MAWCAThe 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