The writing center has reduced conference requirements, but does that really mean more people will use it as a resource?
Over the years, the writing center has been shoved into WC's cobwebbed corner. Now it is an obscure office that mostly only freshmen in CNW classes seek out of necessity.
Ideally, the writing center should be a place where minds mingle and ideas are born. This is the side of the center that most people never get to see. Instead, they see it as a backup to the grammar check option on their computers.
The writing center is not a one-stop, quick-fix shop for those who have trouble with spelling and grammar. It is upsetting that many members of the academic community at WC do not see this.
Misunderstandings about the writing center do not stem from the CNW program, of which most of the center's clients are a part. It stems, instead from the academia as a whole's unwillingness to accept the philosophy behind the writing center.
This may have something to do with the fact that the writing center advocates collaboration. Many disciplines in the liberal arts, especially those most dependent on writing, frown upon significant collaboration.
However, it could also have something to do with the fact that even many professors at WC do not understand the principles the writing center upholds.
Perhaps the faculty should take more advantage of the opportunities with which the writing center provides them to learn about what actually happens at a conference and why it is so integral to the process of writing.
A faculty interest could help to polish the hidden gem that is the writing center and make it a more prevalent facet of academic life at WC.
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