Abstract
Assessing how our institutions, and, therefore, our writing centers are changing requires understanding how the larger culture has changed and continues to change. One literature that is obsessed with change is books on business and management. Metaphors of chaos and whitewater became fashionable in popular books in the early 1990s, written before "whitewater" took on new meaning in the Clinton administration. While I infrequently read popular books in the business section, the whitewater metaphors resonate for me because I have spent so much of my adult life in a kayak on moving water. Rapids are the reason I boat. The enjoyment of kayaking, unlike rafting, is not simply going through the rapids but what you can do in them. The greatest pleasure comes when you can balance on moving fluid and use it to do what you want to dosurf a wave, turn 360 spins, or pop up in the air, sometimes getting the entire boat out of the water vertically. But it took me a long time to get over some basic fears of rapids and to understand that until rivers become unrunnable with waterfalls and unavoidable hydraulics, going down most rapids is not much more difficult than driving on a mountain road if you can stay focused, read the water, react, and be decisive. The times I've gotten into trouble are when I stopped paying attention and floated into places where I didn't want to be. Every era has been a time of change, but river metaphors suggest that some times of change are more accelerated and more turbulent.