Re: Writing Center and WAC

[Sara Kimball <skimball@uts.cc.utexas.edu>]

Normand, hi. 
Outreach to WAC faculty has been part of our mission from the start (fall
of 93) and we're slowly building a coherent program.  I find it
intellectually rewarding and helpful to establishing a presence for our
writing center and division of rhetoric and composition on campus, though
there are headaches involved with working with/through various other
entities on campus.  We offer workshops, individual consultations, and
text materials (online and print), targeting our efforts to faculty
teaching WAC courses.

WAC on this campus is not a systematic or centralized program. I'm just as
glad the writing center and Division have no oversight or enforcement
duties. We try to work with faculty in same ways we work with students: as
knowledgeable consultants who respect the people we work with. One of the
messages we try to get across to faculty is that there is no single Right
Way to do things, but instead, there is a variety of options that tend to
have various effects under various circumstances. I also try to encourage
faculty to view themselves as sources of information for us about writing
in their own fields.     

I'd guess the worst way for a writing center (or anyone) to be involved
with WAC is to be in a situation where one was expected to do a lot
without support, financial or moral.

Sara Kimball
UT Austin


On Wed, 7 May 1997 NFORTIN@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA wrote:

> Hello everyone,
> I would like your ideas, comments, words of wisdom, etc. on the 
> following:  how closely should a WAC program and a writing center be 
> linked?  Here at Laurentian, we have a Center for Academic Writing which 
> serves the entire student population.  We do some remedial work but very 
> little.  For the most part, we serve students enrolled in WAC courses 
> in many disciplines.  We have some 74 WAC courses for some 4,000 
> students.  Should we consider the Writing Center as an integral part of 
> WAC (granted writing assistance is a necessary component of WAC but in my view 
> not sufficient?) or should the Center exist in spite of WAC?  What do you 
> all see as advantages or disadvantages of linking it or not linking it 
> to WAC?  Am I wrong in thinking that the WAC program should use the 
> services of the Writing Center but not own them?  Hope you can help me 
> see things more clearly.  Thanks beforehand for your comments, 
> suggestions, insights, etc.
> 
> Normand Fortin
>