The
North
Texas Writing Centers Association
Newsletter
Fall 2005/Issue
2
August 15, 2005
Alice
Newsome, Editor
A
Message From the President
This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of the
founding of the North Texas Writing Centers Association.
Begun in 1990 by universities and colleges in the Dallas-Fort Worth
area, the NTWCA has in many ways thrived. We have, after all,
consistently provided opportunities to meet other writing center
professionals and exchange ideas. We have offered tutor-training
conferences during the fall semesters and theme-based programs during
spring semesters. In the process, a number of our members
have become good friends, offering each other support (and sometimes
jobs) when necessary. Most recently, we have begun to use
annual dues to invite paid speakers to address our membership about
issues of interest to writing center directors and
consultants. We are also offering the Mary Nell Kivikko
Excellence in Scholarship Award, a $150 prize, in honor of one of our
founding members (please see the contest rules included in this
newsletter).
To address this year’s
tutor-training conference, we have invited Kevin Davis, professor and
director of the writing center at East Central University in Ada,
Oklahoma. Dr. Davis, a widely published composition scholar and
winner of the 2001 Ron Maxwell Award from the National Conference on
Peer Tutoring in Writing, will give a talk titled
“The Writing
Center as Last Best Place: A Few Random Thoughts on Outrunning
Bears, Mission Statements, and Affective Tutoring.” In
spring 2006, we will meet at the beautiful Granbury campus of Tarleton
State University, where the program will include a presentation by the
2006 winner of the Kivikko award. So we will continue our
long tradition of gathering together to meet and exchange ideas.
In the past few years,
attendance at our meetings has been high, ranging from about twenty to
fifty, depending on the event. By contrast, formal
membership—as reflected in paid individual and institutional dues—has
fallen off sharply. Treasurer Vera Ornelas reported to the
executive board earlier this summer that only four institutions and two
individuals paid dues in 2004. I personally found this fact
surprising and discouraging. If our association is to continue to
thrive, or even survive, we need to do better. We are
asking members to be sure to pay this year’s dues at or before our fall
meeting, which will take place September 23 at the Frisco campus of
Collin County Community College. After the meeting, our
membership chair, Billie Hara, will be revising the 2005 membership
directory to include only the names and contact information of
individuals and institutions that have paid their 2005
dues. As always, the NTWCA welcomes participation by
writing center professionals and peer consultants from any institution
of learning in the North Texas region. We’re a helpful,
friendly group, and we’d like to get acquainted with all our colleagues
in the region. Please join us.
Steve Sherwood
President
North Texas
Writing Centers Association
North Texas
Writing Centers Association
Fall 2005 Mini-Conference
Places
in the Center: Tutoring On-Site and Online
Hosted by
Collin County Community College
Preston Ridge
9700 Wade Boulevard
Frisco, Texas
September 23, 2005
Program Schedule
11:30-12:00
Arrival and Registration
CCCC Preston Ridge Event Center, Room LC 104
12:00-12:30
Lunch
12:30-1:00
Opening Remarks and Business Meeting
Steve Sherwood, Director of the William L. Adams Center
for Writing, Texas Christian University
1:00-1:50
“The Writing Center as Last Best Place:
A Few Random Thoughts on Outrunning Bears,
Mission Statements, and
Affective Tutoring”
Kevin Davis, Director of the Writing Center, East Central University
1:50-2:00
Break
2:00:2:30
"Writing Consultation: Making the Move from On-Site to Online"
Peggy Vera, Director of the Online Writing
Lab, Collin County Community College Spring Creek Campus
2:30-3:00
Roundtable Discussion
3:00-3:30
Tour of the Preston Ridge Campus Writing
Center
Campus Map:
http://www.PRCMap4.11.05Lg.jpg
A map is included in this newsletter.
Parking Information:
Parking is free with no permits or
designated parking.
Parking should be available
close to the Event Center (see map).
Lunch:
Lunch will be provided by CCCC-Preston
Ridge at no cost to attendees.
Lunch includes a
selection of salads and drinks.
Email Cheryl Carithers by Tuesday,
September 20 to confirm your attendance and to allow for an accurate
lunch count for our host school. (c.carithers@tcu.edu)
About Our Presenters
“The Writing Center as Last Best Place:
A Few Random Thoughts on Outrunning
Bears,
Mission Statements, and Affective
Tutoring”
(musings by Kevin Davis)
During a recent
hiking trip to Montana (which bills itself as The Last Best Place), I
spent a lot of miles reflecting on my writing center experience.
Recently, after 23 years of existence, the ECU Writing Center was asked
to write a Mission Statement, a process which lead me to all manner of
contemplation on what the administration thought the WC should be, on
what we really are, and on what I hope we might become. This
meditation lead, in turn, to a realization of how my tutor training
class has morphed over the years, moving gradually from cognitive to
affective in nature. Somehow, during those miles of hiking, my
writing center reflections began to connect with stories of
Montana. Eventually, everything converges in the writing center,
our own last best place.
Information about Dr. Davis
Kevin Davis, who
received his Ph.D. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in rhetoric
and composition, got his start in writing centers at Flathead Valley
community College in Kalispell, Montana, before becoming the director
of the writing center at East Central University, where he also teaches
composition, composition theory, and philosophy. A former board
member of the National Writing Centers Association, Dr. Davis has
published articles about teaching and tutoring in a number of academic
journals and books. He is the 2001 Ron Maxwell Award from the
National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing for “distinguished
service in promotion collaborative learning.” And he is a
three-time recipient of the ECU Teaching Excellence Award. In his
leisure time, Dr. Davis is an avid hiker, bicyclist, baseball fan,
zymurgist (brewer), and photographer.
"Writing Consultation: Making the Move
from On-Site to Online"
Peggy Vera
Peggy Vera received
her Bachelor of Arts in British and American Literature and Master of
Arts in Literature from the University of Texas El Paso. She is
married with three children and has lived in the Dallas area for eight
years. Ms. Vera began as an on-site writing center consultant at
Collin County Community College in the fall of 1998. She also teaches
Composition and Rhetoric and Technical Writing at CCCCD.
In the fall of 2004, Ms. Vera became
the director of the Online Writing Lab.
Announcing the 2006 Mary Nell Kivikko
Excellence in Scholarship Award
Sponsored by the North Texas Writing
Centers Association
The North Texas Writing Centers Association is now
accepting entries for the 2006 Mary Nell Kivikko Excellence in
Scholarship Award. The award is open to all writing center professional
staff, graduate tutors, and undergraduate peer tutors in the South
Central Writing Center Association region (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas,
and Louisiana). Those eligible must have a paper in the subject area of
writing center theory and practice accepted for presentation to a
professional conference during the 2005-2006 academic year.
The paper based on
the winning proposal will be presented at the NTWCA Spring Conference
to be held April 7, 2006, at the Langdon Center in Granbury, Texas. The
winner will receive a $150 honorarium upon presentation of the paper.
The 250-word
abstract of the entry should include a title and the name and contact
information of the presenter. Please submit entries to Dave Kuhne
(d.kuhne@tcu.edu), Contest Coordinator, by January 27, 2006. Electronic
submissions only please.
News from the Region
The William L. Adams Center for
Writing at Texas Christian University has hired two new full-time staff
members, Cynthia Shearer and Matthew Levy. Both Shearer and Levy
will teach three courses each semester for the TCU English Department
and help students, staff, and faculty with various writing projects at
the Center for Writing.
Ms. Shearer holds an M.A. in English from the
University of Mississippi and is the author of two full-length works of
fiction, The Worder Book of the Air (Pantheon/Vintage, 1996) and The
Celestial Jukebox (Shoemaker & Hoard/Avalon, 2005). Her work
has appeared in such publications as Tri-Quarterly, The Missouri
Review, The Quarterly, The Oxford American, The Hungry Mind Review (now
Ruminator), and Speakeasy. Awards for her short fiction include
Honorable Mention in Best American Short Stories and inclusion in
various anthologies such as Beyond O’Connor (University of Georgia
Press, 2003) and The Best of Oxford American. Her first novel won the
1996 prize for fiction from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and
Letters. In October of 2005, her Speakeasy essay, based on her
six years of experience as the curator of the Williams Faulkner Home in
Rowan Oak, will appear in the thirtieth anniversary issue of the
Pushcart Prize Anthology.
Matt Levy earned his doctorate in Rhetoric from the
University of Texas at Arlington in 2005 with a dissertation entitled
“Comp and Circumstance: Cynicism and the Rhetorical Situation of
College Composition.” He graduated with honors from Guilford
College in Greensboro, N.C., and attended high school at the N.C.
School of Science and Mathematics. Matt has an article
forthcoming in JAC and is an active online publisher: Editor of
rhetcomp.com, Managing Editor of Fast Capitalism, Editorial Assistant
of American Canons, Associate Editor of Audio for Pre/Text
Electra(Lite), and an Editorial Board member of Enculturation.
Both Shearer and Levy plan
to get involved in NTWCA activities, so please welcome them to the
organization.
Invitation
to Join the North Texas Writing Centers Association
The North Texas Writing Centers Association serves
writing centers of the region as a clearinghouse for exchanging
information, as a forum for discussing important writing center issues,
and as a means of promoting the professional status of writing center
personnel.
Membership in the NTWCA includes directors and staff
of writing centers and persons interested in writing centers.
Membership can be either institutional ($50) or individual ($10).
Institutional memberships include writing center staff and tutors at
the institution. Membership fees are due on or before September
23, 2005.
Name:____________________________________________
Individual Membership:________ or Institutional
Membership:________
Email Address:________________________________
Phone Number:_______________________________
Institutional Address:__________________________
Please indicate your profile:
___I am a Writing Center Director.
___I am a Writing Center Staff Member (faculty consultant, graduate
tutor, or undergraduate peer
tutor).
___I am interested in Writing Centers (past director, faculty member,
student …).
___Other:_______________________________________________________________
Send Dues to : Vera Ornelas
TCC-NW Learning Center
4801 Marine Creek Parkway
Fort Worth, TX 76179
CONSTITUTION OF THE NORTH TEXAS
WRITING CENTERS ASSOCIATION
(Revised Spring 2004)
I. The North Texas Writing Centers Association serves
writing centers of the region as a clearinghouse for exchanging
information, as a forum for discussing important writing center issues,
and as a means of promoting the professional status of writing center
personnel.
II. Membership in the NTWCA includes directors and
staff of writing centers and persons interested in writing
centers. Membership can be either institutional ($50) or
individual ($10). Institutional memberships include writing
center staff and tutors at the institution.
III. NTWCA assesses dues annually at the fall
meeting. Memberships run from September through August.
Monies collected are used for communication, publication, and
conference expenses.
IV. The right to vote and to hold office extends to
all individual and institutional members.
V. The following elected officers serve a two-year
term and may be elected for a second two-year term:
A. President: The president chairs all meetings and
facilitates the operations of the association.
B. Vice-President: The vice-president functions
as program chair and assumes the duties of the president in the
president’s absence.
C. Newsletter Editor: The newsletter editor gathers
information, edits articles, publishes the newsletter, and handles
mailings.
D. Secretary: The secretary takes minutes at meetings
and handles correspondence.
E. Treasurer: The treasurer collects dues, records
memberships, and reports finances and memberships at meetings.
F. Immediate Past President: The immediate past
president serves as an advisor and assists other officers in
discharging their duties.
VI. The president appoints the following officers for
two-year terms:
A. Membership Chair: The membership chair
promotes involvement by serving as NTWCA’s outreach liaison, contacting
potential members at colleges, universities, and secondary schools in
the area.
B. Web Spinner: The web spinner maintains the
NTWCA website page.
C. Archivist: The archivist serves as custodian of
the organization’s records.
VII. The Executive Board, consisting of the six
elected officers and three appointees, meets at least twice per
calendar year to plan meetings and conferences. When officers and
appointees are selected at the spring meeting, they immediately assume
their duties and plan the schedule of events for the following year.
VIII. If an officer resigns, the Executive Board will
appoint an interim officer to serve out the officer’s term.
If the resigning officer’s term has more than one year remaining, the
association will elect a new officer at the next regular meeting to
serve out the remainder of the term.
IX. The NTWCA sponsors at least two meetings per
calendar year, including a mini-conference.
X. This constitution may be amended or replaced by a
majority vote of the executive board and membership at any business
meeting.