{"id":10416,"date":"2019-10-21T09:15:52","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T14:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/?p=10416"},"modified":"2025-04-24T23:48:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T04:48:22","slug":"mutual-empowerment-in-and-beyond-the-writing-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/mutual-empowerment-in-and-beyond-the-writing-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Mutual Empowerment In and Beyond the Writing Center"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/michelle-circle.jpg\" alt=\"Michelle wears a purple jacket and purple winter hat in a woodland landscape. \" class=\"wp-image-10446\" style=\"width:250px;height:250px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><p style=\"text-align: left\"><em>Michelle Niemann taught in the UW-Madison Writing Center from 2009 to 2014 while she was earning her PhD in literary studies. When she&#8217;s not consulting with writers, she can often be found outside.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since 2016, I\u2019ve been running what I think of as a one-woman writing center for faculty [broken link removed]. I\u2019m a \u201csolopreneur,\u201d one of those post-academics earning her living through a micro-business. My aim is not to grow the business or make a lot of money (why would I have gotten a PhD in English if <em>that <\/em>was ever the goal?), but to support myself by doing good work\u2014work that institutions of higher education need done, even if they don\u2019t always know it. <br><br>I consult with faculty members, mostly women who are on the tenure track or rewriting their dissertations into first books. I love talking with writers about their work in progress, and when I decided to take <a aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/michelleniemann.com\/2019\/04\/23\/a-slow-leap\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a slow leap into post-ac life<\/a>, that was the thing I couldn\u2019t imagine giving up. One of the best perks of my job is that\u2014as when I taught in the <a aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/writing.wisc.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">UW-Madison Writing Center<\/a> as a graduate student\u2014I get to talk with writers working in so many different disciplines [broken link removed]. For example, I\u2019ve consulted with an anthropologist, an art historian, a demographer, and a faculty member in composition and rhetoric, as well as historians of architecture and design, literary critics, and creative nonfiction writers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Writing center pedagogy shapes my consultations with writers. Consultations [broken link removed] are hour-long conversations, via video conference or phone, about a writer\u2019s work in progress. As in the Writing Center, <a aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/the-importance-of-being-interested\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">curiosity<\/a> and generosity are central to my approach. I listen carefully and ask questions. I learn from the writer about her rhetorical situation\u2014the audience she\u2019s writing for, the purpose of the article or chapter at hand, its intervention in debates in her field, its stakes and upshots. (And in the process, I get to learn about the substance of these writers\u2019 research, on everything from length-biased sampling to the history of open plan office design in the US.) By talking through their arguments, their purpose, and how to structure a piece with an interested and supportive reader, writers figure out what they\u2019re saying and how to say it best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/wood-poppy-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"A yellow wood poppy flower falls forward as raindrops weigh down its peddles. \" class=\"wp-image-10447\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/wood-poppy-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/wood-poppy-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/wood-poppy-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/wood-poppy-450x300.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><p style=\"text-align: left\"><em>A wood poppy at Clifty Falls State Park in Indiana, where I now live. Photo by Liz Vine, spring 2019.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it took me a while to realize that my work in the Writing Center at UW-Madison not only shapes the format, aims, and approaches of my consultations with faculty, but also empowered me to transition into this post-ac\u2014or, perhaps more accurately, peri-ac\u2014work in the first place. Through teaching in the Writing Center, I realized how I could be useful to writers, and I learned to locate my value as an interlocutor not in an institutional title, but in the conversation itself and the relationship constructed through it. In the Writing Center, I could help a sophomore figure out how to structure his paper in part because I wasn\u2019t the one who would grade that paper. I could serve as a sounding board as a senior talked through the scholarly debates she was trying to summarize in her thesis in part because I wasn\u2019t her advisor. I could help a dissertator make decisions about rhetorical approach and how to frame her interventions in part because I wasn\u2019t in her discipline. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"724\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/RCEH_cover-724x1024.jpg\" alt=\"the book cover of The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. \" class=\"wp-image-10421\" style=\"width:222px;height:314px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/RCEH_cover-724x1024.jpg 724w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/RCEH_cover-212x300.jpg 212w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/RCEH_cover-768x1086.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/RCEH_cover.jpg 1027w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 724px) 100vw, 724px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>The anthology I co-edited as a postdoc at UCLA.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Brad Hughes says that <a href=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/a-valediction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">\u201ca research university is a writing university.\u201d<\/a> That is, rigorous thinking about research happens through writing\u2014and, even before that writing is shared publicly, through talking about writing. The corollary of that is that the university happens wherever writing and talking about writing happens. The conversation itself is the locus of rigor, of learning, of discovery\u2014that\u2019s where the work gets done, where new knowledge is produced. So I can do worthwhile work as long as I have a way to talk with scholars and researchers. No institutional role required. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I first realized that working in the Writing Center helped inspire my post-ac move while reading Beth Godbee and Julia C. Novotny\u2019s <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/works.bepress.com\/beth_godbee\/24\/\" target=\"_blank\">article on \u201cfeminist co-mentoring\u201d<\/a> among graduate student women. They describe Writing Center sessions that echo my own experience working with writers. The consultation is \u201can interactional pattern that makes the generation and explanation of ideas central,\u201d in which the point is not for the consultant to dispense advice, but instead to \u201callow [the writer] the time\/space . . . to work toward clarity in her thinking and her writing\u201d (185-86). Such conversations involve \u201ccollaboratively moving from a hesitant stance to one of making strong claims\u201d (178). But one line in particular arrested me: \u201cboth co-mentors gain from the relationship, even when those gains are different in degree or kind\u201d (180). Yes, I thought\u2014I <em>have<\/em> gained from such relationships with writers, in the Writing Center and since. In fact, those relationships themselves helped empower me to set up shop as an independent writing consultant and editor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/California-poppies-1-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Yellow California Poppy flowers line a dirt walking trail. \" class=\"wp-image-10431\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/California-poppies-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/California-poppies-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/California-poppies-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/California-poppies-1-533x300.jpg 533w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><p style=\"text-align: left\"><em>California poppies at UCLA&#8217;s <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.botgard.ucla.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden<\/a><\/em><em style=\"text-align: center\">.<\/em><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, that\u2019s only half the story. The other half happened in the two years after I earned my PhD in 2014, when I was postdoc in the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/environmental.humanities.ucla.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">environmental humanities at UCLA<\/a>. At one point when I was back in Madison during that period, I joked with Brad about writing a post for this blog called \u201cWriting Center for the Stars.\u201d As a postdoc, I helped coordinate a <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/environmental.humanities.ucla.edu\/?page_id=205\" target=\"_blank\">Mellon Sawyer Seminar on the Environmental Humanities<\/a> that brought a host of scholars to Los Angeles over the course of an academic year; I then co-edited the resulting anthology of essays, most of which were workshopped in the seminar. I was lucky enough to be working with Ursula Heise,&nbsp;a leader in my field of ecocriticism, and a whole collection of environmental humanities scholars whose research I admire\u2014like historian Richard White, whose book <em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books\/about\/The_Middle_Ground.html?id=fHLfiOZVzmMC\" target=\"_blank\">Middle Ground<\/a><\/em> I read and loved even before I went to grad school; geographer Susanna Hecht, co-author of <em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/books\/edition\/The_Fate_of_the_Forest\/XrLl2LxX488C?hl=en&amp;gbpv=0\" target=\"_blank\">The Fate of the Forest<\/a><\/em>; and ecocritics such as Stacy Alaimo, Allison Carruth, and Cate Sandilands. To me, academic superstars. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"717\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/BtC_cover-717x1024.jpg\" alt=\"The book cover of Bending the Curve, Climate Change solutions. \" class=\"wp-image-10423\" style=\"width:211px;height:300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/BtC_cover-717x1024.jpg 717w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/BtC_cover-210x300.jpg 210w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/BtC_cover-768x1097.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/BtC_cover.jpg 1050w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 717px) 100vw, 717px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><p style=\"text-align: left\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"One of my recent editing projects (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/michelleniemann.com\/portfolio\/bending-the-curve-climate-change-solutions\/\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/p><p style=\"text-align: left\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"One of my recent editing projects (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/michelleniemann.com\/portfolio\/bending-the-curve-climate-change-solutions\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>One of my recent editing projects<\/em><\/a><em> is this <\/em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/escholarship.org\/uc\/item\/6kr8p5rq\" target=\"_blank\"><em>digital textbook<\/em><\/a><em>, a free open educational resource (OER) that is part of UC San Diego climate scientist V. Ramanathan&#8217;s climate education project.  <\/em><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because of my work in the Writing Center and the approaches I had learned there, I wasn\u2019t overawed by these superstars, but was instead able to see them as just writers, with their own worries, anxieties, and rhetorical decisions to make. In co-editing <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.routledge.com\/The-Routledge-Companion-to-the-Environmental-Humanities\/Heise-Christensen-Niemann\/p\/book\/9781138786745\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities<\/a><\/em>, I brought my writing center pedagogy to drafting the comments that Ursula and I sent to each contributor. That is, always lead with the positive, with praise of specific, concrete things the piece does well; restate the writer\u2019s argument so that they can make sure that what an attentive reader takes away matches what they aimed to convey; ask questions about the argument, stakes, or upshots that indicate how the writer might clarify those; and, finally, make any suggestions for specific structural or rhetorical revisions. I continue to take this approach in my editing work. I always strive to make my written comments and tracked edits on a draft into a conversation with the writer\u2014a conversation that\u2019s rigorous but also generous and supportive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Through rewarding exchanges with the volume\u2019s contributors and the experience of guiding a large project through the editing and publication process, I came to see how I could translate what I had learned in the Writing Center into this kind of work with faculty. Editing [broken link removed] is an important part of what I do now, and I\u2019ve also continued to serve as a project manager for large anthologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While universities treat editing as necessary, the value of writing consultation for faculty is not yet fully recognized\u2014though it is consultation, I would argue, that better promotes ongoing development and growth. It is useful not only for researchers who are struggling to meet tenure requirements but also for productive scholars who excel in their fields to talk through the substance of their work\u2014their ideas and arguments, the stakes of their interventions\u2014with an expert on academic discourse. If learning doesn\u2019t end when you get your degree, why should co-mentoring? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Michelle Niemann \u2013 Since 2016, I\u2019ve been running what I think of as a one-woman writing center for faculty. I\u2019m a \u201csolopreneur,\u201d one of those post-academics earning her living through a micro-business. My aim is not to grow the business or make a lot of money (why would I have gotten a PhD in English if that was ever the goal?), but to support myself by doing good work\u2014work that institutions of higher education need done, even if they don\u2019t always know it.  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":10448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,1,36,13],"tags":[157,146,159,158,149,147,148,156],"class_list":["post-10416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","category-uncategorized","category-uw-madison-writing-center-alumni-voices","category-writing-centers","tag-academic-editing","tag-academic-writing","tag-alt-ac","tag-enviornmental-humanities","tag-mentoring","tag-post-ac","tag-women-in-academia","tag-writing-coach"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mutual Empowerment In and Beyond the Writing Center - Another Word<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/mutual-empowerment-in-and-beyond-the-writing-center\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mutual Empowerment In and Beyond the Writing Center - Another Word\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Michelle Niemann \u2013 Since 2016, I\u2019ve been running what I think of as a one-woman writing center for faculty. I\u2019m a \u201csolopreneur,\u201d one of those post-academics earning her living through a micro-business. My aim is not to grow the business or make a lot of money (why would I have gotten a PhD in English if that was ever the goal?), but to support myself by doing good work\u2014work that institutions of higher education need done, even if they don\u2019t always know it. 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