Re: wc adverts

[JANE NELSON <JNELSON@UWYO.EDU>]

A couple of you have requested some ideas on how to fill hours when tutors
aren't busy.  But before I give a list, I'd like to argue that the occasional
unfilled half hour or hour has positive effects in and of itself.  There's no
need to keep busy all the time!  Rest and relaxation is good for everyone.

But there are times, no doubt, when empty hours can be put to good use.  Here
are some ideas.

1.  In a staff meeting, discuss the development of one or two handouts for the
semester.  One-page handouts.  Don't try to develop too many!  Then, in those
off hours, writing center staff can doodle on these projects--brainstorm,
storyboard, design, etc.

2.  If you have a computer with Netscape, do web searches.  A web search can
yield excellent results.  We have a folder of stuff from the Web that we use
all the time as "impromptu" handouts.  For instance, somewhere on the Web is a
list of on-line citation guides for MLA, APA, etc.  More and more we are giving
students and faculty this print-out.  (No doubt someone is now going to ask for
that citation--I'll wait for it to happen before I dig it out.)

3.  If you have a web site yourself or are thinking of one, then the web
searches can be directed to this end.  Find sites that you like for design
purposes.  In an empty half hour, begin the design process for one web page.

4.  We send out brochures to faculty and flyers to students.  If you need a new
brochure, you could decide as a staff to get that brochure designed and written
through the course of a semester.  

5.  We have an appointment book, and thus we know if there is going to be an
empty half hour.  If there is no appointment five minutes before the half hour
starts, then you can write in the appointment book one of these projects so
that the tutor will be reminded to work on it.  Of course drop-ins take
precedence.

6.  If you do Writing Center introductions in classes, consider having them in
the Writing Center itself, especially at the beginning of the semester when you
are likely to have few writers.  We do 60-80 classroom presentations/workshops
per year, and we have now realized (duh!) that this kind of thing has become a
major program for us.  Thus, we are now incorporating these presentations as
part of our regular duties, not as add-ons to our duties.  If I have assigned a
tutor to do one of these workshops, I write that down in the appointment
book, and that tutor is thus not doing one-on-one conferencing at that time.
It's OK, I've discovered, to cancel (horrors!) an hour of one-on-one
conferencing.  It's not really canceling--it's filling up those hours with a
different kind of and equally important activity.

Jane