Re: Appointments

[Profsteven@aol.com]

Sonja,

Our Writing and Communication Center began as a drop-in center in 1982.  By
1985 we were primarily an appointment center and have been ever since.  

1-2) We discovered that scheduling appointments is a much better way to spread
the workload.  We still allow drop-ins, but after about the second week of the
semester they are usually filling up cancelled appointments.  We did handouts
and an article in the student newspaper and a special edition of our own
writing center newsletter announcing the change.  People got used to it.  If
you advertise it as a way of students' being guaranteed a time they planned
for (in other words, a better way for the center to serve its clients),
students should accept it.

3) Our center is only one room, so we take turns answering the phone to make
or cancel appointments.  We urge people in all our publlicity to make an
appointemnt, but if for some reason they can't and want to drop in, we urge
them to call first. If there's been a cancellation, we simply write in the
call-in/drop-in in that slot (assuming the client can make it at that time).
In our publicity we also stress the value of planning ahead and making
appointments--we are usually booked ahead at least a week by mid-semester.

4) The panicked etc. are dealt with the way we have always dealt with them--we
sing the praises of planning ahead and scheduling an appointment 2 or even 4
weeks ahead of time.  We tell them that showing up at our doorstep an hour
before the paper is due doesn't accomplish anything for the client--students
need to have time to consider our suggestions and to decide which if any to
incorporate into their essays.  Naturally, this does little for the panic, but
it does bring everyone into eventual agreement that appointments are a good
thing.  The trick, I think, is not to get defensive or, worse,
apologetic--it's not the center's fault that the student didn't plan ahead.
We give sympathy, but we also make the point clearly that makign an
appointment ahead of time is the only way to guarantee themselves some help on
their papers.
	If a client calls at least one hour ahead of time to cancel an appointment,
there's no penalty.  If the client is a no-show, he/she gets an e-mail warning
the first time and then is prohibited from making an appointment for a month
the 2nd time he/she is a no-show.  Those thus penalized are allowed, however,
to try their luck as drop-in clients during that month.

My best advice--stand firm and tell each of your clients about the new policy
when he/she comes to the center; advertise the new policy as well as you
can--student newspaper, certainly signs on the center's door, etc.  Once
students understand the benefit to themselves of having an orderly system,
they'll accept it.

Hope that helps,

Steve

Steven Strang
Director, Writing and Communication Center
MIT
14N-317
617-253-4459