RE: Extra-curricular consulting

[Linda Bergmann <bergmann@umr.edu>]

Eric, a caveat here. A few years ago, a student at another institution (I
was not involved with the writing center) told me that she would not use
the writing center because the tutor she saw was trying to arrange for
tutoring her in her dorm room;  she, at least, suspected a come on, and it
soured the idea of the writing center for her. The line here is fuzzy, and
so I always tell my tutors this story as part of tutor training.  The
tutors need to think about  where life as a tutor ends and where life as a
student begins.

Linda Bergmann 

At 10:27 AM 9/3/98 -0500, you wrote:
>So maybe the amount of extra-curricular business writing consultants are
>getting is a sign worth heeding. Maybe that's your constituency expressing
>its preferences. Your writers perhaps would rather seek assistance in less
>formal settings and at times more convenient to them. One response might
>be to try to nip that in the bud, try to force them to seek help at a time
>& place more convenient for the institution. 
>
>Another response might be to shift the writing center's approach and
>*count* those extra-curricular meets and writing center tutorials.
>Instead of paying tutors to sit in an empty writing center, pay them to
>get out among the students & tutor them where they are. That way, you meet
>the needs of your constituency *and* get institutional credit for it. 
>
>Just an idea...
>
>--Eric Crump
>
>

Linda S. Bergmann
Associate Professor of English and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum
University of Missouri-Rolla
Rolla, MO  65409

(573) 341-4685

bergmann@umr.edu