Two weeks ago, Ann went to the national CRLA (College Reading and Learning Association) conference to learn about how we can justify our purpose and then be able to adequately assess our impact at Sam Houston.
In the past year, Ann has been working to prove -- in numbers -- that we are a well-utilized student service at Sam. We've made alliances with faculty members and begun a sort of campaign for getting more students in the door. We started doing more orientations, offered presentations for classes with specific needs, advertised with the Student Services weekly email, and changed the way we approached freshmen orientation, just to name a few things. We tracked the numbers from the year before and the present one and guess what? We discovered we had more students come through our doors. Both semesters in the 2008-2009 academic year saw a record number of students at The Writing Center, and it seems as if we may break that record again.
All this is great news. We have people coming in our doors.
But, let's say we're a restaurant. The purpose of a restaurant in our capitalist country is to make money, which supports our purpose of being a business. We can be the most popular restaurant in town, sell out of burgers every night and always have a wait list, but if we don't charge enough for our famous avocado-salsa-and-barbecue sauce burgers, we're not running our restaurant effectively and we're going to go bankrupt. The same concept applies to the Writing Center, but with writers instead of dollars. We can have folks come in our doors all day long, but if we're not effectively tutoring whatever points need to be made in a session, we're not fulfilling our purpose, and we're going bankrupt, but in writers. If you ran a Writing Center, would you rather go bankrupt with the bank or a university? The former is an economic issue that could possibly be corrected when the economy corrects itself, the latter is a credibility issue that may never be able to be corrected. Starting a business is a one-shot gamble and this is our one shot.
Ann came back with all sorts of ideas to measure our effectiveness as a Writing Center and she plans to begin the process of assessment as soon as possible. Most of us tutors won't see the assessments until next semester, but the wheels are turning. It'll be an interesting process. I personally make the hypothesis that we are going to find we have been effective in unexpected ways in addition to finding our places of needed growth. Also, if we don't find anything that we can expand upon or refine, we aren't looking hard enough. There's always room for growth. But, we will find something. We have a sharp pair of directors and a staff that's just as tough on ourselves. We are sure to find something.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
National Day on Writing: Part II
It's been a hectic couple of weeks and we've been booked at the Writing Center lately, and we've been booked with our own studies, causing a brief absence from the blogging world. The last time we posted was before the National Day on Writing, which happened on October 20, 2009.
Now, you may ask as you read this, "We have a national day on writing? What is the importance and relevance of having entire day dedicated to writing, according to Congress?" Well, while the debates of the accomplishments of Congress will be left to other bloggers, writing -- and the study of it -- is absolutely necessary in the 21st century.
We are a generation of writers. We blog, we facebook, we tweet, we text, IM, email, write invoices, office memos, justify our careers through writing (just ask any teacher, scientist or historian), and even occasionally, such as on college campuses across America, can witness people taking pen to paper. And that's not just in a revision session at the writing center, either. That's right. I'm talking about taking notes, folks. If we are a generation of writers, even more so than another other generation before us, we should be keenly interested in the craft of writing. Yes, the study of writing has been going on for a number of centuries, but never before has it been as important as it is today. In order to understand how our language, writing processes and the tools we use for writing are evolving, we must study the craft of it with more zeal than ever before. It is our only hope to keep up with credible evolution of our society.
And that's what The National Day of Writing is about, and exactly what we celebrated.
At Sam Houston, the way we celebrated was simple, but the heart of it was no less there than on any other campus. We held a poetry and fiction reading outside (thanks to the amazing weather we've been having lately!) which had a fair representation of poets, fiction-writers and creative non-fiction writers across the campus, from different disciplines, and included one of our faculty members, Dr. Bridges. Part of the craft of writing includes keeping up with your contemporaries, and one of the easiest ways to do that is by going to readings and witnessing their writing process. One of the best things about readings is we go in with the assumption that everything is still a work in progress. It's never an easy task to present our own work, but if we realize that it's always progressing, it takes off the pressure.
After the poetry/fiction reading, we held a reception at the writing center, complete with rainbow sherbet punch! Faculty members were invited and we visited with them and discussed what we do at the Writing Center, what new things they were doing in their classrooms, and in general, formed a networking bond. At the SHSU Writing Center, we like to think of ourselves as the bridge between students and professors, and while the tutors are constantly maintaining the connection on the student side of the shore, we often don't have much of an opportunity to connect on the professor's side, at least in such personable means.
We look forward to maintaining these network connections with faculty and students. If we can help keep the communication between that relationship open, not only are we helping students learn the craft of writing, but we become the communication tool and by extension, develop our own skills in writing.
Now, you may ask as you read this, "We have a national day on writing? What is the importance and relevance of having entire day dedicated to writing, according to Congress?" Well, while the debates of the accomplishments of Congress will be left to other bloggers, writing -- and the study of it -- is absolutely necessary in the 21st century.
We are a generation of writers. We blog, we facebook, we tweet, we text, IM, email, write invoices, office memos, justify our careers through writing (just ask any teacher, scientist or historian), and even occasionally, such as on college campuses across America, can witness people taking pen to paper. And that's not just in a revision session at the writing center, either. That's right. I'm talking about taking notes, folks. If we are a generation of writers, even more so than another other generation before us, we should be keenly interested in the craft of writing. Yes, the study of writing has been going on for a number of centuries, but never before has it been as important as it is today. In order to understand how our language, writing processes and the tools we use for writing are evolving, we must study the craft of it with more zeal than ever before. It is our only hope to keep up with credible evolution of our society.
And that's what The National Day of Writing is about, and exactly what we celebrated.
At Sam Houston, the way we celebrated was simple, but the heart of it was no less there than on any other campus. We held a poetry and fiction reading outside (thanks to the amazing weather we've been having lately!) which had a fair representation of poets, fiction-writers and creative non-fiction writers across the campus, from different disciplines, and included one of our faculty members, Dr. Bridges. Part of the craft of writing includes keeping up with your contemporaries, and one of the easiest ways to do that is by going to readings and witnessing their writing process. One of the best things about readings is we go in with the assumption that everything is still a work in progress. It's never an easy task to present our own work, but if we realize that it's always progressing, it takes off the pressure.
After the poetry/fiction reading, we held a reception at the writing center, complete with rainbow sherbet punch! Faculty members were invited and we visited with them and discussed what we do at the Writing Center, what new things they were doing in their classrooms, and in general, formed a networking bond. At the SHSU Writing Center, we like to think of ourselves as the bridge between students and professors, and while the tutors are constantly maintaining the connection on the student side of the shore, we often don't have much of an opportunity to connect on the professor's side, at least in such personable means.
We look forward to maintaining these network connections with faculty and students. If we can help keep the communication between that relationship open, not only are we helping students learn the craft of writing, but we become the communication tool and by extension, develop our own skills in writing.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Scavenger hunting and National Day of Writing Preparations
This week at the Writing Center, we have recorded that we are functioning at 79% capacity, and two weeks prior, we were at 88-98% at any given point in the day. The reason for the lull? Midterms are over!
Yesterday, we participated in a Student Services Scavenger Hunt that was designed to help students, particularly freshmen, get acclimated to the campus. If the students made it to all the destinations in the scavenger hunt, they got to submit their name in a drawing to win a mini-laptop computer. We decorated our door with Hawaiian themed decor and adorned a desk for the scavenger hunt helpers with leis and handed out bubble gum. A good time was had by all!
Right now, we're preparing for the National Day of Writing on October 20, 2009. We will be hosting a Writing at the Center, which is a creative writer's open forum traditionally held once a month at the Writing Center on Sundays, but will be held at the Farrington Pit at 12:30 pm on that day. We look forward to hearing the poets and fiction writers of campus share their work, and hope to see many more folks out, just to enjoy the lyrical lines! Yours Truly even plans to present some of her own poetry, much to her own dismay. (eep!) After that, from 2:00 to 4:00, the Writing Center will host an open reception for faculty and staff to come and meet the tutors and discuss fun, nerdy things like academic writing! :) We'll update more about how the National Day of Writing goes next week.
Until next time, keep on keepin' on, folks.
Jenn
Yesterday, we participated in a Student Services Scavenger Hunt that was designed to help students, particularly freshmen, get acclimated to the campus. If the students made it to all the destinations in the scavenger hunt, they got to submit their name in a drawing to win a mini-laptop computer. We decorated our door with Hawaiian themed decor and adorned a desk for the scavenger hunt helpers with leis and handed out bubble gum. A good time was had by all!
Right now, we're preparing for the National Day of Writing on October 20, 2009. We will be hosting a Writing at the Center, which is a creative writer's open forum traditionally held once a month at the Writing Center on Sundays, but will be held at the Farrington Pit at 12:30 pm on that day. We look forward to hearing the poets and fiction writers of campus share their work, and hope to see many more folks out, just to enjoy the lyrical lines! Yours Truly even plans to present some of her own poetry, much to her own dismay. (eep!) After that, from 2:00 to 4:00, the Writing Center will host an open reception for faculty and staff to come and meet the tutors and discuss fun, nerdy things like academic writing! :) We'll update more about how the National Day of Writing goes next week.
Until next time, keep on keepin' on, folks.
Jenn
Sunday, October 4, 2009
some recent handout changes!
This past week at the Writing Center has been quite busy! We have had several days that were completely booked with very few no-show appointments. On Friday, Ronda, our amazing secretary, pointed out to me the apparent lull in the schedule for Sunday, and said, "Maybe this means we'll actually have a bit of a break from the surge of all these students!" To which I replied, "Knock on wood." It's true, we've been busy with appointments, and at times that can be trying on us all (though not impossible with the aid of our friend, Folgers), but the busyness of the center has become second nature already. It feels more natural for the place to be abuzz with students than for it to be quiet. And, ultimately, more satisfying.
But Farrington 111 isn't the only place the Writing Center has been busy with work lately. I've had some amazing co-workers tending to some projects in recent weeks. Ann's inbox has been inundated with emails from professors all over campus requesting that we come to their classes and give a presentation on certain citation styles, such as APA. Given that the American Psychological Association just updated their publication manual, we have had to update our presentations for those classes, specifically. We've been sending a few key tutors out on campus for those presentations, though Ann has stepped in for a few others herself. Lauren, Megan, Sarah, Weston, Daniel, Brandon, Nikki, and Nick are the names that I can recall at the moment of tutors who have been or will be out and about on campus representing the Writing Center for those presentations. I am sure I'm forgetting a tutor or two. To those whose names slip my mind, you are not unappreciated, so I'm sending a big shout-out to y'all, too!
Megan has been working on updating the APA handouts to conform to the new style manual. Kudos, Megan! Ronda and Ann were also of great assistance to her on that project. Lucas updated our website with the new APA handouts and the entire handouts page should be entirely updated in the next two weeks as we are undergoing a mass editing project on them all.
Georgia has completely rearranged our Writing Center pamphlet, with the help of Ashley and Megan in some design work. We take our pamphlet with us to in-class presentations, to our freshman orientation booths, and are for our scheduled orientations which are commonly utilized by freshman composition classes.
Whew! What a week! If it hadn't been for Fair on the Square, I don't know how we would have handled ourselves! :) Thank goodness for one-dollar rootbeer floats at small-town fairs.
Until next time, just keep on keepin' on, folks.
But Farrington 111 isn't the only place the Writing Center has been busy with work lately. I've had some amazing co-workers tending to some projects in recent weeks. Ann's inbox has been inundated with emails from professors all over campus requesting that we come to their classes and give a presentation on certain citation styles, such as APA. Given that the American Psychological Association just updated their publication manual, we have had to update our presentations for those classes, specifically. We've been sending a few key tutors out on campus for those presentations, though Ann has stepped in for a few others herself. Lauren, Megan, Sarah, Weston, Daniel, Brandon, Nikki, and Nick are the names that I can recall at the moment of tutors who have been or will be out and about on campus representing the Writing Center for those presentations. I am sure I'm forgetting a tutor or two. To those whose names slip my mind, you are not unappreciated, so I'm sending a big shout-out to y'all, too!
Megan has been working on updating the APA handouts to conform to the new style manual. Kudos, Megan! Ronda and Ann were also of great assistance to her on that project. Lucas updated our website with the new APA handouts and the entire handouts page should be entirely updated in the next two weeks as we are undergoing a mass editing project on them all.
Georgia has completely rearranged our Writing Center pamphlet, with the help of Ashley and Megan in some design work. We take our pamphlet with us to in-class presentations, to our freshman orientation booths, and are for our scheduled orientations which are commonly utilized by freshman composition classes.
Whew! What a week! If it hadn't been for Fair on the Square, I don't know how we would have handled ourselves! :) Thank goodness for one-dollar rootbeer floats at small-town fairs.
Until next time, just keep on keepin' on, folks.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Beginning, with a tribute to Mr. Vonnegut
This all began around 8:20 one morning the second week of school on a Tuesday. I was standing in the lobby with some fellow tutors, caffeinating myself, waiting for students to come so that we could begin tutor observations. Each semester, we have new tutors join our team, and they are required to observe a total of five hours before they are released into the wild blue yonder of tutoring. Being that it was only Tuesday in the second week of school, our hours had been slow-moving, and mostly consisted of tutors taking care of office tasks and getting to know one another. Ann Theodori, the director of the Writing Center, aka "the bossman", came out from her fishbowl office and joined our conversation. I say she's the bossman, but it's not a scary thing. Perhaps "bosslady" or "bossgentlewoman" or even "bossmomma" are more appropriate words as she is more of the upbeat, happy-go-lucky, bottom-up boss instead of the grim, doom-and-gloom, top-down tyrant that is typically featured in films like Office Space. I don't recall exactly what we were talking about when she came in the conversation, but eventually, it came around to a typical conversation that occurs here: marketing.
I never feel useful in this conversation. I never feel like my ideas are original or are too grandiose to pull off effectively without dedicating my life to the project. Or if they aren't too elaborate, someone inevitably beats me to them, and I feel useless as an employee, which, for a multitude of reasons that I won't go into, is not a pleasant experience for me. So, like always with this topic, I grew uncharacteristically silent and sipped my French Vanilla-flavored legal stimulant, hoping no one would notice my lack of contribution due to un-innovative thinking or perfectionism.
And then she said, "I'd really like to have a blog for our website," and something in me clicked.
And then I found myself saying, "Yeah, that's a great idea! I could do that!" This all happened so quickly and without hesitation that the insecure and irrational part my soul jumped out of my body, turned and looked at me and said, "Really? You can do this? Who are you, and what have you done with Jenn?" That part of me then came back into my body and I remained silent for the next two weeks about what I had agreed to do for Ann. She didn't say anything to me about it during this time, but I laid awake at night thinking about this, until late last week, when I told that insecure part of me to can it. I went to Ann and said, "Ok, I'm serious now. I'm writing this blog for the Writing Center and I'm going to need your support and I want to see how this helps for marketing and I want to take it to conference."
And so it goes.
I never feel useful in this conversation. I never feel like my ideas are original or are too grandiose to pull off effectively without dedicating my life to the project. Or if they aren't too elaborate, someone inevitably beats me to them, and I feel useless as an employee, which, for a multitude of reasons that I won't go into, is not a pleasant experience for me. So, like always with this topic, I grew uncharacteristically silent and sipped my French Vanilla-flavored legal stimulant, hoping no one would notice my lack of contribution due to un-innovative thinking or perfectionism.
And then she said, "I'd really like to have a blog for our website," and something in me clicked.
And then I found myself saying, "Yeah, that's a great idea! I could do that!" This all happened so quickly and without hesitation that the insecure and irrational part my soul jumped out of my body, turned and looked at me and said, "Really? You can do this? Who are you, and what have you done with Jenn?" That part of me then came back into my body and I remained silent for the next two weeks about what I had agreed to do for Ann. She didn't say anything to me about it during this time, but I laid awake at night thinking about this, until late last week, when I told that insecure part of me to can it. I went to Ann and said, "Ok, I'm serious now. I'm writing this blog for the Writing Center and I'm going to need your support and I want to see how this helps for marketing and I want to take it to conference."
And so it goes.
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