Re: confidentiality

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

On Thu, 13 Feb 1997 mcarroll@GROG.RIC.EDU wrote:

> I know that sending reports would have some benefits -- some public
> relations pluses, an opportunity to tell our side of the story. These seem
> to be more self-serving than beneficial to the students, though. I'm sure
> I'm missing something here -- what _are_ the reasons for sending these
> notes? I know we've discussed this before, but I haven't really heard
> about the _good_ (read helpful to students' learning about writing,
> respecting the intergity of the student, encouraging responsibility for
> one's own education) reasons.

Meg, I probably have been awake too many hours to put together a
coherent reply to your post!  But I'll try anyway, even though in the
morning I'll probably think of stuff I should have said here . . . .

Like Stephen, I think we "serve" students in the Writing Center
regardless of whether we send copies of our forms to faculty.  And our
faculty, also, have complimented students on their effort & on the
improvement in their writing . . . and complimented writing
consultants on their good work.  I believe this positive reinforcement
"serves" the students.

Faculty also have learned from these forms.  Not just about the
Writing Center, though if this helps them to understand what we do,
and to pass that understanding on to their students, this is also
"serving" the students.  (And if the faculty's mistaken belief that
the Writing Center is not useful to good writers, or that we just do 
their work for them, or that we wouldn't be needed if "the univ. just
admitted better students" or if "the English Dept. were doing its
job," ends up in an emaciated--or banished--wctr, that certainly
doesn't help students.)

But even more importantly, faculty learn from the forms about
writing--how do students write? How can one talk about writing?  By
learning more about these things, faculty are better able to
incorporate writing into their classes.  This very directly helps
students learn about writing.

But there is one other, very direct benefit to these forms: increased
professionalism.  We take their goals and plans seriously--heck, we
write them down.  Writers leave, after every session, with a tangible
record of the discussion.  And creating this record helps remind
consultants, in part because faculty are among their audience,
that they have a particular professional role to fill.  

So I'm not sure what you mean by "infantalizing" students.  I see
the forms as a sign of our respect for them.

(At some centers, clients keep the records, so no one else "reads"
the session.  We characterize our records as "here's what we
discussed, but you should think about it and decide for yourself what
to do next," and encourage writers to see different consultants for
different perspectives, so I don't think that writers perceive us as
taking ownership of their experience.  But if I could figure out a way
to have clients keep some records, without losing the professionalism
and training benefits, I might do it.)

The forms also help us maintain high quality of consulting.  A
graduate assistant and I review every form, and we can talk to
consultants about things to avoid (such as "rubber stamp" comments,
unfocused consultations) or additional strategies (such as reminding
consultants of resources available to them in the writing center, or
other ways of dealing with certain situations). 

Not that we take the forms as a pure reflection of the consultation,
but that they give us an additional opportunity to talk about the
consultation. "I noticed the writer's main concern was idea
development, but you seem to have mostly talked about sentence
fragments.  What happened here?"  Maybe they did talk mostly about
idea development, but sentence fragments came up at the end of the
session, and the writer was really concerned about them, so the
consultant focused comments on the frags.  Or, maybe the writer was
working on an engineering paper, and the consultant felt uneasy about
the unfamiliar topic, and focused on sentence fragments out of
desperation.  Knowing that these records need to be complete, not just
for our own purposes, but so that faculty can get a good picture
of what we do, helps consultants take them more seriously.  Better
training & better follow-up means we can better help our clients. 

By doing the best job we can, we respect the integrity of our clients.
And by working on their writing, and seeking out and actively using
resources available to them (such as the wctr), students are taking
responsibility for their own education.  Our recordkeeping practices
don't change that fact--if anything, they bring about wider
recognition of it.  

The "confidentiality" issues have been discussed at length before,
and I confess I still don't understand just what is so shameful about
coming to the Writing Center that we have to keep the matter
confidential.  I tell my students they should share their writing as
much as possible, and get as many perspectives as possible.  They
should actively consider different perspectives, and then decide what
they want to do. Why should this perfectly normal writing behavior be 
kept a secret?  

Not only that, what message do we send when we make a big deal about
confidentiality?  That talking to a writing consultant is like talking
to a psychiatrist (which shouldn't be considered shameful either, I
know)? That the ideas they discuss are privately owned, like checking
account balances, or so risky to acknowledge that we won't be the ones
to do it?  

Occasionally, some writers--very few--are worried their instructors
will think that only stupid people come to the Writing Center,
or that using the Writing Center is cheating.  Some clients are
writing about very personal issues, and don't want anyone besides the
consultant to know about them.  We're happy to refrain from sending a
copy in those cases, naturally, because our chief responsibility is to
the writer, not the faculty member.

But overall, would I give up sending copies to faculty?  Not unless I
heard convincing evidence that doing so would help us do a better job.
Haven't heard it yet.

Wow, I obviously had a lot to say about _that_ topic . . . . 

Beth Young

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