(Download) "After the Fall: Rebuilding a Writing Center (Report)" by Writing Lab Newsletter # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: After the Fall: Rebuilding a Writing Center (Report)
- Author : Writing Lab Newsletter
- Release Date : January 01, 2008
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 59 KB
Description
September 2006 began with the news from Muriel Harris that Purdue University had withdrawn support for WLN. Response on the WCenter listserv was unanimous: how could this happen? List members wrote in about their strong attachment to the publication, citing it as crucial to their work with tutors. Some of us were particularly shocked that this could happen at Purdue, home of a strong composition and rhetoric community. Those of us outside Purdue are unaware of the particulars, but the lesson is clear: there was insufficient political support from the major stakeholders responsible for funding this writing center enterprise, even though users--in this case, readers--were highly satisfied. Saving WLN required flexibility and creativity by Harris and others who engaged with new stakeholders, finding a more hospitable home for WLN outside of Purdue. This anecdote is a lesson: we must demonstrate that our work is central to the mission of the administrative units in which we are housed, for writing centers are always in danger of being under-funded, or even erased. How many times have readers of the WCenter listserv received a panicked e-mail asking for advice for how to cope with a disastrous 50 percent budget cut, a "re-organization"? For most of us, these disasters are not unforeseen, yet we feel powerless to prevent or undo them. I'd like to argue that we may be able to prevent or undo these cutbacks by engaging with our critics and recasting ourselves in ways that enable critics and important stakeholders to feel stake and commitment to our writing centers. While most of us are unable to pick up roots and move institutions as WLN has done, we may be able to remake ourselves dramatically to better reflect the priorities of the powerful stakeholders in our institutions. I will note that this argument comes from a kind of forced reflection that occurred for me over the last several years when, after my writing center was suddenly cut, I was able to work with colleagues to develop an entirely new "Center for Writing Excellence," supported more broadly and deeply than the previous one had been. From this experience I have come to a number of realizations that, I hope, may be helpful to others.