Re: turf problems

[Sara Kimball <skimball@uts.cc.utexas.edu>]

Hi, Karen.  One of the reasons I don't want consultants working with 
their own students in the UWC is that many of them are not all that 
experienced as teachers.  Many are in fact only in their first or second 
semester of teaching their own classes.  Someone also mentioned earlier 
that if consultants are being paid to do one thing during a particular 
hour then they really shouldn't be doing other things.  In figuring out 
consultants' workloads I've in effect set aside three hours that can be 
used as office hours.
	We've had occasional problems when consultants haven't observed 
the policy.  For example, one evening this fall I came into the center 
and saw one of the consultants, someone who's been a bit of a problem 
because she seems to be pretty clueless about almost everything, sitting 
at the receptionist's desk with a student in the chair students sit in 
when they're talking to the receptionist.  The student and consultant were 
pretty obviously engaged in an office-hours type conference when another 
student came in on a drop-in writing center visit.  The consultant had 
the student stand in front of the desk responding to our registration 
questions as though she were under interrogation; the poor kid was more 
or less standing at attention by the way.  This is not the kind of thing 
I want to see happen.
Sara Kimball

On Wed, 31 Jan 1996, Karen L. Morris wrote:

> While I can see that teachers who tutor their own students could have a 
> conflict in roles, we have sucessfully done it at Concordia:  

> Both Lynnell and I are experienced tutors and teachers, and I think we're 
> both clear on the roles and keeping them separate.  I know that when I 
> work with one of my own student's papers, I focus on the writing and 
> don't evaluate.
> 
> Karen
> 
> karenm@teleport.COM  (ears up, whiskers clean, and still purring) 
> 
>