Re: wc's, faculty referral, student resposibility

["Dr. Beth Rapp Young" <youngbr@email.uah.edu>]

On Sun, 3 Nov 1996 Catherine_Imbriglio@postoffice.brown.edu wrote:

> I'd just like to clarify that the "Brown" model is for our Writing Fellows
> Program.  It is _not_ the model we follow at our Writing Center.    Though
> the Center is staffed from people from various disciplines, we read
> whatever paper a writer brings in.   We don't ordinarily match people up by
> discipline.

Thanks for the explanation, Catherine.  I guess I really _wasn't_
clear on the different models at Brown!  And you make a good point: we
don't have to choose only one model or another; we can do several
different things.  (Twila, didn't you make this point at NCPTW?)
How do the two programs interact at Brown?  Can students take
advantage of both resources for the same class?

>  One of the things
> I've been wrestling with is how to deal with the advantages and
> disadvantages that come from the hierarchical relationships that develop in
> our conferences simply because our Center's staff members are all graduate
> students (mostly doctoral candidates, plus me, a Ph.D. in English and
> American Lit).      Most of the literature on WC conferencing that I'm
> aware of doesn't seem to address specifically the kind of "built-in"
> structural disparities that result simply because of the experience and
> maturity level that graduate students bring to their conferences.   

This is a good question.  We have both graduate students (M.A.
students) and undergraduates in our center, but perhaps because the
grads are vastly outnumbered (about 4 in a staff of 22) I haven't
noticed many differences in their consulting.  Another factor might be
the age of the writers who come to the center; here, many of them are
"nontraditional" students with a great deal of maturity. (Of course,
many are also graduate students.)  Because the consultants are hired
at different times, the grads start work with more experienced
undergrads.  As Sara notes in her center, grad students are pleased to
recognize the professionalism of their colleagues.  But this has more
to do with staff interaction than staff/client interaction.

One comforting idea from Christina Murphy's speech in Oklahoma City
was that consultants/writers don't need to be exact peers for helpful
exchanges to take place.  So if the disparities you mention can't be
resolved by adjusting the makeup of your staff or clientele, perhaps
you can identify the more troublesome disparities and deal with those
individually.  

What kinds of "built-in" disparities have you noticed?  Are you
talking about attitudes?  Or a larger repertoire of writing
strategies?  Perhaps more experience with academic writing?  And which
of these are troublesome?  Could you tell us more?

Beth Young

Dr. Beth Rapp Young
U of Alabama in Huntsville
YoungBR@email.uah.edu