The RSCC
Online Writing Lab

A Snapshot: Community College Writing Centers
in an Age of Transition

by Jennifer Jordan-Henley

This document may be used according to the Fair Use Doctrine as long as it is done entirely with all attributions to the author and the Writing Lab Newsletter. Commercial distribution is strictly prohibited. It appeared in the September 1995 issue (20:1, 1-4). For further information on subscriptions and manuscript submissions, send inquiries to: http://owl.trc.purdue.edu /Files/newsletter.html or e-mail to: Mary Jo Turley
Send regular mail to: Muriel Harris, editor, Writing Lab Newsletter, Department of English, 1356 Heavilon Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1356. The author may be contacted at:Jennifer Jordan-Henley
At one of our writing center retreats last year, our staff found that we shared many concerns about the future of Roane State Community College's two centers. We had read Sharon Wright's Mapping Diversity: Writing Center Survey Results in the June 1994 issue of WLN. But we found that while some of her findings applied to us and were helpful in strategic planning, most of her respondents were from universities--and one of our most pressing problems was one that universities rarely, if ever, face: the absence of upper-division English students and graduate students to act as peer tutors.

We therefore decided to survey community colleges around the country to see how they solved this particular problem. We also hoped to create a snapshot of a typical community college writing center. We wanted to know what the centers looked like, what other activities they were involved in, how they evaluated their effectiveness, and whether or not community members used the centers, in addition to the standard questions regarding budgets, salaries, and funding sources. We hoped that this information would enable us to spot trends as well. As writing centers become aligned with learning centers, for instance, do they gain or lose in the process? And are writing centers preparing themselves to support emerging technologies?

The survey was sent to all members of the list group WCenter three times in the spring of 1995. WLN also announced the survey so that off-line centers could participate. The community colleges who responded provide a good cross section from different regions of the country. They include:

General Background of the Participating Centers

The survey was composed of 20 open-ended questions. Respondents did not always give full information or chose not to answer a question. The percentages reported, therefore, do not always total 100 percent and are not always based on the total number of respondents.

Of the centers who responded, 46 percent fall under the jurisdiction of an English department, 15 percent under developmental studies, 15 percent under a larger learning center, 15 percent are separate entities, and 8 percent fall under continuing education.

The centers are open an average of 42.8 hours a week, with 54 percent open more than 40 hours. Of the 46 percent who are open under 40 hours a week, half of them are open at least 36 hours a week. The number of centers with evening hours is 69 percent, and 23 percent have Saturday hours.

The centers serve from 9,000 students a semester (with a total enrollment of 13,000) to 240 students a semester (with 1,350 total enrollment). The average number of users is 2,424 with an average enrollment of 6,490. However, at least one center is on a quarter system, and some centers do not count computer users, so the actual number of users may differ.

The centers are rarely engaged in profit-making activities. One center offers 1-credit hour refresher courses in spelling, grammar, and paragraph writing, and another charges for their resume service. When asked if their students were primarily composition students, developmental/remedial students, or a combination, only 15 percent of the centers report developmental students as being their primary clientele. Composition students are the heaviest users (54 percent) while a combination (composition, science, history, music appreciation, psychology, philosophy, speech) of student writers comprise 31 percent. A total of 85 percent of the centers serve multiple disciplines.

The findings in the area of salary, academic rank, job descriptions, and additional responsibilities of the directors were not surprising. Directors' salaries range from $24,120 for a 10-month position to $46,700 for a full professor whose salary is determined by academic rank. The average salary reported was $29,782. Academic rank and tenure, when applicable, are reported to be independent of the Director's position, originating from the English department.

The majority of the job descriptions of writing center directors require an M.A. degree (62 percent), previous writing center experience (46 percent), and teaching experience (54 percent). Three center directors have B.A. degrees, but two of those directors are currently working on their M.A. One center requires an Associate degree with a major in English, speech, and psychology (with an emphasis in reading and study skill improvement). Two centers require computer knowledge, and a third director was hired because her predecessor "did not want to learn anything about computers," while she was willing to learn all she could. As Wright discovered in her surveys, administrative experience did not appear to be a criterion for employment (3). One director reports that in addition to writing center duties, she also teaches full time. One reports teaching three courses, four teach two courses, and one teaches one course. Four directors teach only occasionally, and all of those teach as adjuncts; teaching is not part of their regular duties as writing center directors. Two directors do not teach classes.

Support staff is lean; 15 percent of the centers have full-time secretarial/receptionist services; 15 percent share a secretary, and 70 percent have no secretarial staff at all.

However, 54 percent of the centers have 1-5 lab assistants, 31 percent have 6-10, and 15 percent have 11 or more. Some of these assistants are full-time, while others are described as part-time instructors, work study students, an ESL specialist, and full-time instructors working regularly in the center.

Budgetary matters are so diverse that they defy classification. Almost every center responds to the question "What are your funding sources? How much is your budget?" by giving only a portion of the budget, so it is impossible to report an overall average. What is clear is that the majority of the directors do not have full knowledge of the budget, and that funding originates from a variety of sources.

Only one director responded to the question with a flat "$125,000 annually." This Center is funded by the institution and the 1-hour courses they teach. Other funding sources mentioned were: student body funds, instructional funds, departmental funds, learning centers, the tutorial services office, the financial aid office, the educational foundation, grants, student support services, private foundations and individuals, and FTE hours. Interestingly, this finding is different from Wright's, who reports that university centers tend to depend on "single source funding" (3). Community college centers appear to be very creative in finding ways to maintain their funding, although like universities, the centers appear not to be involved in fund-raising activities.

Two comments seem to sum up the situation: One respondent remarks that neither the director nor the dean knows what the budget is or who develops it. "This is a taboo subject here and is very much veiled in mystery." Another remarks: "The budget is fought for. It is never secure."

The centers sponsor a variety of activities. Seventy percent offer other support services to the college, and 30 percent do not. The activities include a variety of workshops, including autobiography writing, mechanics of writing, writing for nursing students, bibliography workshops, proofreading strategies, research writing, writing summaries, research papers, and computer use. Four centers support the literary magazine, three support the campus newspaper, three support an essay or poetry contest, and one holds poetry readings.

Eight of the centers do not have branch campus centers, but most of those schools do not have branch campuses. Five schools, however, do have branch centers, indicating that writing centers are now considered an integral part of education.

Tutoring Issues
Community colleges obtain their tutors from a variety of sources, and our inquiry concerning peer tutor issues provided few ideas we had not already encountered in our search for ways to find and train peer tutors.

Seven of the schools surveyed use peer tutors. They are undergraduate students at the school. Most of these students are required to have taken freshman composition, and are also frequently recommended by the English faculty. They generally are expected to have a high grade-point average and often help with computers as well. Two schools require an advanced composition class in peer tutoring. Salaries for these undergraduate tutors range from $4.25 to $7.40 an hour with the average being $5.25 an hour.

Five of the schools use instructors or the equivalent (someone with a B.A., an M.A., or teaching experience but not regular faculty or center personnel) to handle their tutoring. In short, they have no peer tutoring. Most of these instructors have M.A. degrees, although three schools have several instructors with B.A.s. Instructors generally make more than undergraduates, but are still paid an hourly rate ranging from a low of $6.00 at one school to a more typical range of $10.00 to $13.50 an hour at the others. Other instructors tutor in the centers as part of their regular teaching load, and the directors of the centers, in all but one case, conduct some writing consultations.

One school uses the Internet to provide peer tutoring between community college and university graduate students. The graduate students are not paid--they are involved in on-line tutoring as part of their own coursework and are partially graded on their consultation performance. They use a combination of e-mail and synchronous conferencing.

One of the schools has two volunteer community members involved in the tutoring process, and yet another hired a Peace Corps applicant looking for work before she was shipped overseas. Volunteers are rare. At only one school is the director also the only writing tutor. However, the Center is small, serving 400 users per year and open 24 hours a week.

Tutors are trained using surprisingly diverse methods. Almost every school gave similar answers, but all added at least one training method that the others did not. These methods include on-the-job training; senior tutors training junior tutors; the use of workbooks and videotapes; credit classes in tutoring; weekly or monthly training sessions; reviewing articles on writing center theory; mock conferencing with the director or each other; writing center handbooks; sample papers; reviewing on-line documents pertaining to writing; and using a read file and keeping a log book to provide continuous training, feedback, and communication.

At one school, which primarily uses tutors to help center users in computer use while writing consultations are handled by regular center personnel, the respondent remarks that many of the same training issues apply to the computer tutors as would if they were writing tutors: "Today, much of the computer training overlaps into the writing training. A user will want to know how to set up a paper for class or how to create a Works Cited page. Or a user will be tentative about using a computer and allow that feeling to affect his or her writing process."

Several of the respondents bemoaned the fact that their training seems so informal. A typical comment was, "I try to train the tutors, but the problem is, I can't pay for their time. The meetings are voluntary, and given how busy these tutors are with their jobs, families, and classes, gathering them together is problematic." Several center directors, however, indicate that their tutors are well-trained and express confidence in their abilities.

Space Considerations

Much of the available space in most of the writing centers is taken up by computers, but twelve of the thirteen centers also have clear table space where students can work individually or in groups, or with a consultant. The square footage ranges from a high of 2,500 square feet to a low of 120 square feet, with the average space being 746 square feet. Four of the centers are part of a larger learning center.

Two of the writing centers who are part of or adjacent to a larger learning center appear to be the two centers that are least like the others in what might be called "writing center ambiance," a relaxed, user-friendly, nonauthoritarian place to work. One center, whose space takes up 900 square feet, has five instructor desks within the space. Beside each desk is a chair for the student. The other center, with 530 square feet, does have two round tables for conferences, but "a door from the library creates a fairly heavy traffic flow, and . . . evaluations indicate that the two most serious complaints are distracting noise and lack of space." A third center is off the main room of the learning center, but occupies a 10 x 12 foot space.

The fourth center with shared space is described as sharing an area in Academic Resources, but it clearly has its own space, complete with a "small lounge area with a desk and chairs and comfortable seating for four."

The other centers are more likely to use the word "open" to describe their spaces, even when space is at a minimum. In several cases, partitions or separate rooms are used to separate the computers from the consulting areas. Large tables, round tables, and bookshelves are mentioned. Several centers mention large windows and storage space. Another is a converted classroom and a half. The half-classroom holds a number of computers and printers, while the adjoining larger room has more computers along one wall with the rest of the room housing tables, a couch, and a front desk. "This layout," the respondent reports, "divides the talking-writing students from the ones who are typing papers on computers."

Computers

Eighty-five percent of the centers have computers in their writing area; only 15 percent do not. One center is networked; one is on-line, and another has requested both in next year's budget.Of the four centers who are aligned with a learning center, one has six computers, one has one computer, and two have none. The majority of the other centers reported having from 10 to 19 computers, and it is evident from remarks that several of these centers plan to use computers and writing in a more intensive way in the future. One of the centers who describes itself as "not on-line" nevertheless has access to Purdue's OWL. Another is already actively engaged in Internet tutoring, and has recently updated their computers to exploit these new resources, purchasing Mac LC550s, LCIIIs, and Power Macintoshes to replace their older machines. Yet another center director remarks that several of the instructors at her school are "chomping" to teach on-line, but that they are waiting for adequate access. Most of the centers use IBMs (54 percent); 27 percent use a combination of Macs and IBMs, and 18 percent use Macs.

Software choices are also varied. Seven centers use WordPerfect and three use Microsoft Word. Other programs include Appleworks, Writer's Helper, SEEN (a literary analysis program), Microlab Grammar, GEAR-grammar exercises, Research Paper Writer, WordStar, Logic Coach, Rhubarb, St. Martin Descant, RightWriter (a grammar/style checker), MindWriter (an idea generation program), Works, Spellbound, Grammatique, and Aldus Pagemaker. One school recently installed Daedalus, but it is not installed in the writing center. This is one of the centers adjacent to a learning center, with only one readily available computer in the center itself.

Evaluating Effectiveness

Student evaluations are the most popular method of tracking effectiveness, and 46 percent of the centers use this method on a regular basis; 23 percent distribute student evaluations occasionally, and 31 percent have no method of student evaluation, although one center does have a suggestion box. Only 23 percent of the centers survey faculty. Of the centers who use student evaluations, three distribute the surveys annually, one distributes them at the end of every semester, one distributes two surveys (one written, one telephone) every 4 years, and 1 distributes them on an ongoing basis (surveys are available in the center). Of the three centers who also survey faculty, one surveys every 5 years, one surveys every 4 years, and one surveys annually.

Serving the Community?

The outside community rarely use the centers. Only 30 percent of the centers actively serve community members; 70 percent do not, although two centers mention Hotline availability. One respondent remarks that "because of student demand, we had to end our service to community members." Of the centers who do serve the community, two of them remark that "a few" local residents visit. Only one center reports having over 500 community users in an academic year.

Trends

One trend appears to be that of writing centers merging with learning centers. It is clear that all four of the writing centers in this position have maintained a strong voice of their own, but two other respondents mention that they fear a merger, and all four centers who have merged have encountered problems that the others have not, such as the director having numerous administrative responsibilities outside the center, lack of computers in the writing area itself, or lack of space. Additionally, while two of these center directors were at the upper end of the salary scale, one was at the bottom. (The fourth did not report salary.) However, there are also clear benefits to being associated with a learning center. Someone else maintains and upgrades what computers there are, and the areas sometimes share support staff, which is certainly preferable to no support staff at all. Again, this trend affects universities, as well as community colleges, and is an excellent area for more intensive research.

Another, related trend appears to be a fledgling desire to support emerging computer technology, although the majority of the centers do not appear to be actively exploring the use of on-line resources at present. Forty-six percent of the centers who participated in this survey, however, did so using e-mail. That fact, along with the survey information reporting the number of existing computers in the centers and future plans for their use, indicates that writing and computing are making the transition from an uneasy alliance to an amiable one.

Work Cited

Wright, Sharon. "Mapping Diversity: Writing Center Survey Results."Writing Lab Newsletter 18 (1994):1-4.
 Back to the RSCC OWL

 © Jennifer Jordan-Henley