Re: Writing Center and WAC

[Writing Center <writingc@falcon.cc.ukans.edu>]

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

I'm glad that you brought up this strand for conversation. Michael
Pemberton's "Rethinking the WAC/Writing Center Connection" in WCJ
15.2 (1995) raises numerous issues that we are struggling with as we
try--for one last time--to give birth to a writing center this year.

As a WAC service that is primarily faculty development (here, WAC is not
manifested through WI courses), we know that we desperately need a writing
center not only for students but for the faculty to be willing to assign
writing.  They want the support to be available for their students.  Our
proposal includes both opportunities for "generic" tutoring and
discipline-specific consulting, because if we are encouraging faculty to
talk with their students in the majors about the discipline-specific
aspects of writing, students should be able to work with tutors or
consultants who can extend that part of the conversation too. We want to
make certain that the WAC efforts (12 years old now) and writing center
efforts emerge from a common philosophy. 

Philosophically, we need to be joined, but politically and economically,
we need to maintain separate brains and pockets. In the name of budget
lines and chains of authority (we answer to the assistant provost for
faculty development; the hypothetical writing center would answer to a
student affairs provost)--we need a writing center to be an entity
separate from us. We have proposed that we work with a common director or
a shared advisory board. 

I think the relationship has to be very local, less because of the
nature of writing centers than because of the great differences in WAC
programs. I'd really like to learn how others approach this relationship
in hopes that in a month we'll have a writing center to grapple with.

Pat McQueeney
Writing Consulting:  Faculty Resources
University of Kansas

 > 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
>