> Here is our questionnaire:
>
>
> 1.) What is the enrollment size of your school?
65,000 students, full- and part-time, undergrad and graduate
> 2.) Do you have a student support service that could be classified as a
> writing center?
a number of services usually called writing labs--8 in
the undergraduate colleges (Faculty of Arts and
Science) plus 4 beginning in professional faculties
> 3.) How would you (generally) define your writing assistance facility?
We mainly offer individual tutoring to students, and
also give group workshops. Increasingly we are being
called upon to support faculty by giving workshops,
consulting individually on designing assignments and
grading them, training TAs, and participating in
policy decisions (e.g. about admission).
> 4.) What is the philosophy of your writing center? Does it have a
> mission statement and defined policy?
The college labs have produced a joint statement on
what we do that we distribute to our students. We
agree that our function is to help students develop
skills in language, high-level literacy, and
reasoning; we also see a role in faculty development.
We see ourselves as faculty, not staff, and are
careful to refer to our function as teaching.
> 5.) Is the writing center staff involved in developing tutoring
> programs, workshops, and resources?
Yes, in nearly all cases we develop our own programs
and are eager to participate in larger policy
decisions. The coordinator of writing support has
also developed workshops for tutors and other faculty,
written student and faculty handouts, developed online
material, requested lists of books from the library,
etc. Individual writing labs and tutors have
developed and taught their own non-credit courses and
workshops, and have (in one case) designed and run an
admissions and placement test.
> 6.) What proportion of the student population does the writing center
> serve: certain programs or departments; all students; faculty?
The college labs serve approx. one half the undergraduate
student population; the new facilities in the professional
faculties potentially serve another one third. The
least served groups are graduate students, especially
those for whom English is not a first language. The
new coordinator, writing support, has made contact
with faculty members in most divisions, with
especially strong contacts in Arts and Science and the
health sciences. One writing-lab director in a
professional faculty serves nearly completely as a
faculty consultant.
> 7.) Where does the writing center fit into the administrative structure
> of your institution?
The college labs report to college administration; the
professional labs report to deans. The Coordinator,
Writing Support, is centrally funded but reports to
the Faculty of Arts and Science for administrative
convenience. That position is consultative only.
> 8.) How is the writing center staffed?
Most facilities have professional directors, usually
with Ph.D.s, and tutors in their final years of Ph.D.
studies or with completed Ph.D.s. Most jobs are
part-time, but nearly all are considered faculty
appointments.
> 9.) Where is the writing center physically located?
Various.... Private space is essential. We have
discovered too that secretarial support is important
for taking appointment bookings.
> 10.) What facilities, equipment, and resources does the writing
center offer?
One college lab has 8 computers with some
style-checking and drill programs, along with the individual tutoring.
The others offer individual tutoring, books on writing,
handouts on writing. A number of student handouts and faculty
documents are online.
> 11.) How many hours per day is the writing center open?
various....distinct busy seasons in November and March-April
> 12.) What is the usage per semester?
At the college labs, it ranges from 10 to 20%,
depending on resources provided--we are always fully
booked.
> 13.) How is the writing center funded?
Most funding comes from central administration but it
is channelled at the college or faculty level. Some
college labs are supported by alumni money.
> 14.) How is the writing center service evaluated?
Mainly by student comment cards, from within local divisions.
> 15.) What kind of promotion/public relations activities do you use to
> raise awareness of the writing center's services?
Local flyers, announcements, faculty references;
speaking to orientation groups and other student
groups; speaking to classes; participation in college
or faculty activities. Also online announcements and
listings in student guidebooks.
> 16.) What helped you most in establishing your writing center?
Our main support has come from faculty who are
concerned that students cannot handle the kinds of
discourse necessary for their curriculum--i.e., being
able to write reflectively and analytically about the
course material. Professional groups have also made
clear to some faculties that their graduates needed
better communication skills in general.
Administration has also been concerned because of
anecdotal evidence ("horror stories") of graduates
being unable to write intelligibly; they had written
nothing while at university.
> 17.) What caused you the most grief in establishing your writing center?
1. A decision four years ago to fire one college
writing-lab director and replace her with Grammatik. (!)
This galvanized many faculty members to protest, and
drew together the disparate writing tutors to define
clearly and forcefully what we did and why it was valuable.
2. The continuing inefficiency of centralized
decision-making about funding. Our new programs
especially suffer from inadequate planning time
for program design and hiring.
> 18.) Who are other contacts we should question--probably persons not on the
> CASLL listserv but vitally interested in writing centers in Canada?
{see Cathy Schryer, Waterloo, for list of names in
Canadian Association of Teachers of Technical Writing}
> 19.) Would you like a copy of our survey results? (If so, please provide
> an address, both smail and e-mail.)
email: [log in to unmask]
smail: Margaret Procter
Room 216, University College
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5S 1A1
> 20.) Any final comments?
> Thanks for undertaking this, Henry and Susan. I look
forward to seeing your results.
