RE: WC as student advocate?

["Jeanne H. Simpson" <csjhs@ux1.cts.eiu.edu>]

Mary

It is good that your tutors invite this kind of confidence and I hope you
will not feel that what I am about to say should change the main style of
your writing center.

Why do you want to keep control of the situation?  It is not your primary
role and you have commented that it IS the assignment of someone else at the
university.  While I know you want to be the advocate for this student, you
must keep in mind that there are two sides, at least, to every story and you
have heard only one.  Certainly what you describe sounds pretty awful and it
should be reviewed.

The larger issue is that your university has policies to provide legal
protection for everybody, including this student.  Those policies are
devised on the basis of court decisions and state and federal law.  You
should be extremely careful not to endanger your own employment by failing
to follow those policies, however much you might be motivated by the desire
to do the right thing.   The case you describe is filled with legal
landmines, Mary.    I urge you to contact the person in charge of handling
harassment cases and describe what you know-confidentiality is required-and
help the student get to the right person.  Your tutor keeping a file on this
is NOT a good idea.  Any documents related to such a case could be
subpoenaed in a court action, so who keeps them and for what purpose is a
serious matter.

While you want to be a good person, your role as writing center director
does not authorize you to undertake this kind of effort.   And I would urge
you to remind your tutor to keep his/her mouth shut about the case while it
is investigated.  Remember that once the case is in the hands of the
designated office and person, the student is protected, by law, from
retaliation.  As long as the case is just "out there,"  no such protection
exists.

If I were you, I'd call the university officer (here it's the office of
civil rights) who handles harassment issues and explain that you want to
make an appointment on behalf of a student who has confided an issue to you.
And then escort the student to that office yourself, so she feels that she
is not alone, and reassure her.  And if you can, wait till she finishes
telling her story (don't offer to sit in-you become a material witness if
you do) to walk with her again.   That way, you have met both your moral
requirement to do something and your employment requirement to abide by
university policies.
Jeanne Simpson
csjhs@eiu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu [mailto:owner-wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu] On
Behalf Of Mary  Wislocki
Sent:	Friday, October 01, 1999 10:31 AM
To:	wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject:	WC as student advocate?

Dear all,

I'd like your collective brain power to help me think about a really messy,
confusing and toxic situation -- in other words, academia at its worst. I'm
beginning to realize (starting my 2nd year as director) that the WC  may be
"about" working with writing and writers, but the larger truth is that
because we provide students with a space to be taken seriously, the WC is
also about witnessing a whole host of human struggles.  Sometimes these
struggles spill off the page and end up in our laps. I'm wondering about my
responsibilities -- what I can or should do.

This is the situation:  One of my best consultants has been working with an
ESL graduate student who is writing her dissertation.  When the grad.
student came to her appointment this week, she said she was very upset about
what was happening to her in her dept., and so they talked.  She said that
she is one of the few female grad students in her dept and that she has been
supported by a particular scholarship for the past 4 years. She was denied
the scholarship this year, despite the Dean's recommendation, because the
prof. who administers the scholarship is very powerful and against her.  She
said he has a history of harassing women students -- in fact, he was charged
with sexual harassment a few years ago by several female grad students, but
his powerful connections kept him from being dismissed.  Evidence of his
harassment was in a notice about her that he had written and publically
posted.(I don't know what it said.) To complicate matters, she had given an
important notebook  to one of her grad advisors.  Both had been working on
the same problem -- he had not been able to solve it, but she had. He still
has the notebook and she doesn't know how to retrieve it.  And there's more
-- she doesn't have a green card.  Without a green card, her options for
earning money are slim.

This is the short and fairly clear version of the story. I believe that the
student is extremely bright -- and that she is telling us what she believes
to be the truth. But her problems with communicating in English make me
doubly cautious in trying to assess her situation.  Her stated wish is not
to bring charges against the prof who denied her the scholarship -- she has
too much at stake and she thinks she would lose anyway.  She wants help
getting the notebook back.

The consultant was wonderful.  She said that they would make a paper trail
and document everything, beginning that session. She started a loose file in
the grad. student's WC folder -- but she asked the student to do the same
for herself, in another place.  The consultant suggested going to see the
advisor who has the notebook and asking for it back. If that doesn't work,
she will help her write a letter during a WC session.

This is a huge school and I don't know a soul in this particular graduate
department. However, I do know someone at the university who knows the ropes
and women's rights. I was notified officially at the beginning of the year
that when administrators are told about instances of sexual harassment, we
must report them up the chain. I want to go really slow here. Once I get
sucked into the administrative machinery, we'll all lose any control.

So, thank you for bearing with me in this long tale.  I'm grateful for any
suggestions or cautions!

Thanks,

Mary Wislocki