Re: Faculty and Undergrads in WCs

[cph@wiley.csusb.edu (Carol Haviland)]

Tere-

All of what you say about the expertise of faculty members as experts is
true.  However, that very designation opens an important role/border
discussion.  If one person of the tutoring duo is THE expert, the other
member takes on an clearly inferior role, which erodes the agency/voice of
the student writer.  This unbalanced relationship is particularly acute if
the faculty tutor also is the grader of the student's paper.  The student's
desire for a high grade frequently overpowers her ability to sort through
the faculty-reader's responses and use them for her own purposes.

Thus, while faculty members certainly can represent expertise in writing,
and particularly in writing papers that they will grade, they may be less
capable of respond as readers who open choices for writers.  

A second consideration is the role of the writing center--certainly all of
us who read papers like reading excellent papers.  However,, if the WC's
chief role is to produce papers faculty members like to read and students
like because of their high grades, I argue that it has seriously compromised
its teaching role:  it is teaching students to bring their papers to experts
who will fix them up for others' approval.

So--I would argue for a mix of faculty and student tutors, always ensuring
that faculty don't tutor their own students, and for a substantive education
effort to place the WC as a place where writers can find helpful readers,
knowing that this will not always produce better papers.

I'll be interested in knowing what thoughts this stimulates for you, for
your tutors, and for your faculty.

Carol Haviland
>I am interested in knowing the make-up of writing center staffs at other 
>institutions.  Ours (at IUPUI -- Indiana U at Indianapolis) is made up of 
>6 adjunct faculty and 12 - 18 undergraduate peer tutors.  Whilst perusing 
>the literature I'm struck with how most rhetoric about tutoring 
>centers on students as tutors.  Are faculty in WCs common?  If so, how do 
>those WCs deal with the two groups of tutors?  
>
>Before the peer tutoring program was inaugurated six years ago, we were 
>staffed exclusively by faculty tutors -- both adjunct and full-time 
>lecturers who received one class released time to tutor inthe WC.  Our 
>comp faculty (between 70 and 80 faculty, largely part-time, numbers 
>fluctuating with enrollment and budget) came to rely on the WC as a place 
>where some of the best faculty were a-waitin' to deal with their 
>students' writing.  Those faculty tutors were (and still are) seasoned 
>writing program veterans and had lots of experience with both the 
>curriculum and in dealing with students.  
>
>Along comes the peer tutoring program.  It's been great.  Working with 
>the undergrad tutors is a real treat for faculty tutors:  we teach each 
>other a lot.  The peer tutors are conscientious, dedicated to the work 
>they do (for $6.00 an hour, by the way) and are very effective at working 
>with students.  
>
>Here's the rub.  
>
>Even my most excellent student tutor is still a student.  Students lack 
>the experience and perspective garnered from years in the classroom, 
>from years of dealing with students and their writing.  Occasionally 
>their lack of experience makes a difference in a tutorial.  
>
>The problem.  Some of our faculty no longer recommend the WC to their 
>students because they don't want them working with another student whose 
>expertise a few of those folks don't value.  We've taken action to better 
>acquaint faculty with who peer tutors are and what their considerable 
>strengths are, but the problem remains.
>
>Are there other centers out there in the ether that deal with this 
>issue?  How? 
>
>Tere Hogue
>CA 502L
>425 University Blvd.
>Indianapolis, IN  46202
>(317) 274-0091/2049
>
>
Carol Peterson Haviland
California State University, San Bernardino
(909) 880 5833