Antiracist Writing Center

Diversity and Inclusion, Graduate Students, Peer Tutoring, Racial Justice, Social Justice, Tutor Training, Writing Center Theory, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Gabrielle Isabel Kelenyi and Seth Umbaugh—This fall, the Writing Center offered an ongoing education group (OGE) about being an ally versus a co-conspirator in an antiracist writing center, which was co-facilitated by the TA Assistant Director of the Writing Center, Seth Umbaugh, and the TA Coordinator of Multicultural and Social Justice Initiatives, Gabrielle Kelenyi. We assembled […]

December 7, 2021

Booked but Can’t Read: “Functional Literacy,” National Citizenship, and the New Face of Dred Scott in the Age of Mass Incarceration

Racial Justice, Social Justice, Tutor Publications, Writing Center Tutors

By Mckenna Kohlenberg—For Black men in the contemporary age of mass incarceration, the consequences of functional illiteracy are devastating. 70% of America’s adult incarcerated population and 85% of juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, which extends beyond the ability to read and includes the development of problem-solving and critical-thinking skills one needs to access knowledge, communicate, and participate effectively in political processes, the economy, higher education, and other 21st century exercises of democratic citizenship. […]

September 29, 2020