The UB Writing Center Goes to MAWCA

Attending and presenting at conferences is part of academic life. Professionals in higher education share their research and intellectual interests with communities of peers at local, regional, national, or international meetings of disciplinary organizations. A conference presentation is an important addition to one's curriculum vitae because it shows engagement in an academic community of practice, but it can be difficult to get one's foot in the door and get that first presentation notch in the old academic belt.

Writing Centers, like any other academic discipline, share ideas and practices via a network of regional organizations affiliated with the International Writing Center Association (IWCA). Our regional affiliate is called the Mid-Atlantic Writing Center Association, or MAWCA, and our regional conference happened over the weekend of March 24, 2018. The theme of the conference was "Activism in the Writing Center: Uncovering Hidden Narratives," and five members of the UB Writing Center community submitted proposals and were accepted to present at this conference, which took place at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ.

In order to help pay for UB students to travel to the conference, the Writing Center hosted a crowd-sourced fundraiser, to which several members of the UB community donated. For that, we are very grateful. The fundraiser generated enough money to pay for the group's hotel room and travel, and the remainder of the costs were covered by the MAWCA scholarship program, for which the UB panel applied and were the sole recipients.

The presenters included Kerrin Smith, an MFA candidate in UB's Creative Writing and Publishing Arts program and a longtime Writing Consultant in the UB Writing Center. Her project included an IRB-approved survey of students in the Writing Fellows program and was titled "Bridging the Gap Years: Non-Traditional Students in the Writing Center." For Smith, the project represented a significant professional development opportunity. She said, "Attending this year's MAWCA conference was a tremendous opportunity to become a better tutor by listening to experts, especially keynote speakers Dr. Vershawn Ashanti Young and Dr. Frankie Condon."

The other presenters participated in a common panel discussion about working with diverse learners in the Writing Center. Our work grew out of a conversation about the gap between Writing Center theory and praxis, and our panel was titled "Minding the Gap: Exploring the Spaces between Language, Identity, and Culture." The presenters included:

• Sharea Harris, a graduate of UB's MFA program, former Writing Consultant and Interim Director of the Writing Center, and current adjunct faculty in the Writing Program. Professor Harris' talk was titled "Black Tongues on their Way to Whiteness: Redefining Academic Identity in the Writing Center."
• Jodie Fair, a candidate in UB's MFA program and current Writing Consultant. Jodie's presentation was titled "A Socially Diverse Composition."
• Lauren Campbell, a candidate in UB's MFA program and current Writing Consultant. Lauren's paper was titled "Negotiating Control: Empowering Students with Transparency, Collaboration, and Transfer Theory."
• Mairin Barney, the Writing Services Coordinator for the Achievement and Learning Center and the director of the UB Writing Center. My talk was called "Academic Precarity and the Danger of Being Written Off: Building Solidarity in the Writing Center."

From left to right: Lauren Campbell, Jodie Fair, Mairin Barney, Sharea Harris, and Kerrin Smith

at Rowan University just after our presentations were completed.

For the three graduate students involved, MAWCA 2018 was their first conference experience, and their initial takeaways demonstrate how valuable an opportunity this was for them. Campbell said, "MAWCA was my first conference experience, and I learned so much through the conference sessions and by conducting my own research." Fair agreed, saying, "Attending MAWCA was one of my most rewarding experiences as a graduate student at UB. The opportunity to present provided me a sense of pride that my contributions as both a scholar and writer matter." Smith added, "The conference's theme of activism allowed me to examine the ways I might be perpetuating racism and classism in my sessions with students, and reflect on how to resist that cycle."

Ultimately, sharing ideas among participants in a community of practice is at the heart of academic work, so this conference was more than merely a professional development exercise. For graduate students imagining their careers in higher education, presenting at MAWCA allowed them to add something meaningful to our professional dialog and get a feel for intellectual labor. I have a good feeling that this first conference will not be their last.

Writing Week: Improve Your Writing, Improve Your Life

Writing is hard. It’s work. Love it or hate it, you can’t avoid it! Whether you are a Math major or an English major, writing is something everyone has to learn to do well before they leave college, because employers want to hire people who can handle themselves with a word processor.  As George Anders recently pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, companies may say they’re looking for people with technical skills, but they actually prefer to hire strong writers regardless of job preparation. And even though Forbes doesn’t explicitly name writing as one of the 10 most important skills employers are looking for, they still acknowledge that “the trick is to communicate clearly that you have those skills,” probably through a nicely written cover letter.

Our motto at UB is “Knowledge that Works,” and improving your writing is probably the best way to make your knowledge work for you and see the payoff promised by your college degree. No matter what kind of job you end up with after you graduate, you are going to need to write to get it, and then write to keep it. Cover letters, resumes, personal statements, and writing samples may help you get a job. Reports, memos, carefully worded advertisements, case studies, and important research publications will help you keep the job once you’ve secured it. You can’t avoid writing, even if you’ve carefully selected a career based on the perception that you won’t have to write much!  Bottom line: writing is a powerful tool that you can put to work to improve your life in direct and indirect ways. If you learn to wield the tool effectively.

The National Council of Teachers of English created the National Day of Writing to acknowledge the importance of writing in our time and encourage literacy education. In anticipation of this big day, Langsdale Library will host a week of activities and workshops to help students participate more fully in the world of writing and learn to be conscious of their writing practice.

 Monday 10/9: From Facebook to First Draft: Academic Language

 4:00-5:30pm

     Tuesday 10/10: UB Writers on Writing (Panel Discussion)

     12:30-2:00pm

     Wednesday 10/11: What's Good Feedback?

     12:30-2:00pm

     Thursday 10/12: How to Cite Right -- Avoiding Plagiarism

     4:00-5:30pm

     Friday 10/13: Writing Retreat

     12:00-6:00pm

Each event is different, and there is something for everyone. The workshop on academic language encourages participants to understand the characteristics of academic writing as a genre and to think about how academic audiences might be unique. Tuesday's panel discussion features UB faculty, who will describe their own writing interests and give students insights into writing in various disciplines. Wednesday's workshop encourage students to improve their technique for peer review, and Thursday's event introduces students to the intricacies of MLA, APA, and Chicago citation styles. 

The festivities culminate in our big writing retreat on Friday, October 13. You don’t have to be a great writer to participate; the point is to exercise your writing muscles and have fun.  Each hour of the event, from 12:00pm to 6:00pm, there will be a different writing prompt meant to engage you creatively or intellectually. If you’d rather work on writing for class or personal fulfillment, you can do that, too! There will be writing consultants and faculty on hand throughout the retreat to help you improve and give you tips to do your best work.

All of this prepares us to participate in the National Day of Writing, which is Friday, October 20. In the time between our writing retreat and the NDoW, we want UB students and faculty to fill social media with the best examples of our voices, our ideas, and our experiences. Share your work using the official NDoW hashtag #whyIwrite and add #UBwrites to share with our community.