outside funding

[Vainis Aleksa <vainis@uic.edu>]

Here at the U of Illinois at Chicago Writing Center our current major
concern is the 30 or so students we have to turn away each week without
appointments because our appointment book is filled a week in advance.  1/3
of our 144 conferences a week are conducted by paid staff tutors -- but
clearly we need more staff tutors to handle the demand.  Neither the
English Department nor the Liberal Arts and Sciences College seem to think
they can afford pay for more tutors.

We are thinking of turning to outside funding.  Who has experience with
this?  Has anybody ventured into the land of corporate funding?  What is
the nature of the "strings" that are attached with this kind of funding?
In what specific ways are they different from the strings that are
attached with working with funding from inside the University?

Vainis Aleksa
UIC Writing Center