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MAWCA

The Mid-Atlantic Writing Centers Association

MAWCA 2018 Conference Schedule

Friday, March 23rd

Registration 2:00-3:30 Business Hall Hub

Workshops

3:00-5:00 Business Hall

Reception

5:00-6:30 Business Hall Hub

MAWCA Board Meeting

6:30-7:30 Business Hall, Room 103 

Tutor Open-Mic Night: Rowan Writing Center, Campbell Library, room 131

6:00-7:30

Saturday, March 24th

Breakfast and Registration: 7:30-8:30 Eynon Ballroom, Chamberlain Student Center

Keynote:  8:30-9:30  Eynon Ballroom, Chamberlain Student Center

Registration: 9:30-11:00 Business Hall Hub


At a Glance:

Session A: 10:00-10:50  Business Hall

Session B: 11:00-11:50 Business Hall

Lunch and Story Sessions 12:-1:00

Session C: 1:10-2:00 Business Hall

Session D: 2:10-3:00 Business Hall

Conference Wrap up: 3:00-3:30  Business Hall 

Session A: 10:00-10:50  Business Hall

Room 101

“Changing Culture, Changing Narratives: New Directors and Resistance to Change”

Karen-Elizabeth Moroski, Jane Nesmith, Elaine MacDougall, Kerri Rinaldi, and Lucy Manley

Penn State University, University Park

Panel Presentation


Featuring several writing center administrators, this panel discusses challenges and opportunities new administrators face when navigating changes within their Writing Centers. Panelists will discuss their own experiences as new Writing Center administrators, and share specific, replicable strategies for professionalizing or seeking community.


Room 103

“Narrating Past Privilege Through Social Identity”

Tanya Ramsey and Dómenique Brown

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Roundtable Discussion


This roundtable offers interpersonal reflections of identity and privilege to better tutor-client relations via social conflict theory, evaluating and co-creating best practices to strengthen the author’s voice within narrative compositions.


Room 104A/B

“Comin' In From the Cold": Using Tutor Identity to Create Individualized Writing Center Plans for Activism and Social Change

Shenandoah Sowash, Caron Martinez, Neisha-Anne Green

American University

Round Robin


Many who work in writing centers have experienced injustice because of our (perceived) identities. What role do those identities have in our activism? In this session, participants will discuss how identity impacts activism, leaving with a framework to begin building a plan of activism for their writing centers.


Room 225

“Framing Linguistic Diversity as an Asset”

Donna Mehalchick-Opal and Michael Fotos

Rowan University

Round Robin


We hope to complicate conversations of Linguistic Diversity by reacting to narratives that challenge traditional tutoring practices and call forth a subversive practice that employs nuance to the tutorial.


Room 121

“Writing Centers and Faculty Writing Retreats: Fostering Community, Productive Writing, and Increased Faculty Support”

Emily Carson and Mary Beth Simmons

Villanova University

Panel Presentation


The faculty writing retreats hosted at our Writing Center have garnered tremendous enthusiasm. This success reflects a much-needed, much-appreciated means of community building across disciplines and ranks.


Room 131

“The Creolization of the Writing Center” Kimberly Clarke

George Washington University

Individual Presentation


This paper explores the creolization of writing centers as a means of heeding Jackie Grutsch McKinney’s call for “re-envisioning the boundaries of writing center work.”


“Mapping Translingual Literacy: Possibilities for Tutor Preparation” James Wright

University of Maryland, Baltimore

Individual Presentation


This presentation describes a tutor training activity that draws on reflective practice and literacy mapping to foreground social justice implications of a translingual orientation to contemporary writing center work.


“Navigating Translingual Tutorials: A Journal, An Apology and a Chance to Get it Right”

Banan Althowaini, Penn State University, University Park

Individual Presentation


This panel presentation by a graduate student in TESOL will frame the challenges faced by tutors who work with translingual writers, and will provide reasonable, replicable actions tutors can take to create welcoming and productive environments for international students who might otherwise be unfamiliar with westernized tutorial cultures.


Room 201

“Power, Experience, and the Individual Tutoring Creative and Personal Writing”

Daniel McGilloway

Rowan University

Round Robin


In this round robin, we discuss how we can tutor creative/personal writing in a way that is observant of power dynamics, intersectional identities, and our role as facilitators, not fixers.


Room 204

"’I Knew You'd Understand What I Was Trying to Say’: Self-Reflection and Shared Identity in the Writing Center”

Nicole Finocchio, Aisha Wilson-Carter, and Jamel Hudson

Hofstra University

Roundtable Discussion


This roundtable explores the ways in which tutors and tutees can share identities. These commonalities shape sessions to be both productive and empowering, but at times uncomfortable, for the tutor.


Room 208

“Hear me Out: Creating Safe Spaces for Students of Color”

Jouvanna Brame and Alicia Espinal-Mesa

Loyola University, Maryland

Roundtable Discussion


Attendees should be ready to actively listen and actively engage in discussion on how the writing center space can become a safe and welcoming space for students of color.


Room 221

“Writing Administrator as Activist: Transforming Expectations and Pedagogical Strategies for Multilingual Student Writers”

Rachel E.H. Edwards and Carla Mannix

Cabrini University

Presentation


Our presentation provides a pragmatic and research-based approach to transforming faculty expectations and pedagogical strategies for multilingual student writers, thereby disrupting the privileged narrative of higher education.


“The Spectrum of ESL Writers: A Heuristic Approach to Providing Practical, Differentiated Support for ESL Students in Post-ESL Programs and Higher Level Undergraduate Courses”
Sean Fuoti

Penn State University, Berks Campus

Presentation


This presentation gives writing tutors a framework to understand the needs of ESL writers and how to continue to support their writing/learning as they advance past their ESL programs or preliminary courses.


“Cultivating Slowtime, or What I Learned on Summer ‘Vacation’”

James Berkey and Liz Mathews

Penn State, Brandywine

Presentation


Summer months afford opportunities for writing center transformation: learn how we cultivated “slow time” to implement recursiveness and develop autonomy for our Writing Studio throughout the year.

Session B: 11:00-11:50 Business Hall

Room 101

“Bridging the Gap: Establishing Collaborative Relationships with Developmental Writers through In-Class Tutoring”  

Timothy Smith, Jay Barnica, Nicole Bollinger, John Zukowski, and Marissa Kopp

HACC, Central Pennsylvania's Community College

Panel Presentation

Explore the impact of an embedded tutoring program as tutors and administrators share strategies for engaging students, partnering with faculty, and developing activities to empower developmental student writers.

Room 103

“Minoritized Writing Associates: Our Contributions and Relations to Writing Discourse”

Fayola Fair, Jovanté Anderson, and Kamini Masood

Lafayette College

Presentation

Writing Associates of marginalized identities must balance existing as minoritized members within writing discourse, as well as authorities of writing. This panel includes three Writing Associates who will explore the tension between these two positions through a moderated discussion.

Room 104A

“A Higher Order Concern: Service Work Through the Writing Center”

Daniel DeLuise, Julia Taormina, Rowan University, and Mary Aruffo, Glassboro Public Schools

Panel Presentation

Writing tutors are a valuable resource, especially in the K-12 learning community. Our presentation will show the benefit of service work in the Writing Center and how tutors can make a difference in their local schools.

Room 104B

“Centering Narratives: How Tutors Can Foster Empathy and Reflection in Composition Classrooms” Eileen Brumitt, Meg MIkovits, Cara McClintock-Walsh

Northampton Community College

Panel Presentation

This panel discusses a cross-institutional tutoring partnership designed to foster empathy among students in a summer writing class through tutor-facilitated workshops on oral storytelling and structured exchange of personal narratives.

Room 121

“Writing Center Tutoring and its Place in the Writing Process”

Michael Heiss, Hofstra University  

Data Dash

This Data Dash is a study proposal that examines who uses writing centers and what part of the tutoring experience motivates students to more proactively use writing center tutoring.

“Empowering Nontraditional Students” Susan Edele, Jazmine Lampley, Lindenwood University

Data Dash

One Writing Center’s mission to support graduate students and empower them to do their best writing by validating their voices and supporting their writing needs.

Room 131

“We're Here, We're…Queer? Challenging Language to Define Sexuality and Gender in Writing Centers” Caitlin McLaughlin, Drexel University

Individual Presentation

My research examines language like “queer” and “LGBT” to define students in writing centers. I will identify gaps in the literature through qualitative methods and seek to fill those gaps.

“By A Name, I Know Not What To Call Thee: Preferred Pronouns in Writing Center Report” Justin Hopkins, Franklin and Marshall College

Individual Presentation

Expanding on my MAWCA 2017 presentation, I add new data and analysis to my examination of responses to my Writing Center’s policy to ask tutees for their preferred pronouns.

“Is the Writing Center a Tool of Empowerment or an Instrument of Oppression: Investigating Writing Centers and Identity in Graduate Tutor Training?”

Kerri Rinaldi, Immaculata University

Presentation

This presentation examines how tutor training that investigates the intersection of identity and writing center work can contribute to challenging systemic oppression in academia.

Room 201

“Playing the Game: Interrogating Privilege, Power and Possibility”

Danielle Fruehan, Veronica Garis, Amanda Snook, Penn State University

Round Robin

As an alternative to the Privilege Walk, come play our Privilege Board Game! Players will roll the dice and experience the ways intersectionality, precarity, and privilege shape our opportunities and learning skills.

Room 204

“Call to Action: Taking Activism Beyond the Center”

Andrea Efthymiou, Tyler Thier, Nicholas Rizzuti

Hofstra University

Presentation

Our panel understands engagement as activism within the center and beyond, looking at writing center interactions within our spaces but also across international borders and in increasingly high-stakes writing situations.

Room 208

“Mini-Regional Think Tank (Anyone can do it)”

Margaret Ervin and Julianna Balmer

West Chester University

Roundtable Discussion

The purpose of this presentation, in roundtable format, is to encourage MAWCA members, especially newer members, to take the leap to become a mini-regional host. Attendees will leave the roundtable with resources and a plan for next steps toward a mini-regional.

Room 221

“Human Rights Praxis in the Writing Center: Access and Activism through Social Work Scholarship”

Benjamin Morgan, Marquetta Bond, and Virginia Carr

West Chester University

Presentation

This presentation describes recent social work and writing center initiatives at WCU in Philadelphia, where practice has been challenged and informed by Human Rights principles.

“Racism in the Authority Complex” Daniel Israelsson, George Washington University

Presentation

Through analysis of how race entered into a session’s the balance of authority, I analyze how consultants should consider how aspects of identity can factor into their session’s authority complex.

“Motivation and Mentorship Extending the Reach of Tutoring Among Black Women in the Writing Center” Candace Chambers, independent scholar

Presentation

This session will explore the impact of the laboring between Black women tutors and clients in writing centers in the areas of identity, language discourse, and mentorship.

Room 225

“Student Stories: The Effectiveness of Writing Center Practices” Tanique Philogene and Christian Lopez-Ashby, Loyola University, Maryland
Roundtable Discussion

We wish to explore the narratives of students that attend the Writing Center to ensure the diversity and intersectionalities of our tutees are being addressed in center interactions and practices.

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Session D: 2:10-3:00 Business Hall

Room 101

“Connection, Cooperation, and Collaboration: Building Community in the Writing Center”

Katelyn Snyder, Autumn Paul, Kendal McLaughlin, Meg Mikovits, Moravian College

Panel Presentation

This presentation explores ways that writing center tutors and writing fellows can instill a sense of community among student writers by emphasizing collaboration and encouraging a culture of peer support.

Room 103

“Scribes or Serfs?: Professional Writing Tutors in Theory and Practice”

Sarah Marshall, Lauren-Elise Kadel, Luke Swinson

Thomas Jefferson University - East Falls Campus

Roundtable

We will discuss narratives about professional tutors in our own institutional contexts, and then identify specific practices we might change, narratives we might re-shape, or questions we might further explore.

Room 104A

“Teaching Ariel to Fight off Ursula: Helping Students Reclaim Their Voice”

Willmaria Miranda and Christina Mastroeni, Kean University

Round Robin

The path to helping a student find their voice is a challenging one. Confidence from the beginning steps of the writing process allow the student’s voice to become louder.

Room 104B

“Defining and Embracing Otherness in the Writing Center Environment”

Samantha Lelah, Baillie Dougherty, Morgan Dean, Emily Grenier, Laura Kincaid, Mikaela Langdon, Kwame Sekyere, Rowan University

Roundtable

We discuss and define “Otherness” in the Writing Center environment. We draw from our personal experiences to provide strategies for approaching and discussing otherness during tutoring sessions. How can we work with students to embrace their otherness in their writing and therefore, progress into unique, established writers. We welcome and value your feedback as well!

Room 121

“Mind the Gap: Exploring the Spaces Between Writing, Identity & Culture”

E. Mairin Barney, Lauren Campbell, Jodie Fair, Sharea Harris, University of Baltimore

Panel Presentation

Panel members explore and define what we have identified as a “gap” between  student experiences and university expectations and identify an ethical role for writing centers that validates diverse learners.

Room 131

“Fear Unveiled: Using Jane Tompkins’ Theory to Empower Writing Centers”

Ron DePeter and Margaret Villari. Delaware Valley University

Individual Presentation

Jane Tompkins’ critique of the fear-based “performance model” is applied to writing centers, with reflections and alternatives which unveil fears and contribute to effective, reflective tutoring, teaching, and emotional well-being.

“The Power of Silence and Stillness in Writing Center Conversations”

Elaine MacDougall, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Individual Presentation

Some of the best insights are found during periods of silence and stillness. How can Writing Tutors utilize silence and stillness to create mindful, non-judgemental sessions with their peers?

“Empowering Writers Through Music” Isaiah Jordan-McIntyre, Valley Forge Military College

Presentation

This presentation uses brain-based research and writing tutoring experience to discuss strategies and tools for using music in tutoring sessions.

Room 201

“Intercultural Learning and Campus Activism through Writing Tutoring”

Samuel Santiago, Gio Bradley, Trinity Golden, Penn State, Abington

Roundtable Discussion

How does tutoring writing with international students function as activism which can help desegregate culturally divided student bodies? This roundtable discusses diverse cultural interactions as a benefit of tutoring.

Room 204

“Seeing Tutors in 20/20: A New Vision for Recognizing Tutors as Students”

Emily Baqir and Alexandra Roland, Salisbury University

Roundtable Discussion

We present findings from a survey of our tutors about how supported they feel in the writing center. Then we open the discussion to learn how other centers support tutors.

Room 208

"Empowering Writers Across Linguistic and Cultural Differences"

Kristin Lindgren, Barbara Hall, Deanne Battle, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, Catheline Phan, Haverford College

Roundtable Discussion

This roundtable aims to open a discussion about strategies for communicating the value of linguistic and cultural diversity, affecting institutional change, and negotiating expectations of “correctness.”

Room 221

“Narratives of Writing Center Spaces: A Case Study of Changes to Kutztown University's Writing Center”

Kristina Fennelly, Patricia Pytleski, Heather Flyte, Kutztown University

Panel Presentation

This session will examine the recent administrative changes that prompted the Kutztown University Writing Center's move from its own confined space to a shared space in the university library.

Conference Wrap up: 3:00-3:30  Business Hall

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