Bentley Writing Resource Center

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The Bentley Writing Resource Center is located in the Baker Library at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. The Writing Center (WC for short) is spearheaded by senior faculty member Larry Weinstein, the director of expository writing at Bentley. Tutors are fellow undergraduate students at the university who have shown strong writing and interpersonal skills. As Bentley emphasizes writing and communication skills to all its students, the Writing Center offers an opportunity to work and enhance written pieces one-on-one with a trained tutor. The center is offered to all levels of writers in all academic concentrations, including undergraduate, part-time and graduate students. The Writing Center can be used to help students in all the phases of the writing process. Whether they require support in creating an outline, thesis statement, working through a rough draft, or simply improving grammar and punctuation, the Writing Center has tutors who know how to help. The Writing Center is also free to all current Bentley students, and is one of many academic resources on campus.

Contents 1 Philosophy 2 Training 3 Hiring Tutors 4 Recent Improvements

[edit] Philosophy

As a general philosophy of the writing center, tutors very rarely “edit” a writer’s work through conventional methods. Unlike peer-edits in class, the writing center stresses developing autonomy for writers. Tutors work with writers in a procedure developed by Larry Weinstein to stress individual learning. Writers will generally be asked to lead conferences and use tutors only as guides when needed. The writing center stresses a “wait and see” approach to help writers gain confidence in their own abilities by allowing them to make decisions about their own papers. Most commonly, stylistic choices like thesis placement, conclusion paragraphs, and logical statements are left up to the writers rather than having a foreign writing style forced upon them. Common criticisms of the Writing Center argue that the tutors become too passive in their approach. In times when writers need factual assistance (grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.) tutors are still careful about how to help. In the fall 2007 semester, in an effort to correct the problem, Weinstein has made it explicit to tutors that some tutor-intervention is warranted and necessary. It remains to be seen whether new users of the writing center have appreciated this new change, but as of late September students seem content with the writing center’s performance in the new year.

[edit] Training

Tutors are trained extensively before they begin working with students at the Writing Center. Hours of training developed by Larry Weinstein as well as tape recordings of conferences are compulsory for all tutors. Although many campus employment opportunities are given priority to students with work-study packages in their financial aid awards, the Writing Center is one of the select few campus jobs that do not follow such a procedure. Because of the necessity to have able writers tutoring, Weinstein has a rigorous hiring process. No student may apply for the job without first being recommended by a professor. Applicants need to submit a written piece along with a resume. Only after reviewing the application with the submitted writing sample, does Weinstein make a decision on offering an interview. Before the interview, prospective tutors are asked to complete a lengthy workbook of interview questions and mock tutor conferences. The interview is typically conducted by Larry Weinstein and members of the current staff. Applicants generally answer a few questions about their experience and then engage in role play. Often thought of as the most difficult part of the hiring process, the hiring committee decides if applicants are capable of following the Writing Center’s philosophy on peer tutoring through the role plays.

[edit] Hiring Tutors

As is expected of the student staff, hiring often occurs in waves. Often, student tutors will elect to return to the Writing Center for employment between semesters and years. Currently, there are only two seniors, so the hiring process will be more extensive and selective than ever. Although Weinstein looks to hire all writers of any different grade level, the bulk of the new hires are juniors and sophomores. After two years of service, those hired as juniors have graduated and consequently there are more spots to fill. As of Fall 2007, there were 13 tutors; of the 13, 8 were new hires.

[edit] Recent Improvements

Bentley is a very technology-oriented university. According to peer-review websites such as www.campusdirt.com, Bentley is often voted in the top 3 for most “wired” colleges in America. To keep up with the technological advances of the rest of the campus, the Writing Center has developed two new experimental programs: online appointment scheduling and an e-mail reminder service. The online appointment scheduling is a website application through the Bentley website that allows for students to reserve times with tutors. The benefit of this application is twofold. First, students may book appointments at their own leisure at any time, even while the Writing Center is closed. Second, the only other alternatives for making appointments were walking in and/or calling the Center, usually interrupting a tutor while in conference. With the new online appointment scheduling mechanism, reservations are easier than ever. The second new technology being tested at the Writing Center is an e-mail reminder service. At the beginning of the semester, Larry Weinstein contacted members of faculty and staff to ask for paper due dates for the term. Approximately 40 courses responded and over 150 due dates were recorded into the Writing Center due-dates log. Through a system developed by Writing Center's IT administrator and Junior Mark Zurlo, an e-mail reminder of paper due dates is sent to relevant students ten days prior to deadlines. This function has generated more consideration for the use of the Writing Center early in the writing process rather than waiting for the last minute.