In the Nepalese higher education context, the concept of the writing center is completely new. Although there are 12 universities in Nepal, there is not any writing center run by professionals in any Nepalese universities. Writing centers are free academic support centers at U.S. and Canadian universities. Hence, the editorial board of ELT Forum has realized that it is crucial to provide information on how Writing Centers are established and run in U.S. universities and colleges. To achieve this, the editorial board has decided to interview the Assistant Director of the Writing Center, Ms. Teresa Neubert, from Minnesota State University, Mankato in this issue. The interview highlights the concept of the Writing Center, its purpose, administrative structure, and management. Here is the detailed interview that the Editor-in-Chief of ELT Forum, Dr. Padam Chauhan, conducted with the Assistant Director of the Writing Center, Ms. Teresa Neubert.
Dr. Chauhan: Ms. Neubert, welcome to our special issue of NELTA ELT Forum. Thank you so much for accepting our request and participating in this interview to share your knowledge and experiences of running a writing center with our readers. To begin with, how would you describe the concept of a writing center?
Ms. Neubert: The writing center is a physical or virtual space in which writing mentors and student writers meet. I use the words “writing mentors” intentionally, as the writing mentor is a person who guides and answers questions that the student has about their writing. The writing mentor leads the student to discover ideas and ways to strengthen their own writing. The ownership and revision of the paper always remain in the hands of the student writer and not the mentor.
In the space of the writing center, students and mentors read student papers out loud together, discuss concerns that the students bring forth, exchange ideas and suggestions about strengthening the writing, and take notes about the next steps for revision. The goal is never to create a “perfect paper” by the end of the session. The goal is always to increase the skills and confidence of the student writer and to discuss suggestions for revising the paper to make it stronger. Students may visit the writing center multiple times for the same paper, having made significant revisions between visits.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for shading light on the concept of the writing center. As there is no writing center at any Nepalese university to date, our readers hardly have any ideas about how writing centers run. So, can you please briefly share with our readers how does a writing center function at U.S. universities?
While each writing center is unique, the purpose of a university writing center is to provide writing and language support to students.
The writing center at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where I work, is located within the Center for Academic Success, the main tutoring center on campus. Part of our unit serves as a tutoring center for math, science, and business courses, and the other part provides writing support.
Because we are funded through our Academic Affairs unit, our main job is to serve students rather than faculty. Students independently make appointments with us to have their writing reviewed. We converse about their work, talk about ideas for revision, answer questions, and discuss the next steps for improving the writing before submitting it to their professor for a grade. All appointments are confidential. All appointments are optional and voluntary for students.
Although we are here to serve students, we also partner with faculty and academic advisors in many ways. For example, faculty invite our staff to their classrooms to talk about the writing center and to show students how to make appointments. Faculty also bring their classes to the writing center for informational tours, and they refer students here for help. Some faculty also give us information about particular writing assignments that their students are working on and about what kind of help they would like us to provide. And academic advisors who learn from their students that they need writing support refer their students to us and post our business hours in their office.
While the writing center at Minnesota State University, Mankato, is located within the Academic Affairs unit, it is common for writing centers at many universities to be located within and staffed by the English Department. English Department faculty are given a reduced teaching load to spend part of their time managing the center.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for describing how writing centers are managed in U.S. universities. Next, to establish a writing center, we definitely need a big panning, human resource, and most importantly, budget, I mean funding. So, could you please share with our readers what some sources of funding for the writing center are?
Ms. Neubert: There are many funding sources available to fund writing center work. We need money to buy advertising resources, texts and style guides, computers, furniture, and to pay student tutors or professional tutors wages.
Writing centers can acquire money for their budgets from student fees, allocated department funds, grants, student scholarships, and federal and state work-study dollars. Sometimes partnerships are formed with other campus units that provide funding for tutoring services in exchange for programs that provide writing help to a particular student population that their department is serving. For example, two of our graduate student tutors are paid for by the Extended Education unit, whose focus is on supporting online students. And four of our tutors are funded by the Kearney International Student office to provide academic tutoring and writing support for international students.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for sharing the sources of funding needed to run the writing center. Next, who works at your writing center? Please share both about tutors and the people involved in administration.
Ms. Neubert: Our center has a director who manages the entire center. The director hires and trains the assistant directors, oversees the budget, meets with administration, and implements management and assessment models to help our center function. The director also makes decisions about software, staffing, and budget.
We have two assistant directors—one for managing math/science/business tutoring and one for managing writing/speech/languages. The assistant directors hire, train, supervise, and evaluate the student tutors. The assistant directors also schedule tutors and help the director manage the center.
We also have graduate and undergraduate writing tutors who perform online and in-person paper reviews. Graduate writing tutors typically work 20 hours per week and help with writing across all disciplines, including graduate-level writing. Undergraduate writing tutors work from 5-to 15 hours per week and help with undergraduate writing across the disciplines.
We have student desk workers who greet students and direct them to their tutors.
We have an office administrator who helps students schedule appointments and who does student employee payroll.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for sharing the detailed information about the writing center’s human resources and its structure. Now, please share with our audience what kind of services does the writing center provide to the students?
Ms. Neubert: Our writing center provides the following services:
- Face-to-face scheduled appointments—students schedule an appointment and meet with us in person for up to 45 minutes
- face-to-face drop-in visits—students stop by our center without an appointment
- synchronous web conferencing appointments—students schedule an appointment and meet with us online for up to 45 minutes. We discuss papers using the screen-sharing features
- synchronous drop-in web conferencing visits—students enter our web conferencing room during certain hours without an appointment
- asynchronous document upload appointments—students first schedule a time for the tutor to review the paper. Next, they upload their paper and instructions to our electronic dropbox. Within 24 hours of the appointment, the tutor will pull the paper from the dropbox, make comments, and return the paper to the student with feedback.
All appointments or visits may last up to 45 minutes in length. During the appointment time, the tutor will look at any writing for any university class, including papers, outlines, discussion posts, blog posts, multi-modal writing projects, and research. We help with brainstorming, outlining, thesis statements, idea development, argumentation, organization, grammar, transitions, cohesion, flow, incorporation of resources, and citations.
Our writing center also hosts modern language tutoring in American sign language, Spanish, German, French, and Chinese. And we offer public speaking tutoring as well as conversation practice for international students.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for sharing the thorough information about writing center services. It sounds like the writing center is an excellent service for college or university students. Now, let’s talk about tutors and the required qualifications and training to be tutors. What are the academic and professional qualifications required to be a tutor at the writing center?
Ms. Neubert: Because our tutoring center is certified by the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA), all tutors are required to maintain a 3.0 GPA at all times and must have earned an A or B in the courses they are tutoring. Tutors must also be endorsed by faculty.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for highlighting the professional questions required to be a tutor. Many readers do not have any ideas why students use writing center services. Could you please highlight what the benefits are that a tutor working at the writing center receives?
Ms. Neubert: Tutors receive the flexibility of having a job on campus that fits within their class schedule. Tutors receive professional experience in working in an educational environment. Tutors have the benefit of reviewing concepts they previously learned in order to keep the information fresh. Tutors develop new ways of looking at and responding to student writing from their peers and from supervisors who mentor them. Tutors gain practice teaching others, and they become stronger writers themselves. They also receive CRLA training and recognition. Tutors are invited to attend professional development opportunities, such as tutoring conferences. Tutors also have the opportunity to start as an undergraduate tutors and later move on to becoming a graduate assistants in our center so that their graduate tuition is paid for by their service.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for sharing the direct benefits of the writing center. What are professional development activities offered to the tutors?
Ms. Neubert: Tutors are invited to attend and present at conferences, opportunities to present writing workshops to classes, CRLA training levels 1,2 and 3 (30 hours of training), and mentorship from their more experienced peers and their supervisor.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for sharing about many professional development activities conducted for tutors. You are the leader, supervisor, and mentor for all the tutors. How do you supervise and mentor the tutors to improve the effectiveness of the services provided to the students?
Ms. Neubert: I perform both informal and formal observations of the tutors. Informal observations are completed daily and weekly as I sit in the writing center with tutors. When I observe informally, I watch and listen for equal dialog between the tutors and student writers and a sense of general comfort and flow of the conversation as tutors and student writers work together. I also listen for the correctness of responses to subtly intervene as needed.
I formally observe tutors once per semester at mid-term. I use a written observation tool to evaluate their greeting, questioning techniques, explanations, use of technology, attendance, and subject knowledge. I also make a note of their strengths, challenges, and goals for future development. After I observe and make notes on the observation tool, I meet individually with the tutor to discuss, ask questions, and set goals.
Additionally, we distribute student satisfaction surveys at the end of each term to gather information about students’ experiences in the writing center. Student writers’ comments on whether they got the help they were hoping for, whether their confidence in their writing increased, the quality of resources used by the tutor, and the type of help they received during their visit (grammar, thesis statement, organization, citations, etc.). We compile the results and then return the satisfaction surveys to the tutors so they can receive student feedback.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for sharing about different ways and techniques of mentoring and supervising the tutors at your writing center. Especially after COVID-19 hit the world, a lot of technology was used in teaching and tutoring students across the globe, and I believe your university can’t be the exception. What type of tutor management software do you use to schedule tutors at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and how do the students set up appointments with the tutors?
Ms. Neubert: There are many brands of tutor management software available for use. Some brands include Tutortrac, WC Online, Capterra, and Honeybook. We use our scheduling software for the following tasks:
- Posting tutor availability online for students to see
- Facilitating the scheduling of student appointments with our tutors
- Uploading student papers to an electronic dropbox for tutors to review
- Data collection to show center usage
- Student worker time reporting and payroll
I recommend that when deciding on software, universities research user-friendliness, the popularity of the software, cost, and general pros and cons.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for sharing about different software and programs used for tutoring the students at your university. What are the training requirements for writing tutors at Minnesota State University, Mankato?
Ms. Neubert: To begin with, all writing tutors must complete a minimum of five hours of training. The topics include orientation to our center, policies, payroll, student privacy rights, emergency evacuation, best practices for tutoring, the role of the tutor, technology training, and strategies for responding to student writing. After this training is completed, tutors may begin working with students under close supervision from their supervisor. When a new tutor begins, I sit in the writing center in close proximity to their table, so that I can observe and also be available for questions. After the tutor demonstrates confidence, I reduce my observation time but still remain available in my office, which is close by.
After the initial five hours of training, tutors also have the opportunity to progress through levels 1, 2, and 3 of CRLA training. To achieve each level, the tutor must attend 10 hours of training in required topics and also work with students for at least 25 hours. We provide training one week before the beginning of each semester. All training is paid.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for sharing about the different training modules that tutors must attend. Finally, before we leave, there are some universities in Nepal that want to establish writing centers on their university premises. In your opinion, what might be some of the challenges the writing center professionals and writing center face in the present day?
Writing is forever changing as technology changes. Writing centers have to keep up with changing times. For example, years ago, we were looking only at student papers in the writing center. Now we are reviewing blog posts, multi-modal projects, and discussion boards. We used to look at printed or hand-written papers face-to-face, and now we are looking at computer or phone screens and conducting virtual web-conferencing appointments. Additionally, the needs of student populations change with political/societal changes and growing demographic diversity. Additional challenges are funding, finding space, recruiting talented tutors, promoting services, and gaining faculty and student trust.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank you so much, Ms. Neubert, for sharing some of the challenges that writing center professionals may face nowadays. Finally, before we leave, there are some universities in Nepal that want to establish writing centers on their university premises. What are some of the suggestions that you would like to provide to those universities that are planning to establish a new Writing Center within their campus premises?
Ms. Neubert: I have some important suggestions for them. They are:
- Visit other writing centers. Learn what their space looks like. Ask for sample evaluation tools. Look at their policies. Ask about their training program and their tutor management software. Learn how they fund their tutors and under which department they are located.
- Use a certified tutor training program to train your tutors. This will provide your tutors with the best training and will establish the creditability of your center.
- Plan to supervise and support your tutors regularly and more frequently when they are new.
- Establish tutoring do’s and don’ts and make these clear to your employees. Tutoring do’s, and don’ts are policies and procedures for how to conduct writing tutoring sessions so that tutors are guiding rather than writing/rewriting student papers.
- Establish partnerships with faculty in writing-intensive disciplines to increase center usage and support the most students.
- Keep track of data to show usage and also the effectiveness of the center to secure future funding to support center growth. The data may be acquired by using tutor management software, starting student focus groups, handing out surveys, and pulling correlations between the academic success of students who use your center vs. students who do not.
Dr. Chauhan: Thank your great suggestions to those who want to establish a writing center in their colleges and universities.Once again, on behalf of the NELTA ELT Forum, I want to thank you for managing your time to share your expertise and experiences pertaining to the writing center, its service, management, and administration.
About the Authors
Ms. Teresa Neubert
Ms. Teresa Neubert is the Assistant Director of Writing, Speech, and Languages for the Center for Academic Success at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She hires, trains, supervises, schedules, and mentors graduate and undergraduate writing tutors who work in the Minnesota State University writing center. She also helps coordinate and supervise satellite tutoring locations across campus.
Ms. Neubert obtained her Master of English, TESL degree, and K-12 teaching licensure from Minnesota State University in 2006. She has since worked as K-12 TESL Instructor at Mankato East High School, as a professional English Tutor and Peer Tutor Coordinator at South Central College, Mankato, and as a professional online English tutor for SmartThinking and Tutor.com.
Dr. Padam Chauhan
Dr. Padam Chauhan works as an International Student Retention Specialist for the Kearney International Center and an Instructor for the Intensive English Language Program at Minnesota State University (MNSU), Mankato, Minnesota, USA. Prior to that, Padam worked as a Writing Consultant for the Writing Center for five years at MNSU, Mankato, where he tutored both international and domestic students. He has earned a master’s degree in English Education from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, another master’s degree in Teaching English to the Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), and Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership from MNSU, Mankato. Before joining MNSU, Mankato Padam taught ESL at the high school level and served as a high school principal in Nepal.
Padam is a life member of NELTA. He served NELTA Central Executive Committee as its member, treasurer, and general secretary. Currently, he serves NELTA voluntarily as an Editor-in-Chief for NELTA’s official e-zine, namely ELT Forum. Besides, Padam is an annual member of MinneTESOL, TESOL, AAAL, IATEFL, and IWCA. He is a regular participant and presenter at international conferences related to English language learning and teaching and has presented at the NELTA, IATEFL, TESOL, AAAL, and TESL conferences in Nepal, the U.K., USA, and Canada.
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