{"id":14907,"date":"2024-02-27T08:06:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/?p=14907"},"modified":"2024-12-03T11:34:40","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T17:34:40","slug":"reuniting-iwca-collaborative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/reuniting-iwca-collaborative\/","title":{"rendered":"Reuniting in the Write Place: Rediscovering Community at the IWCA Collaborative"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Introduction by Jennifer Conrad and Ellen Cecil-Lemkin<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> centered on a consideration of \u201cwriting center relationships, partnerships, and coalitions,\u201d as well as the benefits of shared embodied presence with colleagues across the field of writing center studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For us, there was a special energy about returning to a shared physical space, getting to see friends in person for the first time in years, and having the opportunity to meet new colleagues. While virtual conferences offer collective digital spaces for sharing research and connecting across disparate geographies, we\u2019ve found that these spaces supplant rather than fully supersede the experience of \u201cinhabit[ing] a place together.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our session, which was titled \u201cCreating Community through Collaborative Composing\u201d (we like alliteration and the play on 4Cs) provided an in-person-slash-online space in which participants were invited to engage with us and, more importantly, with each other around their experiences with writing center work. Specifically, we invited them to engage in a collaborative writing session\u2014or \u201cco-interview\u201d\u2014that unfolded in real time on a shared writing platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through a series of questions, we asked participants to consider what it feels like to carry out writing center work in our unique, embodied, historical moment. We also gave participants the opportunity to respond to comments and ask questions of each other. During a scheduled break, participants read over the answers, then provided additional responses, elaborations, and\/or questions. By the end of the session, we created a written snapshot of those engaged in writing center work at a particular moment in time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did it feel like to be in a room together? It felt, in short, incredible\u2014incredible in the sense that we almost couldn\u2019t believe that it was occurring, and incredible in the sense of amazing<\/em>. There was a feeling of warmth as participants engaged with each other in the space of the room and in the space of the document. Having the chance to focus on our own writing (and emotions) felt like a welcome or a big hug, since much writing center work involves holding space for others\u2019 <\/em>writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The session worked against the isolation of the pandemic by allowing us to feel community in tangible ways\u2014Through writing! Through being with each other!\u2014so that we left the conference feeling energized and ready to share our collective thoughts with an audience. Our intention was to publish this piece within three months of the Collaborative. Yet life and the Writing Center\u2019s myriad, multitudinous tasks intervened. And so we find ourselves, a year later, still waiting for the community that we created through our session to be shared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know, however, that we are not alone in laying out plans that are later run aground by the pushes and pulls of writing center work. While many of our participants shared their centers\u2019 successes, there was also an acknowledgement of the challenges that left an affective mark. Indeed, one of our favorite participant-generated questions asked the group, \u201cHow tired are you?\u201d The responses to this question and others showed that while we take great pride in our work, we\u2019re also incredibly fatigued. Emblematic of this sentiment was Leigh\u2019s response: \u201cHonestly, I am so burnt out that I desperately would like to rotate out for a bit.\u201d Feelings of exhaustion and burnout are seldom shared in a professional context, so these raw expressions feel particularly precious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The participants\u2019 often vulnerable responses and our personal experiences conferencing point to a shift. One participant remarked, \u201cIt’s hard to make a distinction between \u2018change is cyclical\u2019 and \u2018this change is not the normal kind of change.\u2019 It’s walking a tightrope to acknowledge and commend our ability to evolve without disregarding the trauma of this new world we occupy [after COVID-19].\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although we (the collective) can feel pressured to return to \u201cnormalcy\u201d or \u201cthe before times,\u201d the fact is, life has <\/em>shifted. The accounting of emotional weight feels different. Coming together at the IWCA Collaborative allowed us not only to name these changes but to describe <\/em>them and begin tracing out the ways that we were all affected by the rapid shifts of that present and sent spinning by the twin forces of contagion and isolation that drove the years 2020-23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with the changes, rawness, and exhaustion everyone experienced, our participants also shared their joy. They wrote of their hopes and dreams for their writing centers, their pride in their work, and the valuable insight they had gained. Their writing demonstrated a collective desire to positively impact people through their writing center. It seems a uniting thread for writing center professionals is a shared commitment and delight in uplifting writers, tutors, and colleagues through our work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the remainder of this post, we are excited to share with you some selected questions and responses from our co-interview session. In this post, you can find participants\u2019 responses to the following questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n