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| The participants of the inaugural conference |
HOUGHTON, NY - June 20, 2017 - The Houghton College Writing Center recently hosted its first research conference, bringing participants from colleges and universities throughout Western New York and even from as far as Colorado.
Collegiate writing centers are pivotal to student success, offering technical and creative support that students from all backgrounds need for their writing assignments. While there are national conferences for administrators and staff of these centers, cost often inhibits attendance for smaller institutions. Dr. Laurie Dashnau, professor of English at Houghton, oversees the college’s writing center, and saw an opportunity to fill that gap with a regional conference titled “To Be of Use: The Challenges and Rewards of Writing Center Work.”
Students and staff from Alfred University, Colorado Christian University, Houghton, St. Bonaventure University, Villa Maria College, and Wells College presented research and case studies on topics such as how advertising impacts English as Second Language (ESL) speakers’ perceptions of the center, how to deconstruct barriers that prevent seeking help, best practices, revitalization, expertise-based tools, and more. Dashnau and juniors Emma Carpenter, Carina Martin, Andrew Meyers, and Alyssa Rogan were among the presenters, proactively investigating topics that affect student success.
Dashnau is well versed in the importance of a trained and ready writing center, having developed required writing center theory/practice and research courses that must be taken by the center’s consultants. She notes that the conference was a great opportunity “to get a sense of how writing centers have evolved and continue to evolve relative to campus size, the makeup of the student body, writing center personnel, and both historical and current best practices in composition.”
