Re: Tutor Qualifications -Reply -Reply -Reply

[Jon Olson <olsonj@cla.orst.edu>]

>>> Deborah Burns <DBURNS@URIACC.URI.EDU>  2/23/97, 03:03pm >>>
[snip] Tutors are recommended by faculty within their major and
they're attached to a section of that faculty member's writing
intensive course. [snip]
-----

Deborah, I've heard and observed nothing but good about this approach
to tutoring (several writing centers here in Oregon's Willamette
Valley take approaches similar to what you described).  May I pick
your brains about this a little?  Perhaps others who take this
approach can help me, too (Cliff, don't you do this some at Portland
State U.?  Karen, don't you, also, at U. of Portland?  I'm trying to
remember if anyone in _Writing Centers in Context_ does this.). First
some context, then a question.

I was pretty gung-ho to try this (as a supplement to the
peer-response appointments we have).  I thought departments could
select their own students and offer some sort of writing-intensive
internship credit.  The students would be trained in response
strategies in the writing center, would attend staff meetings, and
would work an hour or two a week in the center, but would otherwise
focus on tutoring in and attending a specified WIC class.  This
seemed to be a good way to expand how the writing center served the
university community, and it would bring more tutors from across the
disciplines into the center.  (As it is, only English majors or
writing minors can use the elective "writing project" credit which
can be earned by tutoring in the center; therefore, interested
students majoring in, say, the sciences, don't have the credit
incentive to be a tutor [the only monetary incentive would be if they
got one of our limited number of work-study spots at the beginning of
the year].  The credit offered through their home department would
provide incentive.)  I had drafted a letter to send to WIC faculty
and heads of academic units to see if there was any interest, but
cautious minds persuaded me to try a pilot case first in order to
troubleshoot problems.  We did a test case with a grad student
working with a political science class (the tutor's field was
scientific and technical communication, but she was friends with the
teacher and had taken his class as an undergraduate), and it worked
beautifully.  No problems.

Here, finally, is my quesion:  have you had any problems with this
sort of approach that we would want to try to avoid were we to
implement a broad-scale, department-initiated assignment of tutors to
specific classrooms?  Thanks,  --Jon, olsonj@cla.orst.edu