Re: Info request on utilization

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

On Tue, 5 Nov 1996, Neal Lerner wrote:

> Once again, I turn to your collective wisdom in order to save my butt.  I
> met with my division chair yesterday, and he stressed that the utilization
> of this writing center was perhaps the most important criterion for the
> bean counters of the college.  Thus, I'm wondering about comparing this
> number to other institutions.  Of the number of hours you're open, how many
> of those are spent with students in one-to-one conferencing?

Neal, a quick response first, then a suggestion for NWCA:

Every hour we're open, we have one-on-one consultations (usually 30
minutes each) unless writers or teachers request otherwise.  I forget
how many "clock" hours we're open, but we offer about 85 contact
hours (if 2 consultants are at work, I count that as 2 contact hours).
Most of these appointments are reserved in advance (something like
85%) but only about 60% of our available time is actually used.
(Sometimes writers don't show up for their appointments; sometimes
writers show up without making an appointment.)  We have about 8,000
grad & undergrad students.  If you need more details, let me know.

As I'm directing a relatively new center, it would be enormously
helpful to know similar figures for wctrs nationwide.  What is the
"industry standard" for utilization?  Maybe NWCA could gather such
information & make it available on the homepage.  (Of course, I seem
to keep dreaming up nifty ideas for NWCA to do, ideas which I know I
don't have time to do myself.  Sorry if I sound like I'm always urging
others to "bell the cat.")

Beth Young

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