“The Writing Center, Beyond the Classroom Space in AUW”
Aziza Roshani
The Writing Center provides academic and professional support to students, faculty, and staff at AUW. Its aim is to enhance the ability of students to write through one-on-one sessions, where the tutors and students work collaboratively through open communication to discover effective writing strategies and approaches to reading and writing that are particularly useful to the individual student. The Echo had the great opportunity of interviewing Chan Lishan, the current Director of the Writing Center and Writing-Residency Fellow at AUW to learn the new initiatives, plans and activities of the Writing Center for the 2018-2019 academic year.
How do you find the experience of the Writing Center Director and can you brief us about your responsibilities?
I’m new! It’s busy and challenging, but enjoyable at the same time. I am working to balance my job, on the one hand, getting the job done at the Writing Center, and on the other hand, nurturing and facilitating the success of my staff at the Writing Center. The two are not unrelated – I believe in developing the capabilities of my staff because I believe that this will ultimately result in more students getting served more adequately at the Writing Center.
What kind of challenges do you deal with?
I would say the rapid expansion of Pathways and Access Academy means that we have a lot more students coming in with a need for English Language Support. To manage this, we have three dedicated English Language Senior Tutors to support students with grammar and basic sentence and paragraph construction. We also rely on students to proactively utilize the resources at the Writing Center, including the Language Lab tablets from a past program.
A second challenge is how to navigate competing demands. We seem to be flooded with requests to provide more services to the staff, faculty, and students of AUW. We have requests for the Writing Center to be a space for students to practice speaking English, for film screenings, for business writing advice to be provided not just to students but also to AUW staff and faculty, and for the Writing Center to evolve into the literary and cultural hub of AUW. However, we are clear that the primary focus of the Writing Center should be to support students in Academic Writing, including the writing of Senior Thesis Projects, and this is how we must steer this ship if we are to meet our goals and objectives.
Can you tell us about the activities and initiatives in the Writing Center for the 2018-2019 academic year?
We offer individual and group consultations to students at the Writing Center and our workshops planned for the fall semester include:
How to Write a Science Paper
MLA Referencing
How to Give a Presentation
Common Grammar Mistakes
Statements of Purpose
Writing Summer Research Reports
Reducing Study Stress
What are your future plans for the writing center?
The immediate plan is to improve the effectiveness of services at the Writing Center in order to support students in becoming better writers. To this end, it is critical to develop the Writing Center staff and to equip them with the resources they need to perform well in their duties and responsibilities.
How can students make the best out of the writing center resources?
Students are encouraged to make an appointment through our WordPress site:
auwwritingcenter.wordpress.com
Importantly, I think students should bear the following points in mind, in order to get the best out of TWC facilities:
- Do not feel that only the Director or Writing Center Fellows can support you in your goals. Please give our student mentors a chance to help you!
- It would be helpful to bring a draft of your work to the session. This can serve as a springboard for discussion.
- Sign up for our workshops and attend our events to acquire and strengthen your skills in writing and studying.
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