Re: request for community college information

[Howard Tinberg <htinberg@bristol.mass.edu>]

Hello all:

I wanted to preface my comments about the value of having peer tutors in 
the cc writing center by stating that without a strong faculty 
commitment writing centers face an up-hill battle for college-wide 
credibility.  Personally, I have found the weekly staff meeting with 
faculty tutors (I meet with peer tutors separately, for reasons that I 
would be glad to provide) and our annual summer workshop wonderfully 
rewarding (heck, the latter provided me with the stuff for a 
book--available at the CCCC's--sorry about the shameless 
self-promotion).  
Having said all that, I cannot imagine, or nor would I want to imagine, our 
writing lab without the presence of peer tutors.  Their perspectives are 
so necessary to the running of an effective lab environment.  Not only 
are their memories quite fresh about the difficulties of responding to 
teachers' prompts, but they bring to the tutoring session fewer 
stakes, as it were, to the business of assessing student work.  I 
find--and, again, don't misunderstand me--that "training" faculty to work 
in the lab is more problematic than training peer tutors.  The very 
things that truly enrich our lab's faculty staff meetings--a recognition 
that writing is shaped in part by the conventions of the discipline that 
produces it, for example--obviously complicates matters.
But even as I speak of the advantages of peer tutoring, I want to say 
this:  that for us the mix of faculty and peer tutors seems ideal.  I 
realize that Bruffee and others might take issue with the very notion of 
such a model, but I am convinced that both kinds of tutors benefit in 
this arrangement:  students get to be mentored by faculty and faculty 
begin to see their own work through the eyes of students.

Howard Tinberg

On Mon, 3 Feb 1997 KILBORNJ@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU wrote:

> One of my graduate student tutors is proposing that a community college with
> faculty tutors initiate a peer tutoring program. Although the tutor has done a
> lot of research (into programs and numbers and such), she's hoping to include
> some voices from experienced community college people in her proposal.
> Specifically, she'd like answers to the following questions:
> 
> 	1.  What are the benefits of peer tutoring vs. faculty/teacher 
> 	    tutoring in a community college?
> 
> 	2.  What are the benefits of having a peer tutoring center devoted 
> 	    solely to writing in a community college?
> 
> The student -- Jessica Lourey -- asks that you e-mail her directly at
> lourej01@tigger.stcloud.msus.edu and that you respond by 2/14.
> 
> Thank you for helping Jessie if you can.
> 
> Judy Kilborn
> in St. Cloud where people are donning shorts and short sleeves in the 20-degree
> weather
>