Understanding our labor and how to get stakeholders on board.

Well shoot, I wish I had read these before my CCCC’s presentation. 🙂

Peripheral Visions really resonated with me and a topic I was trying to argue at CCCC’s. I made the argument that labor of the writing center is often repeated and doesn’t push forward because we tend to have to go through hoops and we don’t privilege the student experience and student voice (or at least others in closely-related fields don’t want those perspectives).

But, I think McKinney touches on another very important aspect that “others do not understand the complexity of our work and we continue to face untenable positions because of it” and “our collective research agenda is stymied both because scholars are not hired as administrators (or administrators are not paid to be scholars) and because our gaze has more or less kept us, in large part, from substantial theoretical and empirical research on aspects of writing center work beyond tutoring” (65). The work can be stymied because even at the top of the writing center level  (WPAs and WC Directors) aren’t getting the resources and support needed.

I also really liked that McKinney pushed against this idea of the writing center grand narrative because she realizes that some stories are not allowed in that narrative and there are intangibles lost when we tell that narrative. I am interested to see how the rest of the book progresses — so another book on the summer reading list. 🙂 I would like to see how McKinney’s perspective of stories compare to Rousculp’s. So far, she has been pretty honest and raw about the experiences (especially the negative ones) that can arise when we privilege some positions and neglect others. I believe that Rousculp’s perspective would be a great start at sharing with administrators and stakeholders the very real struggles that writing centers have while also giving them a fuller understanding of the labor that goes on in the writing center.

This is just a side note, but I find myself sometimes comparing the main writing center with the athletic writing center that I work at. They are both great centers, and they both do a heck of a lot with the resources they have. But, I think the buy-in is very different. For example (and I hope I’m not ruffling feathers here), but the athletic writing center is really respected by stakeholders. We get the supplies (markers, computers, paper, etc.) that we need, and the workers are recognized for the work we do…even when it can be completely awkward for us. This past semester, the President of the university invited us to his house to thank us for our hard work (this was an invitation for all athletic tutors), but I really struggled with this invitation. On one hand, I was very thankful that our work was being recognized; on the other hand, I was very aware that we were only being recognized because we work with student athletes. The tutors on the main campus who serve the vast majority of the students aren’t being recognized, and they are doing comparable (if not more difficult) work. But at the athletic writing center, we have this buy in with the stakeholders, which I think can be lacking for others. And I keep wondering what can we do to make these experiences more similar? How can we get stakeholders just as on board with general tutoring/mentoring centers on campus? Right now, I don’t have an answer, but this has been something that I have been working through the past few weeks.