Wittenberg University has a long history of developing its students' writing abilities for both the classroom and the workplace, dating back to the 19th century, when Isaac Funk, class of 1860, and Adam Wagnalls, class of 1866, collaborated on a series of best-selling dictionaries and encyclopedias. Ever since this historic collaboration, Wittenberg has been at the forefront of writing innovation.
At the center of much of the writing done at Wittenberg is the university's bustling Writing Center. Located on the first floor of Hollenbeck Hall, the Writing Center is no stranger to most Wittenberg students, some of whom consider it a home away home. In the Writing Center, undergraduate writing advisors work one on one with fellow students to provide support for any writing project, at any stage of the writing process. The main goal for the advisors is to serve as interested, engaged readers for others' work.
"I am not a proofreading program that spits out corrections," said Writing Center Advisor Tyler Hall, class of 2012 from Hamilton, Ohio. "My job is two people, flesh and bone, sitting down sharing meaning, experience, questions, doubts and progressing through a piece not just to make a higher quality paper but a more confident and assured student."
Students who make use of the Writing Center's services appreciate the opportunity to talk with their peers about writing projects. "I've always been very pleased with my sessions at the Writing Center," wrote one student. "I've always found the advisors to be helpful. I love that they take interest in what I've been writing and will do their best to help me get the piece of writing where I would like it to be."
The personal touch is reflected in one of the Writing Center's programs, the Writing Fellows, which is designed to help first-year students in their required English 101 and WittSem classes. A Writing Center advisor, appointed to a specific class for the entire semester, works with students on their papers. The students have a chance to get to know the advisor, and the advisor has a chance to know the students and their writing process.
The advisors in the Writing Center also work with student writing by overseeing the well-known campus literary magazine Spectrum, which features the best non-fiction pieces written by Wittenberg students. Edited during the 2010-11 school year by Writing Center Advisor Laura McLaughlin, class of 2011 from Cincinnati, Ohio, Spectrum gives all Wittenberg students a chance to have their work published and celebrated, and it allows Writing Center staff members to discover all the work that goes into producing a journal – from soliciting manuscripts to making selections to designing the layout.
In addition to their work in the Writing Center, many advisors have represented the university at conferences throughout the United States, not only by attending, but also by making presentations. Last year, McLaughlin traveled to Baltimore, Md., for the National Peer Tutoring Conference, where she gave a presentation titled "Foucault Visits the Wittenberg Writing Center: (Mis)perceptions from the Past in Present Contexts."
McLaughlin also was among writing center advisors who made presentations at the East Center Writing Centers Association conference in Kalamazoo, Mich., in March 2011. Hall, Elizabeth Hastings, class of 2013 from Dayton, Ohio, Elizabeth Keri, class of 2012 from Cincinnati, Ohio, Colin Payton, class of 2013 from Springfield, Ohio, Rebecca Price, class of 2013 from Strongsville, Ohio, Catherine Stipe, class of 2012 from Lorain, Ohio, Eric Werner, class of 2013 from Cincinnati, Ohio, Devoni Murphy, class of 2013 from Lewis Center, Ohio, and Laura Kay, class of 2012 from Cleveland, Ohio, also participated.
In 2010, Kay even produced a Sherlock Holmes-inspired movie for the Writing Center, with the help of the university's acclaimed Department of Theatre and Dance.
"Luckily, I had a couple of friends from the theatre department who were eager to help, and (Technical Assistant for Theatre and Dance) Debbie Henderson was nice enough to let us borrow some period costumes," Kay said. "Overall, the Writing Center movie turned out to be quite the endeavor, and I am quite pleased with the result."
The movie was recently featured on the website for the International Writing Centers Association, and it can be viewed on Wittenberg's website at: http://www5.wittenberg.edu/administration/writingcenter/movie.html.
Advisors are quick to point out that working in the Writing Center is not just a college job. It offers an opportunity to learn and grow, as Murphy, who is assembling an afterschool writing program for nearby Greenon High School, has discovered.
"I want to be an English teacher, so I wanted to take advantage of working with high school writers," Murphy said. "Also, working with a teacher is great because I can discuss with her how certain things should be explained and how she should teach them."
Being part of the Writing Center is something that will stay with the advisors long after they graduate, as Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, class of 2000, can attest.
"The Center taught me to take the skill of writing out of the subconscious part of my brain, and instead let it hang out in the conscious part – the part I had to be willing to show other people, said Hissrich, a Hollywood screenwriter who helped establish Wittenberg's innovative Screenwriting Institute that debuted in 2009. "I use that every day in my line of work."
At Wittenberg, writing has always been important – faculty and students understand the role that clear communication plays in our academic and professional lives. Funk and Wagnalls took that understanding and their love of words and collaborated on projects that helped generations of writers. That collaborative spirit, and that love of words, continues today in the Wittenberg Writing Center, where writers and readers come together to discover what is possible in a piece of writing.
