This article contributes to the writing center scholarship in three ways. First, it revisits and further develops the discussion on course-embedded writing support programs; in particular, it builds on Kelly Webster and Jake Hansen’s “recursive reflection about course-embedded tutoring” and responds to Mary Tetreault et al.’s call for utilizing archival research as a resource for tutor education. Second, it takes a unique approach to tutor education by exploring how embedded tutors for first-year composition classes develop their expertise outside of the formal training sessions. Third, it applies the theoretical framework of rhizomatic learning that has not been previously utilized to investigate the diverse experiences embedded tutors undergo as they acquire and refine their tutoring skills. The qualitative data for this case study were obtained from the Coordinator of Composition Tutoring’s reflective journal as well as session logs and reflections completed by course-embedded peer tutors for composition courses at a four-year Northeastern institution over the period of four semesters. The analysis of the data reveals the rhizomatic character of embedded tutors’ learning, where elements of the learning processes are interconnected and ever-expanding (Deleuze and Guattari; Grellier). The discussion includes a set of questions designed to encourage tutors to reflect on their learning processes. Writing center administrators can use these questions to gather data on how tutors develop their skills within their specific contexts.

Writing center scholars have long been interested in the configuration of administrative leadership, often focusing on the roles and designations of writing center administrators (WCAs), whether faculty or staff. This article builds on existing scholarship by examining the affordances—capabilities and limitations—of a mixed-designation administrative team composed of both faculty and staff. Using our writing center as a case study, we highlight the benefits and limitations of a leadership team composed of both faculty and staff. We outline our center’s transition to a mixed-designation leadership model and use affordance theory to delineate the potentials and constraints of such teams, exploring how this configuration impacts functionality, effectiveness, and reach. Capabilities of this model include institutional visibility and legitimacy, access to information and resources, institutional reach, tutor education and training, and mentorship. Limitations include time constraints and a split focus, communication challenges, role ambiguity, and potential reinforcement of hierarchical structures. We conclude with practical recommendations for WCAs seeking to enhance their team structure or add faculty or staff administrative roles. By exploring the unique potentials and limitations of mixed-designation teams, we aim to contribute to ongoing conversations about equity, inclusion, and effective leadership structures in writing center administration.

My intent in this qualitative study was to illustrate if and how inequalities in power and authority exist in interactions between tutors and multilingual (ML) tutees set in a university writing center in a predominantly White institution (PWI). Using Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a guide, I analyzed selected transcripts to uncover how “language shapes and positions” tutors and tutees (Fernsten 45). I propose that using CDA to examine writing center transcripts can be an effective training tool for tutors working with multilingual writers. By analyzing how their discourse choices may unintentionally bolster linguistic dominance and diminish ML students’ voices, tutors can adapt their approaches while also identifying discourse choices that lead to constructive, collaborative interactions.

Trauma is ubiquitous, including in post-secondary settings, meaning that trauma-affected individuals are present in every classroom or service setting. While research has investigated the engagement of post-secondary instructors with student trauma disclosures, this work has not extended to cover the unique role of post-secondary writing center staff. Writing tutors may encounter trauma narratives through written assignments or verbal disclosures and often labour under a degree of precarity and lack control over curricular and assignment design, giving them little preparation before encountering emotionally challenging material. As a “helping profession,” writing tutors may be at risk of secondary trauma, re-traumatization based on personal trauma histories, or unsustainable levels of emotional labour. Employing a critical disability lens and an equity-centered trauma-informed framework, this project engaged eight university-based writing center staff in Ontario, Canada in semi-structured interviews to explore how they perceive and narrate their engagement with student trauma and how this may relate to trauma-informed pedagogical practices. Based on a Reflexive Thematic Analysis, several themes are explored, including the relationship between writing center structure/labour conditions and trauma-informed practices, types of emotionally challenging interactions, strategies tutors employ to engage with students during trauma-adjacent sessions, and gaps in ability to provide trauma-informed service. These themes provide insight into tutors’ experience with student trauma and imply recommendations to improve staff and student well-being through engaging with trauma-informed practices in the writing center.

This article draws on data from 12 interviews with peer writing tutor alumni to demonstrate how their writing center training and experiences prepared them to work toward good (i.e., social justice or peace or rhetorical civility) in their post-graduation contexts. Recent scholarship in both writing center studies and writing studies calls for a redoubling of social justice efforts in our field (see Duffy, 2019 and Greenfield, 2020). This article asks how the field will recognize or know success in such efforts. Data from

A large number of U.S. university writing centers (WCs) hire undergraduates as peer tutors, and many of them are menstruators. Menstruators have received strong cultural messages, including that menstruation should be concealed. Menstruating tutors’ damaged self-recognition received from the world around them can lead to internalized self-identification and further impact their perceptions of their knowledge and consultations with student writers every day in WCs. The acceptance and accessibility of menstrual products in WCs would help boost work ethic among menstruating tutors and break down the taboo about menstruation. To explore what impact such acceptance and accessibility exert on menstruating tutors, we conducted a mixed methods case study on menstruating tutors’ perceptions about themselves, their professionalism and work ethic, as well as their experiences, with and without having free access to menstrual products at their WC. We collected data via a set of pre and post surveys and individual interviews of 15 participants at the WC. The quantitative data from pre and post surveys did not reveal statistical significance, while the qualitative data helped explain why there was no statistical significance. Nevertheless, integration of all the data from this pioneering project has contributed rich findings to the existing WC scholarship about space and access, mindfulness, and social justice at large. The findings have practical applications to day-to-day WC practice.

This pilot study details how a Practitioner Inquiry methodology was implemented as both a practice and research heuristic in our center. I explain how I draw from the foundational tenets of Practitioner Inquiry (Nordstrom) to foster collaboration among consultants and between consultants and the director in the running of our center. At the same time, I employ Practitioner Inquiry as a framework to produce Replicable, Aggregable, Data-supported (RAD) research to determine the efficacy of this approach in terms of consultant learning and their professionalization through qualitative and quantitative discourse analysis on consultants’ end-of-semester anonymous evaluations of their experiences working in the center. Recent scholarship points to the potential benefits that working in writing centers facilitates for consultants (Kail et al.), and represents our centers as pedagogical spaces that engender consultant learning and professionalization. This article furthers this work through an empirical investigation of the less examined subtopic of the director-consultant relationship in the context of the administration of the center. In addition, it acts as a case study that illustrates the efficacy of Practitioner Inquiry as a methodology for both practice and research.

This essay argues that institutional ethnography, a methodology LaFrance and Nicolas (2012) describe and advocate for in writing studies, provides a means by which writing center scholars can add to their maps of how their writing center programs coordinate with other writing programs at their institutions. From these maps, we can better articulate what writing center work is and what it is not, advocating for an institutional culture of interdependence. The essay extends the findings from a local institutional ethnography to add insights from multiple institutions. The findings suggest that writing center administrators may advocate for our work not only by arguing for parity with other writing programs, but also by communicating with others within the institution to align our internal narratives with external images. In addition, the findings imply that methodologies such as institutional ethnography are critical for examining the radical relationality central to writing center work.

Drawing on the experiences of two case study participants who were international multilingual graduate students, I argue that multilingual graduate writers’ budding identities as disciplinary experts sometimes hampered them from recognizing the kind of writing support they needed. As their identities shifted between expert and novice, disciplinary outsider and disciplinary insider, their perceived needs from writing centers changed as well. I suggest ways that writing centers may consider shifting their practices in order to meet multilingual graduate writers’ needs, wherever they are in their writing development.

In recent decades, writing centers have moved from the margins of campus power toward the center (Essid 2014). Because our connections to professors and administrators have increased, students may be less likely to speak freely during consultations, on surveys, and in focus groups. Where, then, might we hear students’ “real talk” about writing centers? In the latter half of July 2015 and the beginning of August, I aimed to find out. My hypothesis was that Twitter might be a space to find “voices that are often left out of our surveys of satisfaction” (Lerner 4). Therefore, I spent a month surveilling Twitter, trying to listen in and access what students say about us when we aren’t likely to be listening. I found Twitter to be a public space in which students feel comfortable talking frankly about school matters, including writing center matters.