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Beyond the Anecdotal: Questioning Assumptions about Graduate Student Administrators

The articles in this month’s Writing Lab Newsletter reflect on the state of writing centers, administratively, pedagogically, and professionally. Karen Rowan reports on her study of the function and role of graduate student administrators in writing centers and finds some surprising results. Tom Truesdell, pondering his commitment to non-directive or directive tutoring, reports how he moved away from an either/or choice to find a tutoring style that benefits students. And Donna Evans looks at the “othering” of writing centers through the lens of the recent upheaval in WLN’s academic home. Meghan Monroe reminds us how tutoring reconnects us with our passion for teaching.

By including Donna Evans’ article that begins by reviewing the events that swirled around WLN last fall, I found myself in a quandary. As editor, I have always felt it my obligation to keep myself and my editorship from being a subject of articles in this publication. Seems self-serving at best. But Evan’s article uses WLN’s recent ouster as a springboard to confront the eternal debate about writing centers and their place in the academic hierarchy. In an attempt to slide out from any decision-making with the question of whether to publish an article about WLN, I sent the article off to readers, as usual, and relied on their decision. Again, as usual, the professionalism so many of you demonstrate as readers of manuscripts is impressive. And we’re always happy to add new names to the list of readers.

F Muriel Harris, editor

Beyond the Anecdotal: Questioning Assumptions about Graduate Student Administrators

FKaren S. RowanF

Page 1

Not Choosing Sides: Using Directive AND Non-Directive Methodology in a Writing Session

Writing [Without] Centers: Hierarchical Hedging and the Writing Lab Newsletter

F Karen S. Rowan

Morgan State University

Baltimore, MD

In March 2005, I arrived in San Francisco having spent the previous year collecting surveys, conducting interviews, running statistical analyses, and transcribing tapes for my study about graduate student administrators (GSAs) in writing centers. I was looking forward to CCCC and, with it, my first opportunity to talk to colleagues about what I was learning. While my formal presentation was gratifying, my interactions with other participants throughout the conference were equally as enlightening for me.

Throughout the conference, I found myself describing my research to new acquaintances while standing in line for coffee or waiting for another session to start. In these moments, I was re-acquainted with the lore about GSA positions. After hearing the subject of my research, colleagues often responded with comments like, “Oh, yes, I worry about how those positions exploit graduate students!” Or, “Oh, I wish we had GSA positions at my university, but we only have master’s students.” I was taken aback by these responses because, having spent months immersed in my study data, I now question the validity of these and other assumptions about GSA positions. Certainly, some participants’ experiences correspond with these assumptions, but many others do not. As I reflected on these interactions and my colleagues’ assumptions, I realized that they reconfirmed the purpose of my research: to provide the writing center field with baseline data about GSAs in writing centers and, in so doing, to provide our field with the data necessary to both fill in gaps in our knowledge about GSAs and help us question our assumptions about these positions.

The fact that graduate students have been serving as writing center administrators since the 1970s means that many of us in the field have worked as GSAs and/or supervised GSAs. These experiences lend us first-hand knowledge that, while valuable, is nevertheless limited in scope. Ironically, given the long history of GSAs in writing centers, there exists a very small body of literature on GSAs and almost no generalizable data about them and their experiences. Instead, much of the scholarship on GSAs is based on the authors’ own experiences. For instance, Stephen Jukuri and W.D. Williamson and Johanna Brown focus their GSA narratives on the tensions that arose when their roles as administrators and as peers came into conflict, making it difficult for them to exercise their authority as administrators while simultaneously distancing them from their peers. Their experiences would seem to support Fontaine’s argument, based on her own experiences, that the benefits of GSA positions come at the expense of other students and of the values and ethics of composition and rhetoric (85). On a more positive note, Daphne Desser and Darin Payne draw on their experiences to highlight the benefits of GSA positions. They contend that administrative internships can and should enhance formal course work by providing opportunities for students to put theories about administration into practice and allow students and faculty opportunities to reflect on the political implications of administration (90-1). Individually and collectively, these authors speak to compelling issues related to GSA positions; however, none draw on generalizable or broad-based data to support their conclusions, making it difficult to sort out conflicting claims.

As a response to this trend in our literature, I conducted a national survey and interview study to gather generalizable data about GSAs. For the survey phase, I gathered basic data about who GSAs are, where they work, and the nature of their responsibilities and professional development experiences. In the interview phase, I sought to learn more about individual writing center directors’ and GSAs’ experiences with and perceptions of GSA positions.

The study’s population included writing center directors and GSAs working in institutions granting MA and/or PhD degrees in English Studies (both with and without rhetoric and composition graduate programs). I mailed survey packets including one writing center director questionnaire and three GSA questionnaires to 385 writing centers and received responses from 204 writing centers (52% response rate). Responses included 144 questionnaires from writing center directors and 129 usable questionnaires from GSAs. Of the director questionnaires, 82 are from directors without GSAs, and 62 are from directors with at least one GSA in their writing centers. Of the GSA questionnaires, 100 were completed by graduate students currently serving as GSAs and 29 by former GSAs. Twenty-two survey participants, 12 GSAs and 10 directors, participated in the interview phase.

In this essay, I will draw primarily on survey data to describe where GSAs work, who they are, and what they do. In reporting this data, I hope to question some of our commonly held assumptions about GSAs and GSA positions. Certainly, our assumptions have some basis in fact, but my point here is that the anecdotal data upon which such assumptions are based cannot be broadly generalized.

Where GSAs Are—and Aren’t

A common assumption I encountered during my research is that only writing centers in large universities with PhD programs employ GSAs. At first glance, the data would seem to bear out this assumption: of the 62 writing centers with GSAs in my sample, most are situated in public institutions (78%), classified as doctoral/research universities (63%), and have 10,000 to 25,000 students (43%). However, the characteristics of writing centers without GSAs are remarkably similar: most are in public institutions (75%); many are classified as doctoral/research universities (48%); and most have 10,000 to 25,000 students (48%). Furthermore, the data also reveal that writing centers with GSAs can be found in many different kinds and sizes of institutions, in small, public masters-granting colleges as well as large, private, research universities.

These data, along with interview data, suggest that institutional status or graduate program offerings are less important than local conditions in determining whether a writing center employs GSAs. For example, one interview participant explained that most graduate students at her institution work full-time and take courses in the afternoons and evenings, a schedule that would make it difficult, if not impossible, for graduate students to assume administrative responsibilities.

Other survey data indicate that funding for graduate students is a far more important factor than an institution’s classification or program offerings. One of the most frequent reasons directors gave for not employing GSAs was “no funding.” Further, there is a clear correlation between the overall staff make-up and GSA positions. Most writing centers report employing both undergraduate and graduate tutors (85% and 87%, respectively). Writing centers with graduate tutors are nearly as likely to employ GSAs as not: of the 124 writing centers with graduate tutors, 41% employ both graduate tutors and GSAs, while 45% employ graduate tutors but not GSAs. The same does not hold true for writing centers without graduate tutors: writing centers without graduate tutors are far less likely to employ GSAs. Only three writing centers employ GSAs but not graduate student tutors, while 16 (11%) employ neither GSAs nor graduate student tutors.

Certainly, funding and hiring practices aren’t the only reasons why some writing centers don’t employ graduate students as administrators. However, these data should dispel the notion that a writing center must be housed in a certain type of institution or department in order to hire GSAs.

Who GSAs Are

Another common assumption about GSA positions is that only departments with well-developed programs in rhetoric and composition can or should employ GSAs in writing centers. While some members of the writing center community believe that GSA positions should be reserved for graduate students in rhetoric and composition programs, others argue for the benefits of having GSAs from other areas of English studies or other disciplines altogether (see Eckerle, Rowan, and Watson for more on this debate). My survey data reveal that rhetoric and composition students constitute a large segment of the GSA population, but GSA positions are not, by any means, the exclusive province of rhetoric and composition students.

According to both GSA and director participants, 25% of GSAs are enrolled in English programs with a focus in rhetoric and composition; five writing center directors also reported that GSAs in their centers are pursuing degrees in independent rhetoric and composition/writing programs. Roughly a third of participants in both groups reported that GSAs are literature students, and 11% of GSAs and 21% of directors said that GSAs were pursuing other areas of English studies, including creative writing. Other disciplines mentioned by participants include anthropology, biology, communications, education, history, philosophy, and psychology.

Other survey data help explain the diversity in GSAs’ background. Few GSAs reported having taken courses in either writing center or writing program administration, primarily because, as most directors (80%) reported, few programs offer such courses. However, 30% of GSAs have taken courses in tutoring theory and practice and just over half have taken courses in teaching writing. Often, such introductory courses are the only rhetoric and composition courses offered in the department or university. Given the fact that many universities with GSAs do not offer extensive coursework in rhetoric and composition, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reserve GSA positions exclusively for students in that field.

Despite the fact that not all GSAs have extensive backgrounds in rhetoric and composition, GSAs as a whole bring a wealth of experience to the writing centers in which they work. Nearly 90% served as writing center tutors before working as GSAs; one third previously held administrative positions such as online tutor coordinators, public relations coordinators, or tutor trainers. Nearly three-quarters of the GSA participants have teaching experience and have taught at the elementary, middle, and high school levels as well as the college level, including a wide variety of writing courses.

What GSAs Do

Two of the most common assumptions I’ve encountered about GSA positions are 1) that such positions are professional development opportunities for graduate students and 2) that such positions exploit graduate students. Of course, one or both of these assumptions may be true in specific contexts, but drawing the line between professional development and exploitation is no easy task. Here, I use data about GSA duties, titles/rank, workload, and time in the position as a means for broadening the scope of discussion about the line between professional development and exploitation.

As a group, GSAs are involved in every aspect of writing center administration, including day-to-day clerical work, staff and tutor training, and budget management. In some cases, GSAs’ duties are focused on a single aspect of writing center administration while other GSAs have a wide range of responsibilities. The most frequently reported duty by both GSAs and directors is tutor training. Most GSAs also have some responsibility for clerical duties. However, in no case do GSAs perform only clerical duties. Though relatively few GSAs are responsible for budgets, many interview participants noted that directors often talk to GSAs about budget issues, letting them know what goes on “behind-the-scenes” even if GSAs are not actively involved with budgets. Duties in the “Other” category include conducting outreach, maintaining databases and other records, managing resources, conducting research projects, and liaising between tutors and the director. Ensuring that GSAs have significant administrative responsibilities benefits both GSAs and writing centers. In the words of one director, “GSAs expand the quality and quantity of services we offer, as well as gain crucial administrative experience, skill, and understanding.”

Table 1 Graduate Student Administrator Duties

GSA Duties	GSA Responses		WCD Responses		Total Responses
	Frequency	Percent*	Frequency	Percent*	Frequency	Percent*
Clerical	110	85	46	74	156	82
Staff training	97	75	46	74	143	75
Tutor training	113	88	53	86	166	87
Scheduling	100	78	47	76	147	77
Budget	31	24	15	24	46	24
Publicity	104	81	46	74	150	79
Grant writing	19	15	14	23	33	17
Conduct workshops	94	73	45	73	139	73
Technology	66	51	44	71	110	58
Mentoring	98	76	50	81	148	78
Faculty development	39	30	22	36	61	32
Other	15	12	6	10	21	11

Source: GSA and Writing Center Director Questionnaires

As GSA titles suggest, some GSAs are primarily tutors with some administrative duties, while others are primarily administrators with some tutoring responsibilities. GSA titles fall into six categories: writing center administrator, graduate assistant, program coordinator, consultant/tutor, writing program administrator, and other. Titles in the writing center administrator category appeared the most frequently in both GSA and director questionnaires; the most frequently cited titles in this category were “assistant coordinator/assistant director” and “coordinator.” In some cases, graduate students’ official titles are “tutor” or “consultant,” but they do some administrative work in addition to consulting with writers. Thus, while many graduate students have administrative responsibilities, their titles do not always reflect this fact.

There are also some graduate students who serve as writing center directors. Among directors, only 7 of 142 participants said that they were graduate students. On questions about GSA titles (asked of both GSAs and directors), nine GSAs and five directors listed GSAs’ title as “director.” It would appear, then, that most GSAs do not serve as the top or sole administrator in their writing centers. However, interview participants remind us that official titles sometimes belie reality. Three interview participants described circumstances in which GSAs served as the sole or top administrator in their writing centers regardless of title. In all cases, GSAs were nominally supervised by writing program directors or department chairs but, in practice, received very little hands-on guidance or support from their supervisors.

Of these three interview participants, only one explicitly used the term “exploitation” to describe GSAs’ experiences, but it could be argued that, to various degrees, the other two GSAs were also exploited, if only through benign neglect. Thus, while survey data suggest that relatively few GSAs serve as writing center directors, interview data remind us that GSAs’ title or rank is not the only factor at play in avoiding exploitation.

Just over half of GSA participants responded that their they held their positions for one to two years. Almost a quarter of participants served as a GSA for two to three years, while 14% served for three or more years. The shortest term reported was one semester, and the longest was six years. Several interview participants suggested that being a GSA for more than two years would be a burden. While one GSA enjoyed his two years as a coordinator in his writing center, he looked forward to going back to “just” tutoring. He felt increasingly stressed by his administrative responsibilities and wanted to focus more on his dissertation. It is worrisome, then, that several GSAs commented on their questionnaires that they planned to continue serving as GSA for at least one more year, if not more. Indeed, one participant described his or her tenure as GSA as “indefinite.” Thus, the percentage of GSAs serving more than one year may be somewhat larger than survey data suggest.

According to both GSAs and directors, the majority of GSAs work between 11 and 20 hours per week. Several GSAs noted that their time in the writing center fluctuated throughout the semester, such as one interview participant who said that he worked 50-60 hours/week at the beginning of the year, but then scaled back to the normal 20 hours/week after the semester got underway. Another GSA worked 30 hours during her second year as assistant director, but only because she was ahead of schedule in her degree program and could therefore afford to become, essentially, a part time student while she finished her thesis. Though neither of these two GSAs fell behind in their programs as a result of their time in the writing center, they nevertheless wouldn’t recommend that other graduate students take on such heavy loads. Several graduate students noted that their time as GSAs actually helped them make progress academically either by providing a focus for their research or by allowing for more regular schedules than they had as teaching assistants. At the same time, most directors noted that they put a high priority on ensuring that GSAs’ workload did not slow their academic progress.

Beyond the Anecdotal

Early in her book Composing Research, Cindy Johanek laments that composition researchers have increasingly relied upon anecdotal evidence in their research and scholarship. By way of explaining the problems of anecdote-based research, she cites a review of Sullivan and Qualley’s Pedagogy in the Age of Politics in which the reviewer argues that the volume as a whole lacked unity and that the individual stories were not adequately connected to the larger composition community (10). Johanek notes that this criticism echoes that often leveled at quantitative research: anecdotes are now being offered for their own sake, devoid of or divorced from context, much as quantitative data is often perceived as being offered.

Although I, like many in the field, am drawn to narratives and value them as a way of making knowledge, I have nevertheless become frustrated with the anecdotal nature of many essays on graduate education and GSAs in particular. In too many cases, individual authors rely on anecdotal or narrative evidence drawn from only one context—that of the author’s own program—to make broad claims about GSA positions or administrative professional development. As I have worked to show here, anecdotal evidence alone does not provide a solid basis for addressing very real concerns about GSA positions in writing centers. For that reason, I believe the time has come for our public arguments about the nature, value, and purpose of GSA positions to move beyond the anecdotal. To that end, my study represents one effort—and hopefully not the last—to provide baseline data about GSAs and their experiences so that we may better prepare the next generation of writing center directors.

Works Cited

Brown, Johanna. “The Peer Who Isn’t a Peer: Authority and the Graduate Student Administrator.” Kitchen Cooks, Plate Twirlers, and Troubadours. Ed. Diana George. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1999. 120-5.

Desser, Daphne and Darin Payne. “Writing Program Administration Internships.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart Brown, Theresa Enos, and Catherine Chaput. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. 89-100.

Eckerle, Julie, Karen Rowan, and Shevaun Watson. “From Graduate Student to Administrator: Practical Models for Mentorship & Professional Development in Writing Centers and Writing Programs.” Culture Shock and the Practice of Profession: Training the Next Wave in Rhetoric and Composition. Ed. Virginia Anderson and Susan Romano. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 2005. 215-37.

Fontaine, Sheryl. “Revising Administrative Models and Questioning the Value of Appointing Graduate Student WPAs.” Foregrounding Ethical Awareness in Composition and English Studies. Ed. Sheryl Fontaine and Susan Hunter. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1998. 83-92.

Johanek, Cindy. Composing Research: A Contextualist Paradigm for Rhetoric and Composition. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 2000.

Jukuri, Stephen, and W.J. Williamson. “How to Be a Wishy-Washy Graduate Student WPA, or Undefined but Overdetermined: The Positioning of Graduate Student WPAs.” Kitchen Cooks, Plate Twirlers, and Troubadours. Ed. Diana George. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1999. 105-119.

F

F Tom TruesdellF

Page 7

F Donna Evans F

Page 12

Tutors’ Column:

“Reflection: How the Writing Center Rekindled My Passion and Purpose to Teach”

F Meghan Monroe F

Page 14

Conference Calendar

Page 16

continued on page 2

The Writing Lab Newsletter, published in ten monthly issues from September to June by The RiCH Company, 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 The RiCH Company. Material can not be reproduced in any form without express written permission. However, up to 50 copies of an article may be reproduced under fair use policy for educational, non-commercial use in classes or course packets. As always, proper achnowledgement of title, author, and original publication date in the Writing Lab Newsletter should be included.

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“In reporting this data, I hope to question some of our commonly held assumptions about GSAs and GSA positions.”