THE CENTER WILL HOLD

UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................................................ixIntroduction: Benchmarks in Writing Center Scholarship Michael A. Pemberton and Joyce Kinkead.......................................................................11 The Writing Lab Newsletter as History: Tracing the Growth of a Scholarly Community Michael A. Pemberton...........................................................212 In the Spirit of Service: Making Writing Center Research a "Featured Character" Nancy M. Grimm....................................................................413 Writing Center Assessment: Searching for the "Proof" of Our Effectiveness Neal Lerner.............................................................................584 Separation, Initiation and Return: Tutor Training Manuals and Writing Center Lore Harvey Kail.....................................................................745 Power and Authority in Peer Tutoring Peter Carino.................................................................................................................966 Breathing Lessons, or Collaboration Is Michele Eodice.............................................................................................................1147 (RE)shaping the Profession: Graduate Courses in Writing Center Theory, Practice, and Administration Rebecca Jackson, Carrie Leverenz, Joe Law.....................1308 Administration across the Curriculum: Or Practicing What We Preach Josephine A. Koster............................................................................1519 An Ideal Writing Center: Re-Imagining Space and Design Leslie Hadfield, Joyce Kinkead, Tom Peterson, Stephanie H. Ray, and Sarah S. Preston.......................16610 Mentoring in Electronic Spaces: Using Resources to Sustain Relationships James A. Inman and Donna N. Sewell......................................................177Notes................................................................................................................................................................190References...........................................................................................................................................................197Index................................................................................................................................................................211Contributors.........................................................................................................................................................217

Chapter One

Tracing the Growth of a Scholarly Community

Michael A. Pemberton

In her May 2001 review of five recently published writing center books for College English, Jeanette Harris begins by noting how remarkable it is to see so many such texts published in a single year. "For a long time," she says, "the writing center community considered it a good year if more than two books focusing on writing centers made their way into print.... In fact, for a while it looked as if the term writing center scholarship might be an oxymoron" (662). Harris's observation, just pointed enough to make many writing center professionals wince, is not so much a lament over the dearth of reputable scholarship as a tacit recognition of the relatively short history writing center studies have as a specialized area of inquiry. For the first few decades of the community's existence as a community, most writing center directors were more interested in surviving annual funding uncertainties than conducting directed research or pursuing publication, and there was often very little institutional support for writing center research even if a director were so inclined. Writing center work was generally looked upon as a service function, geared toward remediation, and not worthy of much regard academically or institutionally.

There was not much support to be found in a network of colleagues with similar interests, either, largely because such a network did not yet exist. Though a great many colleges, universities, and high schools contained writing centers or learning centers-some of them with histories that extended back to the 1930s or earlier-contact among these centers was very limited. As late as the mid-1970s, there were no formal writing center organizations, no publications with writing centers as their focus, and relatively few opportunities for tutors and directors to gather together and discuss issues of mutual concern.

By the late 1970s, however, the number of people interested in writing center work had reached a critical mass. At a pivotal panel presentation at the 1977 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in St. Louis, Muriel Harris, Mary Croft, Janice Neuleib, and Joyce Steward met to present papers and lead a discussion on writing lab theory and administration.

[T]heir audience was so large that many had to listen from the hallway.... [P]articipants recognized that their vigorous exchange of ideas could help them in the development of their own writing lab programs and that they needed a means of continuing their useful exchange. The enthusiasm of their discoveries ran the Writing Lab session head-on into the next presentation. Harris remembers that as participants for the next presentation tried to push their way into the room, she suggested that a newsletter would be the best way to continue their collaboration. She also realized that they needed each other's addresses and passed around a sheet of paper [to collect them]. (Ballard and Anderson 1989, 7)

Even with a critical mass, a group has no power, no clout without an organ to communicate its platform and mission. Harris' innate sense of the need for such an instrument led to the creation of The Writing Lab Newsletter (WLN), a manifesto through which writing center personnel could find a voice. Robert Connors once described the newsletter as a kaffeklatsch for its informal, welcoming nature; underlying that coziness was a political action instrument that led to the increased professionalism of the writing center community.

LAUNCHING A MOVEMENT

Muriel Harris-beginning assistant professor at Purdue University, faculty wife, Renaissance scholar, director of a brand-new "experimental" writing lab (all markers of a fairly powerless position)-voluntarily produced the first issue of The Writing Lab Newsletter and distributed it to the 49 people on the original mailing list in April 1977. No one at the time, least of all Harris, could have predicted what the eventual results of that initial effort would be-that the WLN would continue regular publication for over 25 years, eventually attract more than 1000 subscribers, become the principal means of communication among writing center tutors and directors, help to found a growing writing center community, and usher in an new era of writing center professionalism, scholarship, research, and theory.

With the prophetic words "WE ARE LAUNCHED!", volume 1.1 of the WLN proclaimed that a new specialization within the growing rhetoric/composition community had been established, and over the course of the next...