Re: Request for info on utilization

["Dr. Patricia N. McLaughlin" <3yunsan@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu>]

Neal,

I am the new director of the CMU Writing Center at Central Michigan
University. The center currently serves the 250 students enrolled in ENG 100
(Basic Writing) on a bi-weekly appointment-only basis.  We are open from 8
a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 to 12:30 on Friday.  We have
been having problems with no-shows, which means that the tutors have been
idle too much of the time this semester.  I staff the center from 1 to 5
p.m., and I encourage the tutors to engage in professional development
activities (thinking of ways to improve the center, their tutoring
practices, and so on), yet I still see too much inactivity on the part of
the tutors.

This will change, of course, when we open our doors to the entire student
body next semester, though.  We'll face the challenge of serving 17,000
students from a variety of disciplines.  I anticipate that we may be
underutilized during the morning hours because our students tend to be late
risers; moreover, since most of our students are from Michigan, they go home
on weekends, so we won't be open on Friday afternoons or Saturday.  Party
night is Thursday, so we won't be open on Thursday nights either.  

What I'm getting at is the importance of knowing the student body so that
appropriate decisions can be made regarding staffing and hours of operation.
Based upon the sample population we've been working with this semester, I
project that our hours of operation will be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through
Thursday, with the largest number of tutors scheduled between the hours of
10 and 3, which are our busiest times of the day.  We'll also try evening
hours from 7 to 9 Sunday through Wednesday in our new satellite location in
the largest dorm on campus, largely because I have visited the computer labs
on campus and have found scores of students writing papers during those hours.

I wish you well in developing your writing center.  Looking forward to
hearing from you--Pat

At 05:04 PM 11/6/96 -0600, you wrote:
>WCenter folks:  Once again, I turn to your collective knowledge in order to
>rescue my butt.  After meeting with my division chair this morning, he stressed
>that one of the most important criterion for the writing center to meet is
>utilization.  However, in order to put my numbers in perspective, I'd like
to be
>able to tell him what other centers (hopefully similar ones) experience.
>
>So I'm wondering how occupied your tutors are (or have been).  Of the total
>hours you're open, how many of those hours are spent with students?
>
>I know these figures are often a function of your particular context, so if you
>could tell me briefly what that context is, I'd be grateful.
>
>And a bit of my own context:  the WC I coordinate is at a small (1400 total
>students, ~175 in the first-year class) science/tech-oriented private college.
>Feel free to e-mail this info off list if you wish.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>	Neal Lerner
>	nlerner@mit.edu
>