Applying Accreditation Standards to Help Define A Writing Center’s Programming and Its On-Campus Relationships

Crystal Bickford, Ph.D.Southern New Hampshire University

Learning Assistance Association of New EnglandAnnual ConferenceOctober 28, 2011

Accreditation Agencies

• New England Schools & Colleges (NEASC)• Middle States Association of Colleges &

Schools (MSACS)• Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

(SACS)

Benefits of Aligning Standards

• Align with administrative purposes• Build administrative relationships• Help programming efforts• Improve student initiatives• Increase center support• Recognize varying populations– Traditional day students– Non-traditional evening students– On-line students

Marginalization vs. Autonomy

• Research of Marginalization– Carino, 1995– Harris, 1992– Kinkead, 1996

Working Towards Collaboration

• Lunsford, 1991, “Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center”

– Collaboration can foster problem finding and problem solving, participating in interdisciplinary thinking, having a “deeper understanding of others,” promoting excellence, and advancing active learning.

• For us: the key word was relationships

Fostering Relationships

– By encouraging writing center directors to participate in this process, writing centers may gain the ability to develop autonomy and control over their own programming…

• Staffing• Budgeting• Site limitations• Types of programming

– Center creates its own identity as a result of broadening its internal relationships

Our Writing Center

• School population: 1,100

• Center’s individual sessions: 1,000 annually

• Center’s contacts: 3,500 annually

• As numbers , so did– Visibility– Credibility– Financial stability

Role of Accreditation ProcessStep 1: Self-Examination

• Review accomplishments to date & existing relationships

– Usage statistics– Programming attendance (other than 1-1 sessions)– Staffing– Faculty inquiries– Narratives of successful students– Overall growth

Role of Accreditation ProcessStep 2: Peer Review

• Director should work with faculty & administration in order to provide information for the written report

• Share documents on a common portal• Write your own section but review others to

make sure that small details aren’t lost in the translation

Role of Accreditation ProcessStep 3: Accreditation Site Visit

• Discuss both strengths & weaknesses• Discuss a “wish list”• Explain how the center can tie into the

curriculum

Role of Accreditation ProcessStep 4: Respond to NEASC’s Report

Administration

Center

NEASC

Determining Success

To document and make visible what the center does!

Role of Accreditation ProcessStep 5: Implementation

Using these conversations…start planning and implementing.

Boquet & Lerner (2008)

• “It will take all of us who are invested in literacy education, in all of our settings, to maximize the potential of these exciting new opportunities. Our field can no longer afford, if it ever could, to have forged a separate peace between classroom and non-classroom teaching. There is no separate but equal” (p. 186).

NEASC Report Results

• Increase office relationships• Increase writing presence• Decrease separated populations (on-line,

traditional, non-traditional, etc.)

Mission Statement

• Gives each department a direction so that they look for ways to compliment one another while meeting their own objectives

• Common institutional bond

NEASC Standards

• Standard 4.1– “The institution’s programs are consistent with

and serve to fulfill its mission and purposes (NEASC, 2005, p. 7).

• Standard 5.1– “Faculty categories…are clearly defined by the

institution as is the role of each category in fulfilling the institution’s mission and purposes” (p. 14).

Mission Statement = Office of the President

• Engages internal constituents– Faculty– Staff– Administrative offices

• Engages external constituents– Board of Trustees– Alumni Association– Families of students

Office of the President & Mission Statement: Strategies

• Consistent school-wide e-mails from the center

• Weekly e-mails from the dean’s office• Informal end-of-semester faculty meetings at

the President’s house• Short articles in the school’s newspaper• Center wrote dovetailing mission statement

Office of the President & Mission Statement: Outcomes

• Capitalized on “welcoming environment” where students “learn and grow”– Consultant for furniture layout and design– Maximized technology

• Increased budget• Increased control of the budget

Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean

• Representative at President’s Council & immediate supervisor of director– Approves…• new program ideas• funding

– Publically supports new initiatives– Focuses on collaboration– Acts as faculty liaison

V.P. & Dean

• Standard 4.3– “Each educational program demonstrates

coherence through its goals, structure, and content; policies and procedures for admission and retention; instructional methods and procedures; and the nature, quality, and extend of student learning and achievement” (p. 7)

V.P. & Dean: Strategies

• Designed and implemented a Writing Consultants Program

• Increased tutor professional development at conferences (including faculty/student presentations)

• Increased in-class workshops, curriculum-based tutoring, review sessions, independent workshops, etc.

V.P. & Dean Outcomes

• Increased funding– 7.5% budget increase is in place that corresponds

with the school’s increasing enrollments• Increased/combined resources with other

offices– Writing tutors help literary magazine with

marketing, editing, & design– Office help works in the center to aid in

conferences or external committee work (NEPTA, LAANE)

The Office of the Chief Enrollment Officer

• Issues linked to recruitment & retention• Standard 6.7– “The institution systematically identifies the

characteristics and learning needs of its student population and then makes provision for responding to them” (p. 18).

• Standard 6.8– “In all cases, the institution provides academic

support services appropriate to the student body…and provides available and responsive information resources and services” (p. 18).

Enrollment Officer Strategies

• Center educates admissions officers and ambassadors about the center’s services

• Shared staffing – crossover between “student ambassador” and “student tutor”

Enrollment Officer Outcomes

• Budget for academic preparation workshops (initiated by the tutors)– Workshops later expanded into other areas of the

college• Budget for an “Academic Preparation Tutor”

Office of the Chief Student Affairs

• Responsible for student activities• Standard 6.12– “As appropriate, the institution supports opportunities

for student leadership and participation in campus organization and governance” (p. 18).

• Justifies tutors as student leaders• Encourages alignment of the center as a student-

organized, student-developed, and student-focused entity

Student Affairs Strategies

• Giving tutors authority through…– Meetings– Suggestion boxes– E-mail communication “windows”– Contests (posters, logos, etc.)

• Curriculum-based tutoring (& writing consultants)• Tutor-led workshops• Teaching Assistants (in first-year transition class)• Classes conducted in the Center• Tutors visit classes

Student Affairs Outcomes

• Increased professional status for tutors (resumes, etc.)

• Increased communication among transition course instructors, career services

Graduate and Professional Studies (GPS)

• A student is a student is a student…• Standards 6.7 and 6.8– Addresses the need to “identify the characteristics

and learning needs of its student population and then …[make]…provision for responding to them […and] in all cases, the institution provides academic support services appropriate to the student body” (p. 18)

GPS Strategies

• Implemented an on-line tutoring program• Implemented an on-campus testing center

GPS Outcomes

• Addition of an assistant director• Addition of additional space• Addition of funding to oversee additional

summer hours for the on-line tutoring

Ultimate Question

How do we create and define a writing center that holds institutional influence?

• Relationships• Awareness• Innovators• Balancing autonomy and collaboration