WcORD: The WLN Writing Center Online Resource Database

The goal of the WPA Census is to create an online database that would serve as a first stop for people to find answers to questions that come up often in writing program administration practice and research.  The WPA Census embodies the idea that the administrative work of WPAs, WCDs, and WAC directors is scholarship. By ultimately providing these directors with a database that catalogs and organizes the diversity of writing programs, the Census will allow researchers to analyze macro- and micro-trends in the landscape of US institutions.

Kristin Cole at the University of Texas at Austin and Sue Mendelsohn at the University of Texas at Austin discuss the use of rhetoric in consulting sessions.

From Praxis: "The Merciless Grammarian spews his wrath on nasty problems of grammar, mechanics, and style."

From Praxis: "California community colleges were especially hard hit by higher education funding cuts. Diane Putnam explains that those cuts are profoundly affecting the Cabrillo College Writing Center, its students, and its tutors. A year ago, the Writing Center at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California was at the top of its game."

From Praxis: "Writing centers are feeling the effects of budget reductions across higher education nationwide. Like other student services that don't offer credits or produce revenue, writing centers are particularly vulnerable to budget cuts. Community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities across the country are asking writing centers to make hard choices- choices that will affect consultant hiring, pay, and benefits as well as hours of operation, services, technological resources, and administration."

From Praxis: "Former university writing consultant Michael Erard has made a living as a writer and writing consultant outside the university. He shares his wisdom about the challenges and advantages of consulting in the wild. You don't need to be in a university-based writing center to do the writer-centered, process-positive, and culture-sensitive work of a writing consultant."

From Praxis: "University of Northern Colorado Writing Center Director Julie Garbus reflects on her transition from consultant to professor and administrator. My experience at the Undergraduate Writing Center (UWC) at the University of Texas at Austin definitely got me my job, a tenure-track position as assistant professor of English and director of the Writing Center at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC)."

From Praxis: "Welcome to Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. We are a new publication devoted to the interests of writing consultants: labor issues, writing center news, training, consultant initiatives, and scholarship. Because this is a publication whose first issue's theme is "Who We Are," introductions are in order."

From Praxis: "The Merciless Grammarian spews his wrath on nasty problems of grammar, mechanics, and style."

From Praxis: "The notion that writing is a constantly negotiated activity with no clear-cut right or wrong answers may be a cliché among writing center professionals, but among undergraduate tutors, especially newly hired ones, it can be an earthshaking realization."

The Writing Space was developed by Elizabeth Busekrus. Missouri Baptist University Writing Coaches post prompts in the hopes of creating a conversation between students and the coaches. She has written an essay about this project in WLN Sept. Oct. 2014 titled "The Writing Space: A Forum for the Technological Age."

From Praxis: "The warm glow of a computer screen can never replace face-to-face training courses, workshops, or advice from colleagues. But electronic training resources can be engaging supplements; they give us perspectives from outside the walls of our own centers, and they let us move at our own pace through training activities."

Beth L Hewett from Georgetown University writes about her first day as a tutor.

From Praxis: "Is online consulting for me? Advice for consultants facing this question."

From Praxis: "Ilana Dvorin of Maine East High School steps into the spotlight."

The Writing Center U.S. Naval Academy Annapolis, Maryland

From Praxis: "Consultant trainers are also finding that they don't always have to look off campus to shake up their training practices. Conventional boundaries for who receives training and who offers it are also expanding. A tenet of writing center practice is that it makes consultants better teachers and better writers."

Basic Writing e-Journal (BWe) is a peer-reviewed, online, open-access journal. BWe publishes scholarship on teaching and learning in various basic writing contexts. Since basic writing programs often enroll economically disadvantaged students from diverse backgrounds, these students, their teachers, and the policies that influence their access to higher education are often the focus of this journal. Other key topics of concern to BWe readers include curriculum, instructional practice, teacher preparation, program evaluation, and student learning. Additionally, reviews of current scholarly books and textbooks appear regularly in BWe. Currently based at the City College of New York, BWe was founded in 1999 by the Council on Basic Writing (CBW) and continues to be sponsored by CBW.