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When most writing centers in the United States were being founded and developed, colleges and universities had very few entities they labeled “centers.” Today, however, centers are cropping up with increasing regularity. At our own institutions, we have (between us) Centers for Humanities, Centers for Advanced Materials Research, Centers for Cognitive Studies, Centers for the Study of First Americans— even a Center for Epigraphy. It seems worth pausing to consider this phenomenon: Where are all these centers coming from, and why are they proliferating so rapidly? One strong possibility: Centers create spaces for the kind of work that needs to be done in higher education, work that is difficult or impossible to do within traditional disciplinary frameworks. In almost every case, for example, the previously mentioned centers allow for interor cross-disciplinary research and scholarship, and at their best they encourage highly productive forms of collaboration. Furthermore, they often initiate projects designed to bring college and community closer together. In short, these new centers seem to us one of the major signs of stress on old ways of taxonomizing and creating knowledge. Their growing popularity signals, we think, one institutional response to changing educational demands, populations, budgets, and technologies. We are well aware that these are difficult times at most community colleges, colleges, and universities, and that faculty and staff in many writing centers must spend an inordinate amount of time struggling to provide basic services. Nevertheless we wish to emphasize those opportunities that we believe are available to writing centers, even those that are in various ways marginalized on their campuses. The opportunities that we will discuss involve four potentials that we see for institutional refiguration: the refiguration of institutional space, of concepts of knowlWork Cited

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what Lerner and Gillespie point out is at the heart of the writing center conference—dialogue—and explains the importance of the Guide for new and continuing writing center workers. We believe that these articles and reviews will present a new line of discussion among those of us in the field. We lament the fact that one of the most important contributors to that discussion is no longer with us. Robert J. Connors, Professor of Rhetoric and Composition and Director of the Writing Center at the University of New Hampshire, died this summer. For those of us in the field, the loss is tremendous, as Bob had so much more to provide the larger field of rhetoric and composition and the writing center field of which he has worked so hard to be a part. We have many memories of Bob Connors: in all of the major journals, in many texts, at NEWCA conferences, at UNH conferences on rhetoric and composition, at URI summer workshops, and at CCCC. In all of these, we remember his keen insights and helpful suggestions for conducting important research in the field and for practicing effective pedagogy in the classroom or in the writing center. While we will certainly miss Bob Connors, we will continue to value his ideas and to implement his suggestions for placing rhetoric, composition, and writing center work at the heart of the institution. When Hard Questions Are Asked: Evaluating Writing Centers

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P]ower is, at its roots > telling our own stories. Without "good" stories to rely on, no minority or

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