Professor Chris LeCluyse at Westminster College, Utah, is organising mentors for writing centre staff interested in publishing articles about the work they do in the Writing Center Newsletter.
Professor of English at Westminster College, Utah
Chris writes: The WLN mentor match program is intended to bring writers working on articles for WLN together with experienced mentors who know a thing or two about writing center work and publishing. Mentors give feedback to writers submitting to WLN to help them develop articles for publication. Mentors actively engage in goal-setting with the mentee.
Mentors also work with writers who may be interested in writing but aren’t sure what to write about or where to begin. In other words, a WLN mentor does much the same work as tutors in a writing center.
If you would like to be a WLN mentor, please fill out the online application form at http://bit.ly/WLNMentorApp.
Writing centers are popping up worldwide. As more and more institutions of higher education see the need to support writers, writing and writing to learn, they are opening writing centers. However, those tasked with trying to establish writing centers, most often have to learn their business by doing and in relative isolation.
To provide professionals and academics within Europe who are seeking to develop writing centers a sustained opportunity for professional development, the European Writing Centers Association offered its first Summer Institute August 19th-23rd at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) in Germany, directly at the German-Polish border. Thirty participants from 16 different countries participated. They were invited and accompanied by five experienced Writing Center leaders from Germany, Ireland, and the USA.
Because a central aspect of writing center work is the philosophy of collaborative learning, the Summer Institute was designed to be a truly interactive and participatory learning experience. All topics were delivered to allow all participants to share knowledge and experiences with each other. Together with their leaders, they enhanced their understanding of the following topics:
. Peer writing tutor education . Working with faculty and administration . Demonstrating impact: Writing center assessment and more . The Writing Center budget . Grant writing for writing center projects . Possible exchange programs (e.g. Erasmus) . Working with multilingual students . Writing center research and publication . Writing center sustainability
Participants also had ample time to network and to socialize as they walked together to our lodgings in a student hotel across the lovely Oder River that marks the border between Germany and Poland. They shared snacks from their home countries during our daily coffee breaks and spent time each day in small mentoring groups.
Collaboration on writing centre work
To celebrate our hard work at the closing of the Institute, participants created and staged writing circus characters in a Writers‘ Circus, “a very creative and great way to end our time together”, as a participant expressed it.
The feedback of participants was overwhelmingly positive and many expressed how they were looking forward not only to going back to their writing center work, but also to continuing the networking informally and through future summer institutes. The Summer Institute, one participant summarized, “showed me the incredible connections you make with people from all around the world, because we have that one thing in common: The love for writing – and writing consultations and centers!”
Annual
Dartmouth Summer Seminar for Writing Research
Save
the dates! July 26 – August 7, 2020
Hanover,
NH, USA
“The
Summer Seminar was one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my
career.” (previous participant)
A detailed announcement and the
seminar application will be available by October 1st – applications due
December 15th 2019—but here is a preview:
The 2020 Dartmouth Summer Seminar
for Writing Research is designed for writing faculty from all types of higher
education venues and contexts who are beginning to work on data-driven research
about writing in a variety of higher education contexts, and who would like an
intensive, high-powered two weeks to work on that research, review approaches
and methods, consult directly with experts, and network long-term with a cohort
of other researchers from around the world. Guided interaction about
participants’ projects is offered in the months leading up to the Seminar. The
Seminar itself offers a quiet, resource-rich environment, coursework,
small-group discussion and exchange, individual consultation with Seminar
leaders, time to work alone or in groups on research projects, and a concluding
presentation to the group with feedback from team leaders.
We encourage both individuals and
research groups or teams to apply.
The Seminar coursework covers a
range of topics, including data segmenting and coding, statistical analysis,
effective literature reviews, research ethics, and so on. Special-interest
topics are presented based on participants’ projects.
If you’ve been asking yourself any
of the following questions, this is the seminar for you:
•
How do I turn an interest into a viable data-driven investigation?
• I
am very comfortable with my usual research approach, but would like to develop
new data-driven research abilities; can you help?
•
What data do I collect for my research study? How do I collect them?
•
What should I look for when I analyze the data? What is the deeper phenomenon I
am looking for? What is a good site for investigating it?
• I
would like a writing research group within which to work—how can I find that?
•
Everyone seems to be talking about “coding” these days—how can I learn more
about it?
•
What methods are the best for the questions I would like to answer?
•
Where can I learn more about how to select a sample, how to create a worthwhile
survey or interview, and how to calculate statistical significance?
•
Should I conduct a pilot study first? What are the advantages and disadvantages
of a pilot study (including funding)?
•
Why does my research question keep changing?
•
What’s the best way to present and publish my research?
Back Row: Íde O’Sullivan, Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, Birgit Huemer, Doris Pany-Habsa, Franziska Liebetanz, Shareen Grogan, and Lawrence Cleary. Front row: Pam Bromley, Katrin Girgensohn and Annemieke Meijer. The man with the very long arms is Mario van de Visser.
On the 21st and 22nd of June, 2018, in an effort to move our association toward greater sustainability, three members of the EWCA board, the current EWCA Chair Franziska Liebetanz, Center for Key Competencies and Research Learning (ZSFL) Writing Center Head, Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany; Doris Pany-Habsa, Head of the Writing Center, University of Graz, Austria; and Lawrence Cleary, Educational Developer and Co-Director of the Regional Writing Centre, University Limerick, Ireland met with Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, Head of Centre for Academic Writing, Coventry University, EATAW ex-officio board member and editor of the Journal of Academic Writing (JoAW), the journal of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing); Íde O’Sullivan, Senior Educational Developer and Co-Director Regional Writing Centre, University Limerick, Ireland;
University Limerick straddling the River Shannon, Limerick, Ireland
Birgit Huemer, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching (Academic German) University Luxembourg Language Centre; Shareen Grogan, Director, Writing and Math Centers at National University, San Diego, California and past President, IWCA; Alison Farrell, Teaching Development Officer in the Centre for Teaching and Learning and Head of the University’s Writing Centre, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland; Pamela Bromley, Assistant Director of College Writing and Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations, Pomona College, California; Mario van de Visser, Instructor Division Academic Support Language Center coordinator of the Scriptorium, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands; Annemieke Meijer is a lecturer and academic tutor at University College Utrecht, and the coordinator of UCU’s Writing & Skills Center, University College, Utrect, The Netherlands; and Katrin Girgensohn, Center for Key Competencies and Research Learning (ZSFL) Head, Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, past Chair Together, we developed a plan for the future with very concrete steps: EWCA and current Advisory Board member to the EWCA.
EWCA Board opening the conversation
We had very good and helpful presentations about the EWCA, the IWCA (International Writing Center Association), the EATAW (European Association of Teaching Academic Writing) and the Writing Center Journal, and we had lovely Pecha Kuchas about the writing centers of all the contributors.
We spent two very productive and fruitful days thinking about our European Writing Center Association. We would like to say thank you to those who came all this way to Ireland to make contributions.
All those attending contributing to making the EWCA a more sustainable organisation
Together, we developed a plan for the future with very concrete steps:
In 2019, we will have an EWCA Summer Institute for writing center people at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. Details will be announced soon.
We will continue our dialogue with the EATAW Board to collaborate on common issues and the needs of our members.
We will create a really simple website, which will also include the revised text of our Mission Statement.
Lastly, we would like to announce that our EWCA Board will be supported by Annemieke Meijer (Writing Center coordinator, University College Utrecht).
Back Row: Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, Birgit Huemer, Doris Pany-Habsa, Franziska Liebetanz, Shareen Grogan, Mario van de Visser and Lawrence Cleary. Front row: Pam Bromley, Katrin Girgensohn and Annemieke Meijer
We look forward to moving forward with our objectives and to communicating further through our listserv and in the coming weeks and months.
The University of Cologne has issued an invitation to their upcoming 10th Write-Peer-Tutor * intern Conference to be held from September 30th to October 2nd, 2017.
“We are looking forward to welcoming you to the SPTK in Cologne this year. We want to discuss the latest developments and experiences in the area of peer consulting with you, the writing staff from all over Germany and Europe.
A call for papers was issued as well on the topic of “Roles (conflicts) in the peer-writing advice”. Abstracts must be submitted by April 30th, 2017 to: sptk-2017@uni-koeln.de.
