What If: A Senior Administrator “Wish List” in Two Community College Writing Centers

Cheryl Comeau-Kirschner, Academic Literacy and Linguistics

As a BMCC professor who teaches ESL and developmental writing, I encourage my students to seek out support services in addition to their class participation. One of those invaluable services can be found in the Writing Center, and as Director Igwe Williams aptly stated, it is a learning environment that helps “students develop their ability to communicate and interpret effectively, both in an academic sense and in the world at large” along with a major focus on “supporting our school’s ability to maintain a body of resilient, self-determined students, who will persevere throughout their time in college and truly achieve their goals.”

Yet the BMCC Writing Center is still bound by practical and logistical realities that often face community colleges with a diverse student population. I recalled my own dissertation research when I asked Director Williams to imagine how he might redesign or provide additional tutor training to work with English language learners and native English speakers if budgetary or time constraints did not exist as part of his planning:

For both learning groups, an ideal situation would be one where we could source professional development from both internal and external sources, on an as-needed basis, somewhat in real-time, and with ample online resources to supplement divergent schedules. These professional development resources would address the more abstract and altruistic aspects of the job, as well as much of the practical and logistical.

Director Williams’ thoughtful response closely aligned with the senior administrators I had previously interviewed as part of my dissertation research. In that qualitative case study of two writing centers within the same university system, I found that a wide range of factors and perspectives influenced their decision-making processes related to tutor training (Comeau-Kirschner, 93-113). Specifically, findings revealed that many of their tutor-training decisions were deeply constrained by temporal and budgetary concerns; they designed tutor training as a primarily social learning process; they incorporated a limited amount of English language learner (ELL) best practices literature even though they were familiar with it; and tutors in both writing centers had varied perceptions of their ELL-specific training and their self-efficacy to work with that student population (141-153).

But like any doctoral student, I had to make some tough choices about cutting other potentially worthwhile data from the final version of my dissertation. Still, as I continued to teach ESL and developmental writing at BMCC, I recalled the pressing thoughts that led to my dissertation research in the first place: What if everyday constraints didn’t influence community college writing centers so much? What if writing centers could create communities of practice with fuller institutional support?

Upon revisiting my online questionnaire, I saw that the senior administrators’ responses shed light on several unfulfilled wishes for their writing centers—if only they could minimize or remove certain limitations within their decision-making process. Ultimately, it seemed that without the compromise of constraint-based decision making, they were able to create a “wish list” for new and improved iterations of their tutor-training programs and service delivery.

Wishing for Clarity

Community college writing centers are often sites of competing tensions. The modern iteration of the writing center can occupy many forms, functions, and missions within the larger institution (Bazerman et al., 109), and its flexible institutional status can create a paradox for senior administrators. Carter aptly points out that conflicted identity: “We represent the student, not the teacher. We represent the system, not the student. We represent neither, and we represent both” (136).

Other scholarship in the field has long acknowledged that writing centers are uniquely defined by the ongoing conflicts among political, administrative, and pedagogical forces, and constituencies (Carino, 1-2, Kinkead & Harris, xv-xix). Those competing forces and constituencies also drive the many context-dependent configurations of writing centers along with differing levels of autonomy and allocated resources (Petersen et al., 85). The authors note that freestanding centers have more negotiating power related to policy, space and budget, but the power dynamics tend shift in other center types, such as the ones connected to academic departments or student service centers.

Such shifting power dynamics goes beyond the site itself and rests with the senior administrators themselves. Indeed, Ianetta et al. (12-13) found that administrators often dealt with ambiguity about their professional role, which made them question their work and positioning to colleagues and the institution. Wynn Perdue and Driscoll went as far as to call these repeated concerns in the literature as “the identity crisis refrain” (87). The authors point out that writing center administrators have difficulty conceiving their role and many do not have tenure-line appointments, which significantly complicates their perceived professional identity and institutional status. As a result, many administrators become adept at the “art of making do” (191).

Moreover, the “art of making do” can become a tenuous balancing act for writing centers as increasing numbers of diverse students enroll in community colleges. In fact, Williams points out that students enter community colleges with varied social, linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds, and in turn, go to writing centers with “different goals for their long-term educational and professional development and for their sessions in the writing center” (75). Beyond those students’ varied goals and expectations, Williams also notes that they have myriad literacy experiences in the target language, which poses an even greater challenge for ELLs who seek out support services in the writing center.

Although colleges and universities continually recruit and matriculate multilingual students, they still struggle with providing the most effective writing placement processes and finding the appropriate courses to best address their needs (Crusan, 775). Given such variable placement procedures, Ferris et al point out that programs with faulty processes can result in frustration and “negatively affect instruction and student progress” (10). As masters of the “art of making do,” many writing center administrators and tutors can get caught in the middle of those frustrations and concerns about ELL progress.

But what if those administrators had the latitude to move beyond “making do”? What would they wish for to sustain their writing centers and tutor-training programs more consistently? Several open-ended items from my online questionnaire revealed some of their most pertinent aspirations for enhanced institutional support.

Participants

For Writing Center A, I collected data from three senior administrators who were involved with tutor-training decisions in varying capacities: The Director, identified as “Director A,” Assistant Director, and Tutor/E-Tutor Coordinator. This managerial structure meant that each senior administrator took on different roles related to tutor training. Director A maintained an oversight role toward tutor-training outcomes; the Assistant Director maintained an operational role and supervised the Tutor/E-Tutor Coordinator; and the Tutor/E-Tutor Coordinator supervised the tutor-training program and tutoring service delivery. His duties included handling the day-to-day operations of all tutoring interviewing and hiring new tutors; conducting all tutor training throughout the semester; tutor scheduling; entering and collecting data from tutoring sessions; and vetting materials used in tutor training and throughout the center for tutees or tutors to use during sessions.

For Writing Center B, I collected data from one senior administrator, identified as “Director B,” who was solely in charge of tutor-training decisions. Director B made tutor-training decisions along with other duties that included tutor interviewing and hiring; tutor scheduling; handling budgetary matters; vetting and ordering training materials; conducting workshops for academic departments; acting as a faculty liaison; and promoting the center’s services across the campus community.

The “Wish List” Questions

Out of 10 questions, the online questionnaire posed three questions with hypothetical premises. For question #7, I asked the senior administrators to consider how added assistance at the institutional level would most benefit their internal efforts. This nuance was crucial to consider because the standalone nature of their writing centers primarily stemmed from short-term, operational decision making rather than independent long-term planning and/or funding; senior administrators in both centers directly reported to the upper-level college administration for bigger projects and/or additional resources. To that end, study participants responded to the following question:

• Based on your experience as the senior administrator, are there any other way(s) the larger institution could better support your tutor-training efforts?

For questions #8 and #9, I asked senior administrators to envision separate hypothetical scenarios because both centers served native English speakers (NES) and English language learners (ELL) and provided population-specific tutor-training:

• Imagine that you do not have any budgetary or time constraints in your writing center. Given that scenario, is there any part(s) of the training that you would redesign or provide any additional training for tutors to work with NES?
• Imagine that you do not have any budgetary or time constraints in your writing center. Given that scenario, is there any part(s) of the training that you would redesign or provide any additional training for tutors to work with ELLs?

All three senior administrators from Writing Center A and one senior administrator from Writing Center B provided individually written responses to questions 7, 8 and 9.

Imagine the Support

Given the complex role of the writing center context, I asked senior administrators to consider how college-level administration might remove some of the limitations that overly influence their decision-making processes. Senior administrators in Writing Center A and B both expressed similar wishes for institutional support: more funding and more cross-campus involvement.

Director A focused on obtaining a “point person” who, in turn, could address the lack of centralization among support services throughout the college:

“Having a single, Dean-level individual whose sole responsibility is to oversee all academic support services at the campus, to ensure more and better consolidation of hiring practices, certification procedures, and in-service trainings between learning centers. Having a centralized budget dedicated solely to allocations to learning centers. Having the institution support active identification of external funding sources, and supporting grant proposal endeavors, so that funding is augmented and not reliant on the college’s budget.”

The Assistant Director also expressed the desire to have unreasonable budgetary concerns removed from the writing center’s tutor-training programs and service delivery:

“Because the college’s preference is understandably for spending on direct student services, money for training is sometimes in short supply. However, the training that tutors receive is what enables them to deliver *effective* services to students, and so it should not be considered a luxury or a diversion of funds from students, but rather a way of increasing the return from provision of those direct services.”

Lastly, the Assistant Director, Tutor/E-Tutor Coordinator and Director B wished for more outside support to bolster tutor-training efforts and raise the profile of their writer centers:

Assistant Director: The other element I would like to see added would be greater inclusion of faculty members involved in making presentations to tutors as part of tutor training, especially faculty involved in Writing-Intensive courses, as tutors would like to have more exposure to strategies with which to meet the specific requirements of certain discipline-specific writing assignments.

Tutor/E-Tutor Coordinator: “It would help if senior administration could help get faculty more involved. Guest faculty presentations during tutor training would be great.”

Director B: “We really need a tutor-training course where tutors-in-training would meet every week, do research, observe in the center. This would raise the level of expectation for everyone.”

Imagine the Training

The senior administrators in Writing Center A offered varied perspectives connected to the formal and informal aspects of their tutor-training program. Director A and the Assistant Director viewed the hypothetical scenarios from an operational vantage point in which tutors would have access to formalized payment opportunities and engage in self-initiated professional development. With more professionalized tutors, they hoped for expanded services into different arenas and with greater expertise:

Director A: “I’d like for our tutors to observe each other formally (for pay) to learn more ways of approaching common situations or questions. I would also like to see the creation and constant updating of a tutor-designed, tutor-developed, and tutor-used resource/knowledge base, so that experienced tutors could pass on what they’ve learned to incoming tutors in a turnkey operation.”

Assistant Director: “Given that scenario, I would enhance the program’s e-tutoring training, in anticipation of being able to broaden the scope of e-tutoring users (as I could then pay e-tutors to work with a far greater number of students who submit writing assignments online for critique).”

As the senior administrator with the most responsibility for actual training, the Tutor/E-Tutor Coordinator focused on the practical application of more time and money in the tutor-training program: “I would incorporate a lot more grammar into the tutor trainings. It’s what most tutors ask for and do really need!”

Director B echoed similar sentiments to those of the senior administrators in Writing Center A. This senior administrator’s wish list also included more formalized training with payment opportunities:

“Since we do not have a course, I would suggest at least monthly tutor training sessions. In addition, the tutors would be required to attend two conferences every year, one National and one local such as IWCA or NCPTW and NEWCA. In addition, they would be required to present. After ten tutor training sessions, and two conferences, as well as presenting, all tutors would have to take a written test, teach a tutor training module, after which they would qualify to be paid $20 an hour!”

For ELL-specific training efforts, the senior administrators in Writing Center A believed that the same wish list would apply. Although the Tutor/E-Tutor Coordinator reiterated: “More grammar training!!” In comparison to Writing Center A, Director B had an even bigger wish: “Given that scenario, I would seek to hire a part-time or full-time ELL Specialist who would effectively run a separate arm of the writing center and be dedicated to supporting ELL students in writing, reading, and overall learning strategies.”

Imagine Wishes Fulfilled

The responses to the what-if scenarios show that senior administrators have thoughtful wish lists for their writing centers and tutor-training efforts. If they could imagine less constraint-free scenarios in their daily operations, would their decisions align more closely with their own tutoring and training philosophies? It remained an unanswered question for those senior administrators; indeed, my larger study revealed that a significant amount of their training decisions was disproportionately influenced by unyielding practical matters on a regular basis. Such concerns meant that they tended to offer truncated ELL-specific training activities that included only minimal use of best practices literature.

Nonetheless, it is intriguing to consider what might happen if they could share their wish lists more openly with college-level administration. Would sharing such aspirations resolve some of the “identity crisis refrain” so often cited in writing center scholarship? Another potential intersection of inquiry could extend to the tutoring side of their specific contexts as well. What if senior administrators shared their wish lists with tutors or asked tutors to create their own wish lists? How might those combined responses be used to enrich training methodology and service delivery? Perhaps if senior administrators could approach their decision-making process with more imagination rather trepidation, the larger institution, and most importantly, students just might benefit the most from such wishful thinking.

Conclusion

The implications of wishful thinking can continue to elevate the profession and status of writing centers like BMCC and other community colleges only if those desires are taken seriously. Geller and Denny offer suggestions that serve as a clear path toward better supporting writing center administrators. Among them is the rejection of the tenure-track vs. non-tenure track dichotomy in favor of administrative configurations that offer “material institutional support, individual encouragement, collegial exchange, and substantive requirements to take their expertise beyond the institution” (116). The authors further expound on the notion of embracing an expansive professional identity even when it’s not well understood, or sometimes even a threat, outside of the writing center: “Our tolerance for rising to the occasion—like meeting writers where they are, instead of where we ideally find them—is our greatest asset” (124). The participants in my dissertation research seemed to fully embrace that asset, but still wished for more.

Works Cited

• Bazerman, Charles, et al. “Writing across the curriculum.” А Reference Guide to Rhetoric and Composition. West Lafayette, Ind.: Parlor Press: WAC Clearinghouse (2005).
• Carino, Peter. “Writing centers and writing programs.” The Politics of Writing Centers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers (2001).
• Carter, Shannon. “The writing center paradox: Talk about legitimacy and the problem of institutional change.” College Composition and Communication 61.1 (2009): W133.
• Comeau-Kirschner, Cheryl. Training in the writing center: Senior administrator and tutor perspectives on English language learner best practices. Fordham University, 2014.
• Crusan, Deborah J. “The Politics of Implementing Online Directed Self-Placement for Second Language Writers.” (2006): 205-221.
  Ferris, Dana R., Katherine Evans, and Kendon Kurzer. “Placement of multilingual writers: Is there a role for student voices?.” Assessing Writing 32 (2017): 1-11.
• Geller, Anne Ellen, and Harry Denny. “Of ladybugs, low status, and loving the job: Writing center professionals navigating their careers.” The Writing Center Journal 33.1 (2013): 96-129.
• Haviland, Carol Peterson, Carmen M. Fye, and Richard Colby. “The politics of administrative and physical location.” The politics of writing centers (2001): 85-98.
• Ianetta, Melissa, et al. “Polylog: Are writing center directors writing program administrators?.” Composition Studies 34.2 (2006): 11-42.
• Kinkead, Joyce A., and Jeanette G. Harris. Writing Centers in Context: Twelve Case Studies. National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096 (Stock No. 58684-0015; $17.95 members, $24.95 nonmembers)., 1993.
• Perdue, Sherry Wynn, and Dana Lynn Driscoll. “Context matters: Centering writing center administrators’ institutional status and scholarly identity.” The Writing Center Journal (2017): 185-214.
• Williams, Igwe. “Re: Writing Center Administrator Wish List.” Received by Cheryl Comeau-Kirschner, 8 March 2022. Email Interview.
• Williams, Jessica. “Undergraduate second language writers in the writing center.” Journal of Basic Writing (2002): 73-91.

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