Writing center administration: notes of a rotating head.

Scheer, Ron

For some readers, the concept of a rotating head brings to mind a scene from The Exorcist, in which a girl is possessed by the Devil and given to even more bizarre behavior than the average teenager. As an analogue, the academic practice of taking turns as head of a department can have its own unexpected outcomes, although the rotating department head is not typically known for them. Assuming leadership of one's peers for a while provides appreciation for that role and involves a degree of knowledge transfer about how things get done in an institution of higher learning. All of which may be why putting a rotating head in charge of a writing center looks like a commendable idea. Under ideal conditions, it no doubt is. However, to ensure that conditions are indeed ideal, the position would have to meet all of the following criteria:

* The person who holds the position is on a tenure track;

* That person is a rhet/comp or writing center professional;

* The position rotates among a team of 2-3 like-minded and dedicated individuals;

* The writing center director reports to a department head or dean who is a strong writing center advocate; and

* The director is supported by a full-time assistant who can provide operational continuity. Failing to meet any one of these criteria, a rotating head is poorly suited to the job and unlikely to succeed.

TENURE TRACK

An effective writing center director needs to be someone with some authority and credibility in the institution. The low-level position of the writing center in many places means it needs all the influence it can get for a fair share of budget, space, and other resources. Nontenure-track faculty are so far down the pecking order in a typical university that they are easily (and shamefully) ignored.

More to the point, nontenure-track faculty also are by nature temporary. Their career objective is likely to be a tenure-track position, and it's reasonable to expect them to be actively seeking one, most probably elsewhere. When the institution is not making a long-term commitment to them, or offering even the opportunity, they have little incentive to understand and address the long-term objectives of the institution or the writing center's most complex and pressing problems.

At my university, for instance, the writing center serves a large number of second language writers on a campus that has one of the largest populations of international students in the U.S. Building ESL proficiency into the Writing Center staff, and developing services responsive to the needs of these students require considerable effort and setting goals that can't be realized in one or two years. Long-term solutions like this are not consistent with the long-term objectives of nontenure-track instructors, whose intention, understandably, is to keep their bags packed and ready by the door.

In my experience, the brightest and best of nontenure-track writing program faculty leave soonest. A rotating writing center head merely makes a matter of policy what is already a matter of practice--the position itself is a revolving door. More insidiously, if you know you are leaving, there is little incentive to feel any accountability for actions taken or not taken. You will not be around to answer for a failure to address a problem. Anyone who has inherited a mess from the previous incumbent of an administrative position will need no illustrations of how thoroughly even basic responsibilities can be neglected by a now-absent predecessor. Desired initiatives for instance can take a back seat for months while basic day-to-day operations are made to function normally again.

Finally, there is the special case of the writing center that is affiliated with a department with no tenure-track faculty at all, for example a writing program that does not offer a major and functions only as a service department. In this case, the writing center director lacks association with even an academic faculty to acquire leverage or visibility among the institution's decision makers. Ignoring the appeals and best arguments of such a writing center carries no penalties.

RHET/COMP PROFESSIONALS.

An effective writing center director needs to be someone who

* Keeps current with at least that part of the literature most relevant to their own role;

* Participates actively in the discourse (wcenter, publications, conferences); and

* Generates the kind of success on the job that only commitment and informed leadership provide.

The short-term rotating head whose career and reputation depend on research and publications in another area of interest is going to be unprepared to direct a writing center, except in the most superficial and perfunctory way.

Unaware of best practices, writing center theory, and professional resources, such a director will be a stranger in a strange land, expecting outcomes that are counterproductive if not wrong-headed. Meanwhile, there will be little incentive to ascend what is at this point in history a sharply rising learning curve, taking the time to read and absorb the seminal texts, the back issues of WLN and WCJ, or even the daily flood of posts on WCenter.

WRITING CENTER DIRECTOR TEAM

A paramount requirement of writing center management is to provide continuity and consistency from one year to the next--continuity of vision and purpose, consistency of leadership and philosophy. Where the director's position rotates among faculty members, these requirements can be deeply compromised. On the other hand, a team of two or three like-minded individuals can mitigate the drawbacks.

While they remain "in the loop" during their off years, they can assume responsibilities with a knowledge of the long-term objectives, as well as the agreed strategies and tactics for achieving them. Such a team can also seize the opportunity for joint research, drawing on a shared experience and a shared commitment. Put another way, two or three heads are better than one. Unlike committees, which are not well known for decisive action, innovation, or follow-through, a team dedicated to a particular initiative can be much more effective because each member has a professional interest in thinking out of the box and getting things done.

STRONG WRITING CENTER ADVOCATE

This is a requirement for any kind of writing center director, but it's especially critical for the rotating head, who lacks the authority that comes with length of service, knowledge of the job, and seasoned experience. Rotating heads need someone looking out for them and offering advice, if not actually mentoring them in effective management. Zen enthusiasts will applaud the happy innovativeness of the beginner's mind, but the academy has little forgiveness for the inevitable mistakes that come with inexperience, and having blundered, the short-termer has little time to undo the damage. Ideally, this advocate can support a writing center director's efforts across the institution, not just within a single department. A dean, in possession of the big picture, can help more than the department head, whose perspective may be limited. Also, this advocate needs to actually understand writing center work. An advocate will understand, for instance, that once they are set up, writing centers do not run themselves. Just in the area of quality control, a director is responsible for

* Recruitment and on-the-job training of reliable, skilled staff

* Ongoing assessment of consultants' performance

* Improvement of faculty communications and responsiveness to faculty requests

* Responsiveness to shifts in student populations

* Outreach to other service departments and new faculty

* Effectively incorporating new technologies

* Maintaining professional standards

* Partnering with other writing-related campus initiatives

* Continuing improvement of writing center materials and services

An advocate will understand all this, respect the director's professional judgment, and grant enough independence to exercise it. This is expecting a lot. The rotating head needs every bit of it.

As backup, a rotating head can also benefit from the active support of a strong faculty advisory board. A group of tenured faculty members who value writing as a key component of student-centered learning can do much to provide credibility, leverage, and continuity. They can represent the interests of the writing center in faculty governance and cross-disciplinary committees. More important, they can speak for the writing center when the administration is making decision affecting its resources.

SUPPORT FROM AN ASSISTANT

Running a writing center can easily be a full-time job. A faculty member is unlikely to get as much as one-half release time. The center obviously needs someone, an assistant, who can provide daytoday operational continuity. This person handles scheduling and traffic, acts as an office manager, monitors the tutorial staff, expedites processing of new hires and submission of time sheets, and on and on.

For the rotating head, an even more crucial responsibility is providing continuity from one incumbent to the next. At my institution, where I was the fifth writing center director in six years, the Program Assistant had clearly kept the Center going, preserving not just the policies and procedures, but the culture and the lore that represented our quality of service, our commitment, and our philosophy. In my first weeks and months there, he also taught me most of what I needed to know to do my job, including the kind of judgment needed to hire consultants who would be dependable, professional, and congenial with the students who come to us. When I had new ideas, I ran them by him, because I knew he could instantly determine both the immediate impact and the predictable ripple effects. Simply put, I would have been lost without him. And so will the next rotating head, if my assistant moves on.

FADE TO BLACK

Without all these factors in place, the mission and purpose of the writing center are compromised by the rotating head. At best it can carry on year after year, all the time falling behind as the profession continues to move forward, and eventually failing to meet the needs of a changing institution, a changing student population, new technologies, and a changing curriculum.

How, for instance, does a writing center respond to the online environment, where tutors review student writing by e-mail and chat? It's being done elsewhere, but it's not likely to happen any time soon where the writing center has changed little in the last decade. How does a writing center respond to the increasing use of visual rhetoric in production of multimedia materials? Writing centers are beginning to consider that one, but chiefly where a seasoned, dedicated director has had the time and experience to take it on as a challenge. And what about those international students looking to the writing center for help? They may find themselves on hold, as well. Why? The incoming rotating head has his or her hands full for the first twelve months just learning the job. And that year will have been lost.

A year--let me back up and unpack those two words. When I learned that the Writing Center position I held was to be converted into a two-year-maximum rotating head--that I myself had become a rotating head--I felt the Writing Center's future fade to black.

The plans I had for outreach and promoting the Center (based on two marketing studies by a colleague's current business communications class), the plans for introducing conversation groups for international students, the plans for proofreading workshops, the plans for overhauling our existing workshop materials and handouts and orientation for new hires, all the plans for improving the Writing Center and the plans for research dissolved like a mirage. Put another way, the Writing Center had been robbed of the future I had envisioned for it.

Yes, the Web site I created will probably live after me, and the new scheduling software I got approval for might eventually be implemented and put to use. The redesign of promotional materials (like the quick and dirty flyer, "Write On!" for last summer's freshman orientations) might continue in print.

But after learning the job myself in the first year (I can now confidently recruit and hire new tutors, for example), getting current with the literature, stirring up enough interest to get release time for a second-language expert in another agency on campus to help out at the Writing Center, getting involved with the local chapter of the IWCA, and making the aforementioned plans, the real accomplishments still lay ahead--in that third year. Instead, it will be someone else's turn to start over at square one.

WORST CASE

Based on my experience, I conclude the rotating head is a guarantee of entropy. It keeps the writing center in a perpetual state of business as usual. There are plenty of reasons why this is not good, and worst-case scenarios suggest themselves. Here's one of them. Where the writing center director is appointed by and reports to the head of a writing program that functions as a service department (no major, no tenure-track faculty, the department head a staff position, allowing its incumbent to serve in office indefinitely), a rotating head is at a particular disadvantage. Led by an appointee of the writing program, the writing center is limited by the priorities of the program's director.

Writing program directors, for instance, who do not teach and do not research or publish as scholars cannot keep up with the field, and they perpetuate a limited and increasingly outdated pedagogy. Without a continually refreshed professional perspective, they lack the leadership that makes a strong, dedicated, and effective writing faculty. While writing center work continues to evolve as an independent field, their understanding of its role and function remains uninformed, unchanged, and--like the writing program--frozen in time. In such circumstances the rotating head appointed to direct the writing center will likely be someone who won't challenge the status quo with new ideas or a different set of priorities. If by chance that happens, they can be quickly replaced with another appointee. Nothing changes, and there are losers all around.

A big loser is the writing program itself. The writing center is in a position to provide invaluable feedback on how effectively writing is being taught. Consultants see how students struggle with poorly conceived, vague, and confusing essay assignments. And more painfully, they see the assignments grounded so inescapably in American culture (politics, gender, race, entertainment, advertising) that they utterly mystify international students. Consultants see the fallout from ill-considered comments made on papers by instructors, questionable grading, and bitter conflicts of differing student-teacher values. The writing program that brooks no criticism will not welcome the evidence of its actual performance--which walks daily through the door of the writing center--and thus it misses opportunities to improve itself.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

So is a rotating head ever a good idea? Yes, it can be, under the right conditions, as already spelled out here. Otherwise, definitely not. The most damaging impact is the loss of continuity, and with that the near impossibility of growth and responsiveness to new challenges.

Meanwhile, one hopes that the writing center will hold, representing a place of learning on campus whose mission is to help students discover writing as learning, and in this role serve the mission of the entire university. In its informality, the absence of grading, and any number of other factors peculiar to writing centers, it does the job often more effectively than the writing program and its instructors--no matter how dedicated they almost invariably are.

The ah-ha! light bulbs flashing on in writing center conferences find expression in the comments recorded by students on exit surveys, and reading those continues to illuminate my days. The two years I will have spent in the Writing Center, despite their brevity, will remain the two most rewarding years I have spent in the academy. When I look at it that way, becoming a rotating head has in no way been a plot turn in a horror movie. It's only when I think of what might have been that I lament the absence of a happy ending.

Ron Scheer

University of Southern California