Volume 27, Number 3 Promoting the exchange of voices and ideas in one-to-one teaching of writing November, 2002
...FROM THE EDITOR...
This month’s newsletter challenges us to think about what constitutes writ-ing center scholarship. Jane Cogie’s essay—based on personal experience, her reflection on that experience, and insights from the literature of writing centers—offers us a valuable discus-sion of how to conduct writing center administration successfully. Michael Pemberton, working on a hypothesis about writing center attitudes towards assisting students with a mandated competency test, surveys his col-leagues as a reality check. And from a different perspective, Lauren Fitzgerald, D’Ann George, and Janet Wright Starner review the new collec-tion, Writing Center Research, often using those essays as starting points for their own self-reflection and for adapt-ing results to their settings. Equally important, they raise questions about who should be the subjects of our re-search and what our obligations to those subjects are.
And for your tutors, Susanna Gibson offers her strategies for working on thesis statements. And for all of us wondering about our workloads, the job listings reflect a variety of expecta-tions about what some administrators think a writing center administrator can handle.
Muriel Harris, editor
...INSIDE...
The Schooling of a Writing Center Administrator: Lessons in the Balancing Act
• Jane Cogie 1
Artful Dodging? Coping with Standardized Literacy Assessments in the Writing Center
• Michael A. Pemberton 6
Conference Calendar 11
Tutors’ Column:
“On Teaching the Thesis”
• Susanna Gibson 12
Review of Paula Gillespie, Alice Gillam, Lady Falls Brown, and Byron Stay, Eds. Writing Center Research: Extending the Conversation
• Lauren Fitzgerald, D’Ann George, and Janet Wright Starner 13
“Directing a writing center is such an absorbing job that it is easy to keep a local focus—the writing center. . . . We tend to be committed to teaching writ-ing, not to institutional politics” (“The Role” 107). With these statements, Jeanne Simpson identifies a key prob-lem faced by writing center directors, the problem of influencing the institu-tional politics that shape centers. In-deed, her characterization of what it takes to move beyond the local sug-gests why directors may well be wary of such a move; they must become “doers and shakers” who “embrace change,” fully aware of the risk, pain, and compromise likely to accompany any gain (“The Challenge” 2-3). Ac-complishing such change, she empha-sizes, entails schooling in the adminis-trative structures of one’s institution and more service time, time which may pay back little within a system where scholarship often dominates evaluation (3). Such a challenge can seem at once inspiring and daunting.
The value of administrative schooling became clear to me only gradually, over several years as I sought funding for a satellite writing center while attempting to become a viable candidate for tenure. Before I initiated the satellite proposal, the importance of administrative train-ing was clouded not only by my local concerns with teaching writing but also by my one-way focus on educating oth-ers about writing center work and by my necessary preoccupation with producing research, the dominant area in tenure evaluation at my institution. Had I then
The Writing Lab Newsletter, published in ten monthly issues from September to June by the Department of English, Purdue University, is a publication of the International Writing Centers Association, an NCTE Assembly, and is a member of the NCTE Information Exchange Agreement.ISSN 1040-3779. All Rights and Title reserved unless permission is granted by Purdue University. Material will not be reproduced in any form without express written permission.
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been asked, I would have spoken with conviction about the inseparability of writing center research, teaching, and administration. I realize now, however, that had I truly grasped that link, I would have been more prepared to seek to understand the work of other administrators and to address the di-verse demands I faced. Most immedi-ate at the time were student demands for expanded Writing Center services and the demands of seeking tenure as a writing center director.
In this article, I will share the lessons I learned as I moved—tentatively at first but finally successfully—toward increasing the Center’s services and gaining tenure. Certainly, tenure isn’t a universal issue for directors, nor is ex-pansion of services. Absolutes, as Muriel Harris notes, apply no more to writing center administration than to tutoring sessions (“Solutions” 63-64). After sketching my situation, I will fo-cus, then, not so much on my specific challenges as on the administrative process and the role administration fi-nally plays in writing center teaching and research. I will emphasize in par-ticular the unforeseen consequences, both negative and positive, that, how-ever acute one’s foresight, remain part of any move beyond local concerns, beyond what Simpson refers to as “our comfort zone” (“The Challenge” 2).
When I was first appointed tenure-track director with 100% of my ap-pointment in the Center and 25% re-lease time for research, the need for change on the institutional level seemed remote. My immediate chal-lenge was internal: developing poli-cies, a mission statement, and tutor training for the English Department graduate assistants, and teaching seven or more undergraduate interns a semes-ter. With the momentum of these changes, the English Department started assigning more graduate assis-tants to the Center, and the Linguistics Department soon began offering GAs as tutors. Within a year and a half, the staff had doubled as had the wait list of students wanting regular weekly ap-pointments, the only type of session available when I inherited the Center. In one of those trade-offs Harris notes are unavoidable in writing center ad-ministration (“Solutions” 66-67), we instituted one drop-in hour per tutor, easing the wait list but gradually in-creasing student demand for quick-fix tutoring. The sort of change that Simpson characterizes as at once inevi-table and inevitably risky had begun (“The Challenge” 2). Although this in-crease in quick-fix demand was a seri-ous problem, I decided that serving more students was worth this tradeoff, a tradeoff we would work to counter. I felt still within the comfort zone, that is, still reasonably in control of the Center’s destiny.
The pressure for higher profile change started with a challenge to the nature of my tenure-track appointment from the College of Liberal Arts (CoLA) dean. His position was that to earn tenure, I must teach one class a semester despite my considerable teaching as Writing Center director and despite his role in hiring me for my tenure-track Writing Center appoint-ment. My teaching at that time in-cluded not only my day-to-day work with tutors and students but also the in-ternship, entailing both classroom and writing center work yet not considered a real course because of its small en-rollment.
For a good six months, I fought this push into the “regular classroom,” not to escape the classroom—indeed I met regularly with the interns as a class— but to resist the assessment of writing center teaching as mere service. In part, too, I was afraid that if I were to teach a “real” course, I might be forced to give up the internship or teach it as an overload. Certainly, there was the possibility of turning it into a regular course, yet my ability to draw enough qualified students to satisfy the dean’s requirements seemed less certain. After using a sizable portion of my summer research time sculpting memos on the validity of writing center directing as teaching, I began to realize the futility of this approach.
Not surprisingly, it was advice from individuals on WCenter that refocused my energy. When I asked for advice on winning recognition for writing center directing as teaching, I received numerous suggestions, such as the idea of creating an administrative-teaching-research portfolio (Harris, Nelson, Olson) or a departmental mentoring committee (Boquet). Along with these helpful ideas came crucial advice, emphasizing the time necessary to gain recognition: “I have said [that tutoring and training is teaching] so many times to so many people that they actually believe it now” (Mullin). Through this advice, I saw the need for a more patient, pragmatic approach to chang-ing inaccurate views of the Center.
With this shift in perspective, I felt more able to attend to student demand for more Writing Center hours. I had deferred responding to this demand, fearful that a solution would entail more service, the least valued area for tenure evaluation. However, from my new perspective, I began to see how increased service might allow me to meet student need while reconfiguring the practicum to meet the dean’s own need to prove teacher productivity. My plan involved listing the internship as a regular course and obtaining funding to hire student work tutors from the ranks of this newly expanded course; this ap-proach, I knew, had been used success-fully at other centers. Combined with a proposal for a dorm satellite center, such a plan would help address student need and potentially contribute to the University’s retention initiative. Al-though listing the practicum as a class-room course wouldn’t counter views of writing center directing as mere ser-vice, it would help legitimate courses on writing center issues as integral to a tenure-track position.
How, though, should I move this plan forward? On the departmental level, I easily gained approval for the in-ternship as a regular course. On the Uni-versity level, however, I was less certain how to proceed. The questions I faced were not ones I had prepared myself to answer. My only experience with Uni-versity-wide proposals was my failed funding request for graduate assistant tutors from other CoLA departments. As to the possible repercussions of the current proposal, I had only the most general idea of what to expect. I never considered that the changes might have anything but negative effects on my scholarly productivity—or anything but positive effects on the Center’s main work, one-to-one teaching. In making these assumptions, I failed to see how intertwined writing center teaching, ad-ministration, and scholarship really are. Only in reflecting on my ultimately suc-cessful but largely intuitive progress to-ward initiating the satellite and earning tenure have I come to understand this cross pollination and some basics of the administrative process.
In the remainder of this article, I’ll share points I learned at each stage of the process, from forwarding a proposal to implementing it and dealing with its at times unexpected consequences. To provide a context for this advice, I’ll re-fer to my own steps and missteps at each stage.
1. Link proposals to current institutional initiatives, with evidence to support that link.
My earlier proposal for new graduate tutor lines, though clearly valuable to students, failed in part because I argued its benefits solely for writing across the curriculum, not then a viable Univer-sity-level issue. My satellite proposal, on the other hand, succeeded in part be-cause I connected it to the University’s high-profile retention initiative. To af-firm the retention value of the proposed satellite, I submitted with the proposal the positive results of my study on the retention and graduation rates of Writ-ing Center clients.
2. Collaborate with other departments with something to gain from and something to give the proposed initiative.
My earlier failed proposal sought to collaborate with departments without funding to contribute, leaving the en-tire cost to the dean. My satellite pro-posal, on the other hand, worked with funding-rich University Housing, whose administrators saw it as in their interest to donate equipment, PR, and space (a corner of a dorm computer lab) for the new center. Unschooled as I was, I realized the benefits of this cross-departmental cooperation only later when the provost noted its impact on the proposal’s approval.
Perhaps the most important reason for the success of my second proposal relates to the groundwork I laid with middle-level administrators. From my earlier failed proposal, I recognized that I needed help. I sought out two CoLA administrators, a retention coor-dinator and an associate dean, whose advice was invaluable, particularly on the configuration of my meeting with the dean. An unforeseen bonus of this association was the support both these individuals offered during my bid for tenure.
As Simpson notes, “It is easy for an administrator to say no to one person. It is less easy to say it to a council, duly elected and accustomed to careful deliberations” (3). I avoided a one-to-one meeting with the dean thanks to the two CoLA administrators’ sugges-tion that both of them and a second associate dean accompany me. Through the power of their positions and familiarity with the process, they considerably increased the status of my proposal.
5. For service-heavy proposals, request an administrative assistant or release from assigned duties.
When the Law School dean at the last minute funded a second, general use satellite to open in the Law School simultaneously with the first, I re-quested a full-time graduate assistant to work with me on administrative projects. It was one of the wisest moves I made, though at the time moti-vated more by fear than wisdom. It has made the workload more manageable, provided valuable training for the as-sistants involved, and added meaning-fully to my Writing Center teaching.
The Law School dean’s funding of a second satellite is a prime example of the dangers gifts can bring. While I found this new funding difficult to re-ject, I feared not only the added service it would impose but also the Law School location that seemed intimidat-ing and out-of-the-way for a general use center. If it drew few students (a fear that indeed materialized), might not the Center lose credibility with ad-ministrators? While CoLA’s dean did at one point blame this satellite’s poor performance on the staff’s failure “to vigorously sell it,” the provost luckily agreed with me that the location was problematic and should be changed. Yet had the cast of characters differed, this gift could easily have damaged the Center and my record as its director. Though foreseeing such unexpected turns is impossible, it’s important to realize that they can lurk within change.
Implementing change:
1. Build a network of support rather than depending on a single administrator.
Little did I know that within seven years as the Center’s director I would work with four department chairs, three deans, four provosts, and four chancellors. One provost was fired but subsequently became chancellor, and the Law School dean requesting the second satellite went on to be acting provost when I was up for tenure. Most pertinent to implementing my proposal was Housing’s coordinator for the sat-ellite; he soon left for an off-campus job and was not replaced for a full year. As a consequence, during the opening semesters of the satellite, its PR, physical set-up, and student use suffered. Fortunately, this dizzying turn-over in administrators was, to a large extent, off-set for me by the net-working I engaged in across campus to promote the satellite project.
2. Recognize the effects of a center’s configuration on the quality of tutoring.
In the main Writing Center, plants, posters, and well-placed bookcases was all that was needed to provide a welcoming atmosphere with a balance of public and private space. To define a comfortable, professional space in a cavernous computer lab was not as easy. Understanding interior design is just another matter in the “forbiddingly long list of matters” writing center di-rectors must consider (Harris, “Pre-senting” 92). Before opening the com-puter lab satellite, I set up a table with computers and clip-on lamps by the room’s only full-length window. Though not particularly satisfied, I lacked both the knowledge and the time to reconfigure this arrangement. By the satellite’s second semester, however, cynicism against clients per-ceived to be out for quick fix assis-tance had developed in even the most enthusiastic tutors. Apparently, stu-dents were treating tutors as a sort of style-check extension of their comput-ers, useful only if the effort required were minimal. The students’ presump-tion seemed exacerbated by the ill-de-fined space; lacking recognizable insti-tutional boundaries, this gathering of tables, chairs, and tutors seemed un-likely to have a mission worth respect-ing. This consequence concerned me far more than the potential repercus-sions of low student use at the Law School satellite since it disrupted the Center’s mission of helping students become better writers.
Before risking the satellite project, I knew little of the expertise within the University available for problem solv-ing. Uncertain how to solve the satellite’s layout problems, I followed the lead of a collaboration between a writing center director and an architect (Dickel and Parker) and sought advice from an Architectural Design professor at my institution, who helped me reconfigure this satellite into a more congenial tutoring site. On advice from this professor, I connected with a Graphics Design professor, who had his students create Writing Center logos.
The subtext of my story and the ad-ministrative lessons it spawned seems to me twofold. First, as Simpson sug-gests, the repercussions of moving be-yond a local focus can never be fully predicted. Second, such risks, though necessarily resulting in tradeoffs, can allow the three aspects of writing cen-ter work—teaching, research, and ad-ministration—to further strengthen each other. To cite just one example, my selling of the satellite proposal led to, among other things, the Law School’s unanticipated funding of a second satellite, which led to increased administrative work and accountability but also to funding for an administra-tive GA. Some of the GAs filling this position went on to attain writing cen-ter positions, while I gained the satis-faction of working with them and proof of another level of teaching in-herent in writing center administration. There was a further surprise. While the increased administration decreased my research time, the teaching and admin-istrative problems encountered in-creased the research issues I genuinely wanted to pursue and the first-hand knowledge I could bring to this pursuit. The trade-offs, though significant, seem worth the gains, both for the Center’s students and for me in my push toward tenure. Not just for me but also for my evaluators, the benefits of this project clarified the extent to which writing center teaching, administration, and research intersect.
Such unexpected and various reper-cussions of change may well be part of what Muriel Harris refers to when she says, “as one gets more experienced in writing centers, the complexities in-crease” (“Solutions” 64). Further con-firming the increasing complexities, the satellite initiative has led full circle to yet another proposal, this time for a significantly larger main Writing Cen-ter aimed at providing additional ser-vices linked to an as yet only tenta-tively funded writing across the curriculum initiative. While many con-siderations have fed into this new pro-posal, not least among them is the rec-ognition that the expanded administrative activities related to the three centers have begun to disrupt the student-centered atmosphere in the small main Center. The “hum” at this Center, to use Paula Guetschow’s term for describing centers that carefully blend “order, chaos, and relaxed pur-poseful bustle” (2), at times now sounds more like a buzz.
With the new proposal, I am once again apprehensive about adding yet more layers of politics and administra-tive work to my position if the pro-posal is funded. As Simpson concedes, “there is only so much room for activ-ity in a day” (“Challenge” 3). And the inevitable risks of an ever-greater uni-versity-wide commitment are very real. To sense just how real, one need only read the WCenter discussion “Quit-ting,” exploring the toll escalating ad-ministrative demands can take on even the most committed writing center di-rector. Yet it would be difficult to deny that political and administrative work is as central to writing centers as the more local, more congenial focus on teaching writing. Integral as all the strands of directing a writing center are to each other (see Harris’ “Presenting Writing Center Scholarship”), it is es-sential for those of us who direct cen-ters to educate ourselves and the future directors now in our centers about the workings of our institutions. Such knowledge certainly can’t rid us of risk, but it should allow us to use the available resources more effectively as we move forward with the at times overwhelming and at times energizing balancing act involved in writing center directing.
Jane Cogie Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Carbondale, IL
Boquet, Beth. “Writing Center Directing as Teaching,” Online posting. 23 Sept. 1996. WCenter. 24 Sept. 1996 <http://www.wcenter @lyris.acs.ttu.edu>.
Dickel, Michael and B. Aaron Parker. “Architectural Articulation of the Writing Center.” Conference on College Composition and Communications. Chicago, 1998.
Guetschow, Paula. “Writing Labs That Hum.” Writing Lab Newsletter 5.9 (1981):1-2.
Harris, Muriel. “Presenting Writing Center Scholarship: Issues for Faculty and Personnel Commit-tees.” Academic Advancement in Composition Studies: Scholarship, Publication, Promotion, Tenure. Ed. Richard C. Gebhardt and Barbara Genelle Smith Gebhardt. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997. 87-102.
—-. “Solutions and Trade-Offs in Writing Center Administration.” Writing Center Journal 12.1 (1991): 63-79.
—-. “Writing Center Directing as Teaching.” Online posting. 19 Sept. 1996. WCenter. 20 Sept. 1996 <http:// www.wcenter@lyris.acs.ttu.edu>.
Mullin, Joan. “Writing Center Directing as Teaching.” Online posting. 20 Sept. 1996. WCenter. 23 Sept 1996 <http://www.wcenter
@lyris.acs.ttu.edu>.
Nelson, Jane. “Writing Center Direct-ing as Teaching.” Online posting. 23 Sept. 1996. WCenter. 23 Sept. 1996 <http://www.wcenter @lyris.acs.ttu.edu>.
Olson, Jon. “Writing Center Directing as Teaching,” Online posting. 19 Sept. 1996. WCenter. 20 Sept. 1996 <http://www.wcenter @lyris.acs.ttu.edu>.
“Quitting.” Online posting. 9 Dec. 1998
-10 Dec. 1998. WCenter. 20 Dec. 1998 <http://www.wcenter @lyris.acs.ttu.edu>.
Simpson, Jeanne. “The Challenge of Innovation: Putting New Ap-proaches into Practice.” Writing Lab Newsletter 18.1 (1993): 1-3.
—-. “The Role of Writing Centers in Student Retention Programs.” The Writing Center: New Directions. Ed. Ray Wallace and Jeanne Simpson. NY: Garland Publishing, 1991. 102-109.
June 28—July 25, 2003 Boone, NC
The Kellogg Institute for the training and certification of devel-opmental educators will be held on the campus of Appalachian State University. For information or ap-plication, write or call Director, Kellogg Institute, ASU Box 32098, Appalachian State Univer-sity, Boone, NC 28608-2098. Phone: 828-262-3057; Web site: <www.ncde.appstate.edu>.
Writing centers deal with all kinds of writing. They see lots of essays from first year writing courses on the evils of cigarette smoking, the merits of gun control, the tragedy of abortion. They work with students on economics pa-pers, engineering papers, history pa-pers, and nursing papers. Each of these papers, courses, and assignments has its own special problems and peda-gogical inflections, but the conferences we hold with these students tend to be much alike. Without belaboring the obvious, I think we can say that typical writing center conferences always see texts as works in progress. Through the collaborative interaction of writer and interested tutor, students are made aware of audience and possibilities. They get new information, learn new strategies, discover new things about their texts, reconstitute their rhetorical goals, and leave their conferences with concrete goals for revision in mind.
When students come into the writing center to prepare for standardized es-say tests, however, the goals for their conference are likely to be much dif-ferent. Since these students will be working in a timed writing situation, and a short time at that, substantive re-vision will rarely be an option. These students need to learn how to write a “one-draft-wonder” that demonstrates their ability to produce a simple, the-sis-supporting expository essay in sixty minutes. Because these students need only to show minimal competency, not excellence, they are often taught in their preparatory classes that a five-paragraph essay is sufficient to pass the exam, and they are advised to use that form. They are told to “play it safe,” not take risks, not to use sophis-ticated vocabulary or words they’re un-sure how to spell, and not to use overly complex sentences that might cause punctuation difficulties.
These students present special chal-lenges for writing centers, not just be-cause their stress levels are often much higher than those of other students, but because the very nature of the writing they are doing and the tasks they are being asked to perform seem, in impor-tant ways, antithetical to the very na-ture of writing center work and the pedagogical philosophies that underpin its operation. Students will have little opportunity to revise or brainstorm in a testing situation, and because scoring rubrics often highlight grammatical correctness, students will fret about sentence-level errors almost to the ex-clusion of everything else in a confer-ence. This approach to writing can’t help but grate against the nerves of people who work in writing centers . . . or can it?
I would like to report some results from a survey I conducted in March 2002, which asked writing center and learning center directors in the State University System of Georgia how they resolved this apparent conflict in pedagogy—or if they even saw a con-flict. Before I talk about the specifics of this survey, however, let me provide a brief description of the Georgia State Regents exam—a standardized literacy assessment that most postsecondary in-stitutions in this state must administer to their students as a requirement for graduation.
The Georgia State Regents exam is a two-part gateway exam (reading and writing), required of all students in the Georgia State University system. Systemwide, approximately 32,000 students take the Regents exam each year. The reading comprehension por-tion of the exam asks a series of content-based multiple choice questions about passages of expository prose. Approxi-mately 80% of students who take the reading portion of the exam pass it the first time they take it.
Somewhat more challenging is the writing portion of the exam, though it asks for little more than the demonstra-tion of basic organizational skills and the ability to write a relatively simple essay that is free of a “serious accumulation” of grammar and punctuation errors. As with the reading portion, approximately 80% of students systemwide pass with a score of 2 or better on a 4-point scale the first time they take the exam.
Most students have only an hour to take the exam. They may brainstorm and/or make an outline before they begin writing their essays, but they are only given a half page on the front of the booklet for such work, and the time they spend prewriting is counted as part of the sixty minutes total available to them.
There is no set limit on the number of times students can take the Regents exam, but students who fail the writing portion of the exam with a “1” will —at many institutions—be required to take a “Regents Preparation” course the follow-ing semester that will teach them tips, strategies, and techniques for taking a timed essay. At some institutions, stu-dents must take this course every time they fail the writing portion; at Georgia Southern, it is not uncommon for some students to take this course 3 or 4 times.
Regents Preparation classes are usually scheduled to meet two days a week for two hours, and much of the in-class time is spent writing practice responses to sample Regents writing prompts. These essays are then scored by in-structors and returned with a few ge-neric suggestions for improvement, and then the whole class moves on to the next set of practice exams. Many students, however, want extra assis-tance and feedback on their practice essays, more than their instructors can give them given the sheer volume of papers they have to assign, read, and respond to in the intensive 8-week pe-riod of the course. Stress levels are high; this is, for many students, the last obstacle between them and a college degree. As a result, the writing center or learning center on campus becomes the place they go for additional help.
But how do writing centers— Georgia’s in particular—deal with this demand? My survey aimed to answer this question. Of the 34 colleges and universities in the Georgia state univer-sity system, I was able to determine that 13 had either writing centers or learning assistance centers that offered peer tutoring in writing. For the pur-poses of this survey, I chose to focus my research on only those institutions whose writing centers were distinct en-tities on their respective campuses or which provided writing center services under the umbrella of a campus wide learning assistance center. I inter-viewed 11 of the directors at institu-tions that met these criteria, asking a range of questions related to tutor training, institutional mission, and the Regents exam, but in this article, I want to focus on the responses to two questions in particular:
1.) Are the tutoring sessions you
hold with Regents students
different in any way from those
you normally hold? If so, can
you characterize the difference?
2.) Do you feel that the goals of
the Regents Exam are compat
ible with the goals of the writing
center? How so or why not?
Though it’s not possible to analyze
or even to describe the many and var-ied thoughtful responses of the direc-tors I talked to, I would like to offer a brief overview of some of the many different approaches to Regents in-struction enacted at writing centers across the state, representative, I think, of the unique institutional approaches that we are likely to find in writing centers across the country as they are forced to deal with standardized writ-ing tests and the students who are re-quired to take them. What emerges from this survey is a sense of the sometimes deeply complex and con-flicted relationships that result when theory and pedagogy interact—some-times in harmony, sometimes in dis-cord—with the requirements of institu-tional and political mandates.
Every writing center director I sur-veyed said that they dealt with the Re-gents exam to a greater or lesser ex-tent, but there was virtually no uniformity in their responses beyond that. In answer to the question about how they worked with Regents stu-dents, other than affirming that they sometimes met with those students in individual conferences, answers varied widely.
In some institutions, the writing cen-ter clearly has a remedial mission, and the Regents course for those who have failed the exam is taught in the center itself. At Gainesville College, for ex-ample, the remedial course is taught by the Writing Lab director; at the Uni-versity of Georgia (UGA), interest-ingly enough, not only is the Regents course run through the writing center, but the center is also open only for stu-dents enrolled in the prep course for the first eight weeks of each semester. In contrast to these configurations, other institutions generally see Regents preparation only as part of their ex-tended mission. At Augusta State, for example, the director visits first year orientation classes, gives presentations about preparing for timed essays, and encourages students to visit the writing center to do practice writing. At Valdosta State and Middle Georgia College, the writing center offers Re-gents prep sessions each semester for interested students at all levels, not just those in the first year. At Georgia Southern University, students who have a diagnosed learning disability or who have failed the exam multiple times can be scheduled to work with tutors, but this is only a small part of the services the center provides.
Some directors believe that the tutor-ing sessions held with Regents students are not and should not be different from those held with other students on other types of assignments. The writ-ing center director at Middle Georgia College does not see these two session types as different at all, though her de-scription of a typical tutoring session suggests that the primary concern in their conference sessions is error iden-tification and proofreading strategies. At UGA, the director believes that the better the Regents tutoring session is, the less it will be different from any other conference, but he also says that tutors tend to address matters of time management more often in Regents conferences. At Darton College, the director has a sense that the sessions are not significantly different, though she admits Regents students do have a higher level of anxiety.
Other directors observe significant differences between the two session types. Frank Sherwood at Gainesville College notes that conferences with Regents students are more focused on grammar and the specific test. The goals for Regents essays are well-es-tablished and concrete, he says, so tu-torials tend to focus on the end product and tutors tend to be more directive than they would otherwise. Sonja Bagby at the State University of West Georgia echoes his sentiments and notes this behavior in her own center as well. The writing center directors at Augusta State and Valdosta State both find that conferences with Regents stu-dents are prone to be current-tradi-tional in nature, centered on the identification and correction of error, and they are also more often geared to teach students a writing “formula” such as the safe five-paragraph essay. They both recognize that this is “not the best academic writing,” but as Augusta State’s director says, “it gives students a handle.”
The final question I asked in my sur-vey was the pivotal issue I wanted writing center directors to address —do they perceive a conflict in goals be-tween what they understand about the writing process and conferencing strat-egies in the writing center and the as-sessment strategy employed by the Georgia Regents exam? If so, how do they resolve it? Once again, the results of the survey were mixed. Three of the directors believed that there were no conflicts— that the goals for writing and the basis of assessment in both were compatible; four felt that there was a pronounced conflict, and three expressed mixed feelings—that the goals were similar in some ways and different in others.
Directors who did not see a conflict between the exam and the center gener-ally referred to their sense of shared purpose in upholding and maintaining standards. Here are a pair of illustra-tive quotes:
The mission of our learning center is to provide academic support including support to Regents students. The goal of the Regents exam is to test for appropriate levels of literacy in writing and reading. The learning center operates in support of and as a supplement to the instructors of the Regents course, and our work here is very much in line with devotion to the principle that our graduates should be literate.
The end result of the Regents exam is writing that intends to communicate. The Regents is a minimal test and students should be able to write at a level that displays minimal competency.
One thread that appears regularly in these responses is a conviction that the Regents exam asks for and expects very little in terms of written perfor-mance. The words “literacy” and “minimal competence” appear with some regularity, and the underlying context seems to be that if students cannot perform in even this minimal way on a test of basic academic writing skills, then they have no right to expect a college degree. In general, the direc-tors who felt that the goals of the Re-gents exam were almost wholly com-patible with those of the writing center described their centers as remedial in nature, saw relatively little difference in sessions with Regents and walk-in students, and characterized their con-ferences as a means to help students with errors.
Several other directors bristled strongly at the Regents exam and re-sented the ways it compelled them to change their writing conference styles and warp the kind of advice they gave to students in order to conform with the demands of the test. These direc-tors, with only one exception, also felt their Regents conferences were signifi-cantly different from those they held with other students. The following are representative responses:
At no other time in any of our writing courses do we ask students to do timed writing. The sessions we have with students about Regents exams are controlled— they’re not real writing conferences. Improve-ment is not the goal. Getting a passing score is the goal. We work with Regents students as PR so students can see what the writing center is all about in other ways. It’s a necessary evil. Our hope is that we can snatch victory from the jowls of despair.
What is taught in composition and in the writing center is that writing should be natural and enjoyable. What I’m feeling from the Regents is static and formulaic, and it takes all the fun out of writing. Students are afraid of being too creative; they’re concerned with how many sentences there should be and how many errors they make. That’s where the anxiety comes in. In En-glish classes, they’re told to revise, but this principle is violated with Regents exams.
Clearly, the two positions expressed here are radically different, and they reveal, I think, a deeply divided set of perspectives about the purpose of writ-ing assessment, the role of the writing center, and even what a college degree stands for. The complex nature of these conflicting points of view were especially strong in those directors who expressed what seemed to be mu-tually exclusive feelings in their re-sponses, finding the goals of the writ-ing center and the Regents exam convergent and divergent at the same time. As the writing center director at Valdosta State put it:
One goal of the writing center is to help people become better writers. The Regents claims to assess ability in ways that the writing center does not value— it’s a one-draft, crank it out format. There’s a lack of emphasis on process. On the other hand, I have to admit I’m shocked by the low ability of student writing; some sort of standard seems appropriate. I’d like to see changes in the Regents, something better, but I wouldn’t want to see it completely abolished.
Augusta State’s director concurs, saying,
The principle of the Regents exam goes against the grain of every-thing we’ve learned about how to teach writing over the last 20 years. . . . Still, I think that the test is appropriate in the sense that many of our students come to us underprepared. Whether they’re taking the Regents test or not, focusing on a structured essay can get students, particularly nontradi-tional students, started. The test itself is compatible with our institution.
When I began thinking about this study a year or so ago, I started out with the conviction that nearly all writ-ing center directors would find the Re-gents exam an appalling artifact of an-tediluvian thinking about assessment. I suspected that tutors would perform a kind of pedagogical subversion, going through the motions of helping stu-dents to pass the exam, but doing so in the frame of a metanarrative that let students know that this wasn’t what real writing was all about. I saw tutors as subversive agents of institutional change, questioning authority, chal-lenging the status quo, even as they worked surreptitiously within the system, ostensibly doing what was required of them.
This was, of course, a fantasy. The reality is that this is not a story of the good guys versus the bad guys, the Rebels versus the Evil Empire. It’s a story about well-intentioned people on all sides caught in a web of complex social constructions, institutional con-figurations, educational theories, pro-fessional identities, and student needs. While directors may have some reser-vations about the value of the Regents test or the type of written literacy it purportedly measures, they nonetheless feel it is their responsibility to do ev-erything they can to help students pass it. While I suspect that many tutors and directors really do use some ver-sion of the metanarrative I described earlier, telling students that the Re-gents test is an artificial, unrealistic writing situation, (I know I certainly do), I suspect they are also forthright with students that be that as it may, it’s a situation they’re going to have to deal with— and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Michael A. Pemberton Georgia Southern University Statesboro, GA
Ben Rafoth, Professor of English and Director of the IUP Writing Center, has won the 2002 NCPTW Ron Maxwell Award for Distinguished Leadership in Promoting the Col-laborative Learning Practices of Peer Tutors in Writing. The award recognizes dedication to and leadership in col-laborative learning in writing centers, for aiding students in together taking on more responsibility for their learning, and, thus, for promoting the work of peer tutors. The award also denotes extraordinary service to the evolution of the conference organization. A plaque and cash prize, pre-sented October 26, 2002, at the 19th Annual National Con-ference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, were funded by an en-dowment from Ron and Mary Maxwell.
Rafoth hosted the NCPTW in 1992 at IUP, and he will chair the 2003 conference in Hershey, PA, in a joint meet-ing with the International Writing Centers Association. Rafoth is praised for keeping his writing center “on the cut-ting edge of developments in the field,” for managing a bal-anced program that is “professional and intellectual while being open and accessible to students,” and for involving peer tutors in every aspect of the operation. Moreover, his own publications—especially A Tutor’s Guide: Helping Writers One to One (2000)—support the NCPTW goal of bridging the divide between writing center administrators and writing center tutors, between faculty and students.
As one nominator noted about Rafoth’s participation in the NCPTW, “he always has a van-load of well-prepared tu-tors ready to present at what is often their first professional conference. Behind the scenes, in the spirit of a writing cen-ter tutor himself, he has worked with his tutors at the point of their need, always willing to swing his chair around and lis-ten to the latest draft.” Another nominator, who formerly worked as an IUP Writing Center tutor, noted that Rafoth “made it his job to be aware of my work, my goals, and my future interests.”
When Rafoth was asked what inspires him in his work, he responded, “I am reminded of the adage, ‘One student at a time.’ Like many people who work in writing centers, I tend to recognize more the individuality of each student who walks through the door than I tend to recognize any grand social, rhetorical or pedagogical theory that purports to ex-plain our students, their writing, or my teaching. I have en-joyed tremendously my fifteen years in the Writing Center at IUP, and I owe it all to the many wonderful tutors, col-leagues, and students I have had the pleasure to work with. I am honored to be a part of the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing and its long tradition of placing writing tutors at the forefront of our annual meetings. Each year at the end of the conference, I am aware that when we return to our campuses and writing centers, we all take with us a little bit of this national organization, so that we may stand with new energy before our students and tutors, one at a time, to help them along their way.”
Tenure-track asst. professor position, pending administrative approval, for a composition specialist with a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition or a terminal degree in another appropriate field with experience and scholarship in Rhetoric and Composition, beginning September 2003.
Responsibilities would include teaching writing courses, directing our Writers’ Center, and taking a leadership role in the Writing Across the Curriculum program. Experience in composition for international students and/or Service-Learning helpful.
Ph.D. needs to be completed by September 2003. To ap-ply, please send a cover letter that includes a brief discussion of your teaching and scholarship interests, curriculum vitae, and three letters of recommendation to Professor Peter Har-ris, Chair of the Rhetoric and Composition search; Colby College; 5260 Mayflower Hill; Waterville ME 04901.
Review of applications will begin on November 20 and will continue until the position is filled. Preliminary inter-viewing will take place at MLA in December. Colby is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer, committed to excellence through diversity, and strongly encourages ap-plications and nominations of persons of color, women, and members of other under-represented groups. For more infor-mation about the college, please visit the Colby Web site: <www.colby.edu>.
Jackson State University seeks a Writing Center Di-rector, for a twelve-month appointment starting January 2003. Position involves establishment of the writing center at Jackson State, overseeing student tutors in the writing center and coordinating graduate assistants for writing labs. May also include some teaching responsi-bilities in the English Department. At least a Master’s Degree, with a focus in composition or literacy, is re-quired.
Preferred candidates will have demonstrated coursework, experience or training in several of the fol-lowing areas: teaching writing at the lower and upper division college level, teaching methods of writing, reading, composition, literature for the secondary level, supervision and training of writing center tutors, pro-fessional development or in-service workshops for fac-ulty, writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines.
Salary competitive. Send letters of application, cur-rent vita, three current professional references and tran-scripts to Jackson State University Office of Human Resources, P.O. Box 17028, Jackson, MS 39217. Please include a SASE.
Initial deadline November 15, 2002; open until filled.
Twelve-month academic appointment reporting to the Dean of Undergraduate Studies with retreat rights to an appropri-ate department. Starting Date: July 1, 2002. Minimum Qualifications: Ph.D. in Rhetoric/Composition, English or related field and experience in administering a writing center. Duties: Developing and implementing programs to enhance the writing skills of students throughout the University; recruiting, training, and supervising peer tutors; supervising the de-velopment of curriculum and instructional materials for tutorials, writing workshops and training sessions; providing con