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The Mission is the Message: Writing Center Identity and Mission Statements
SYDNEY GOGGINS
CHRIS SCHOTT
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI - ST. LOUIS
INTRO
This was a "mission" of self-discovery.
WHY?
see what we did there?
The UMSL Writing Center does not have, nor has ever had (as far as I can tell), an official mission statement.
- Identity
- Positioning
- Pedagogical
- Practical Information
- Framing consultants
- Framing students
- Framing campus community
- Other concerns...
Frankie Condon (2007), says writing center mission statements are “more than window dressing,” she writes that “mission statements name commitments to quality and service and as such serve as a means by which an institution or institutional site can hold itself accountable or be held accountable to the constituencies it seeks to serve” (p. 23).
METHODS
Focus: Explore how writing centers are framing their identities and work through their mission statements.
Objective: Recognize trends and themes across mission statements to help inform decisions about the development of our own mission statement.
WHAT
WE
DID
HERE'S WHAT WE DID
- Randomly gathered 30 writing center mission statements from across the country
- Looked at language in the mission statements describing:
- students/clients
- consultants/tutors
- writing center values
- services/practices
- Sought out language, if any, that revealed how the WC positioned themselves within their institution
- We looked at if geographic location and institutional size were factors in determining mission statement emphasis (this didn't go anywhere)
- Reached out to WC Directors and staff to learn more about the effectiveness of their mission statements and any recent revision/changes
LOOKING AT MISSIONS
Simply coding and counting, WC mission statements talk about values most, followed by practices, students/clients, and consultants/tutors.
TRENDS
Looking across the language used in our sampling of mission statements, four major themes emerged.
TRENDS
These things:
VALUES
WELCOME
INDIRECT TUTORING
VALUES
AGENCY
INDIRECT TUTORING
"The central mission of the Writing Center is to encourage, guide, and assist student writers as they work through the writing process..."
"We work with students in collaborative consultations where dialogue, practice, and discovery are paramount. Attentive listening, critical reading, and purposeful writing characterize the hallmarks of our sessions."
"offer individualized help and encourage independence in all writers who use the center, respecting the writers’ authority and ownership of their own written work."
INDIRECT
TUTORING
WELCOME
"We strive to be a welcoming, inclusive space for all community members to share their writing in an interactive and collaborative learning environment."
"...seek to meet the needs of diverse learners in an inclusive and engaging environment..."
"...we guide students through the process of tackling the unique challenge of each writing situation by creating a safe space to practice, experiment, make mistakes, and find a voice."
WELCOME
AGENCY
"...the goal of tutoring is to grow one’s independence – and because students always maintain agency over their own work..."
"One primary goal of the Center is to help students become self-directed, independent, confident writers..."
"The ultimate goal of the Center is to make students conscientious, ethical, engaged, and independent writers and citizens."
"...we take pride in being a community where staff and students support one another to become...positive agents of change."
AGENCY
PRACTICES
EXPECTATIONS
PRACTICES
SERVICES
EXPECTATIONS
EXPECTATIONS
"When in session, all writing consultants will respect their time with the student. It is important that students come prepared and on time."
"Students who use our center can expect to receive personal, one-on-one instruction that will lead them to be independent learners, thinkers and writers."
microlevel
services = 19
SERVICES
macrolevel
services = 61
STUDENTS/CLIENTS
conscientious
ethical
empowered
STUDENTS/CLIENTS
self-directed
independent
engaged
confident
all background
all disciplines
reflective
CONSULTANTS/
TUTORS
student-centered
understanding
CONSULTANTS/TUTORS
trained
compassionate
interested
active listeners
active readers
not content experts
generalists
sensitive
POSITIONING
Questions:
1. How do writing centers position themselves in relation to the University as a whole?
2. Do mission statements emphasize a theoretical approach to pedagogy, and if so, how does this function in defining a Writing Center's identity?
Pedagogical and Practical Positioning
Institutions
The most effective statements established clear connections between pedagogical philosophy and practice.
When pedagogical theories were mentioned without being clearly connected to Writing Center practice, their function in the Mission statement seemed less clear and thus less effective.
“We believe that writers at all levels benefit from sharing their writing with knowledgeable, engaged readers. Since the goal of tutoring is to grow one’s independence – and because students always maintain agency over their own work – our tutors will not copyedit or write papers for their clients. Instead, our tutors will be active listeners and readers; they will offer thoughtful suggestions and ask clarifying questions, help their clients to make effective rhetorical choices, and encourage them throughout their writing process – from brainstorming and outlining to drafting, revising, and editing.”
Examples
Examples
Quote prefacing mission:
"Maybe in a perfect world, all writers would have their own ready auditor... who would not only listen but draw them out, ask them questions they would not think to ask themselves. A writing center is an institutional response to this need."
- Stephen M. North, "The Idea of a Writing Center."College English 46.5 (1984): 433-46.
While this statement referenced a key scholar of Writing Center studies, it did not explain how North's thinking influenced Writing Center practice.
"Our goal is not only to help students with a particular writing assignment, but also to help them become more effective and confident writers. This means that we work on two levels at once: we help writers 1) to gain insight into how they write most productively and efficiently, and 2) to meet the intellectual and rhetorical demands of specific writing tasks or assignments.”
Examples
"Writing helps us to rethink our assumptions, to challenge injustice, to create shared experiences, and to generate new forms of knowledge and understanding….We believe that the written word is the medium whereby writers at the University of Wyoming will develop strategies to meet the social, environmental, and economic challenges of today."
Here, the Writing Center's role is defined not only in pedagogical terms but in a wider social context, emphasizing that writing can be empowering both within and beyond an academic context.
"We operate on the premise that writing is both a tool for intellectual discovery and a means to social and personal empowerment. A writer, we believe, is someone who writes, and the act of writing itself is a fundamental human right. Our mission to support students to become stronger writers is both a professional responsibility and a social justice endeavor. Our praxis builds on the strengths of collaborative peer pedagogy."
"By engaging in critical writing-center praxis and innovative peer pedagogy, we take pride in being a community where staff and students support one another to become independent thinkers, thoughtful writers, and positive agents of change."
Examples
Positioning within academic institutions
Philosophy and practice
Most Writing Centers did not specifically frame their identity in an institutional context (within an English department or the University as a whole).
Mission statements focused on practical services offered to students and other members of the campus community.
"The Writing Center maintains a strong commitment to the excellence of all [university] students. We understand that writing is critical to excellence both in the classroom and in the professional future of each student we encounter, regardless of academic interests. We seek to assist students in understanding the writing process, elaborating on their ideas and theories, and evaluating and editing their own work."
The only institutional positioning at work here serves to emphasize who the Writing Center is designed to help ("all [university] students")- not what part of the University oversees the Writing Center.
Examples
THEIR WORDS
- How has the mission statement translated into your writing center’s practices?
- How recently has your mission statement been revised and/or updated? What motivated these changes?
We got 10 responses.
1
MISSION STATEMENTS ARE LIVING DOCUMENTS
Respondents talked frequently about their MS being in constant change as a result of shifts in practice, values, or even institutional change.
"It's been several years since we last reviewed our mission statement. Our center has doubled in size since then, so it's definitely time to look at it again. Our WC directors will be reviewing it this month."
"We return to it from time to time to reflect on whether or not we're living out what we say we want to be and are (we also periodically build in some time for reflection on whether or not we still think the statement is what we want it to be or whether some alterations are necessary)."
A recent revision of a mission statement was the result of "a change in Writing Center leadership in July of 2017 and a need to develop a strategic plan to guide the work we do for the next 3-5 years."
"A recent, friendly merge with our sister unit, the learning center, might cause us to revamp this statement."
"I know that the department will soon be releasing a job ad for a WC director at the Assistant or Associate Professor level beginning this fall. Thus, I feel like any revision made now would be so short-lived as to only cause more trouble in terms of updating materials. Basically, I've decided to let the task fall to our incoming director, whomever that may be!"
REFLECTION
INSTITUTIONAL SHIFT
2
OTHER OBSERVATIONS
Some view it was more externally important than internally:
"While we do want consultants to read and think about the mission statement, I think we conceived of it as directed primarily toward an external audience of students, faculty, and administrators."
Mission statements are frequently seen as recursive:
"I’d say the mission informs our practices, and our practices inform our mission. The mission acts as a reminder for our tutors, and it informs potential clients and their instructors as to what we do and what they can expect."
Mission Statements are ways to codify expectations and standards for the larger campus:
"It’s a reflection or encapsulation of what we do. We often repeat a simplified version when we talk to classes, parents, administrators who are just getting to know our writing center."
CONCLUSIONS
VALUES
AND
PRACTICES
Values leading into Practices
We found that the most effective mission statements included statements that juxtapose, mesh and connect writing center values to the practices they employ.
Since the goal of tutoring is to grow one’s independence – and because students always maintain agency over their own work – our tutors will not copyedit or write papers for their clients. Instead, our tutors will be active listeners and readers; they will offer thoughtful suggestions and ask clarifying questions, help their clients to make effective rhetorical choices, and encourage them throughout their writing process – from brainstorming and outlining to drafting, revising, and editing.
We work with students in collaborative consultations where dialogue, practice, and discovery are paramount. Attentive listening, critical reading, and purposeful writing characterize the hallmarks of our sessions.
WHY USEFUL?
- A way to ensure two-way accountability
- A meaningful way, for those outside of WCs, to understand writing center culture
- A way for WC staff to justify practices
RELATIONSHIPS & MISSIONS
Many Writing Centers do not connect their identities to larger institutional oversight in their mission statements.
A need for the appearance of autonomy?
A way to distance WC values from institutional values?
We don't know. (future study?)
However, most mission statement revisions are the result of an institutional prompting. Perhaps this says something about the complicated nature of writing center identity?