Concerns about funding, services surround debate to move center
The Portland State Writing Center may be undergoing changes during university restructuring. Currently run through the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, it may be moved under the guidance of the Office of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, which currently oversees groups such as the Women’s Resource Center, student housing and the multicultural center. It also oversees enrollment and admissions.
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Concerns about funding, services surround debate to move center
Drew Martig / Vanguard StaffWrite on PSU students Alissa Nielsen and Elizebett Eslinger look over an essay in the Writing Center.
The Portland State Writing Center may be undergoing changes during university restructuring. Currently run through the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, it may be moved under the guidance of the Office of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, which currently oversees groups such as the Women’s Resource Center, student housing and the multicultural center. It also oversees enrollment and admissions.
Giving the student affairs office jurisdiction over the Writing Center would change its funding so that it wouldn’t be solely funded by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, thus expanding its funding source. The Department of English is concerned that the shift could interrupt some of the services that the center provides. The Writing Center was alerted to these potential changes in early April of this year.
“The original sense was to protect the Writing Center from future cuts,” said CLAS Associate Dean Shelly Chabon. This fiscal year, there was a university-wide budget reduction. All of the colleges and fiscal units were asked to plan for a 5 percent cut.
“Because of the cut the entire college took, there was a reduction to the center,” Chabon said. “Our desire is to make it to a place where it would be protected against that.” Chabon said that the university had spoken with the center to help them resolve and reduce cuts they were going to face this term.
“There was going to be a cut from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, so they identified an other source for the cut so they wouldn’t have to face that reduction,” Chabon said.
If the transition does occur, the changes will take place June 30. Discussions are still underway regarding the center’s fate. On Thursday, May 24, the Educational Policies Committee reviewed the proposal and “deemed the Writing Center to be ‘a significant academic entity’ and that relocating it from the Department of English to Enrollment Management and Student Affairs is a major change,” said Educational Policies Committee Chair Tim Anderson.
Anderson explained that the committee hadn’t “formally reviewed the proposal” and the financial ramifications of the move have yet to be fully analyzed by the PSU Budget Committee. Because the EPC ruled the Writing Center to be its own academic unit, it will now look at how the change of jurisdiction will affect the entire unit. The decision to move the center is one that the faculty senate will have to approve.
Once both the EPC and the budget committee complete their analyses the proposal will be added to faculty senate meeting minutes, which, according to Anderson, could happen as early as next week.
“The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has housed the Writing Center for 20–25 years,” said Assistant Professor of English Michael Clark. “The Writing Center is integrated in the English educational model.”
While the Writing Center may be reorganized to function under Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, Chabon said, “It is our hope that the Department of English will continue its programmatic relationship with the Writing Center.”
The Writing Center is a service provided to students and community members. Writing samples, resumes and school assignments can be brought in to the center for consultation one hour per week. Other services include assistance in brainstorming and planning works of writing and focused analysis of important parts of a work. These services are offered for free. Appointments are available as well as drop-in counseling.
“We help students at any point in the writing process,” DeWeese said. He said staff act as consultants to students. “Because they teach writing courses, they can have a conversation with you about the writing process,” he added.
The Writing Center has the capabilities to help students from all disciplines, DeWeese said. Staff also assist professors in designing writing assignments for students. “We help university studies mentors and faculty when they have questions about teaching writing,” DeWeese said.
Graduate students and English department faculty members assist in providing tutoring services. The graduate student tutors must complete training through a Teaching and Tutoring Writing course in order to volunteer or be employed at the center.
“We have very good standards and practices,” Clark said. “We are concerned an academic unit will no longer be used for tutoring writing and reading.”
In response, Chabon said that she didn’t think any proposed changes would alter the current system in which tutoring is provided by graduate students rather than undergraduate students.
My concern is similar to Prof. Michael Clark’s in the article: Would an entity that is not our gifted English department handle the supervision and programming of a writing center as well as the English Dept?
To have confidence that the quality we now have in our Writing Center will be maintained, it seems to me that the English department would have to remain involved at a high level. Which begs the question of whether the English Dept. should continue to receive some funding for their time and efforts. Which brings us almost back to the system we have now: giving the Liberal Arts College (and English) the money to run it.
I would love it if more of CLAS’s money could be saved for holding more classes. But let us beware of unintended consequences when we make moves like this to react to (hopefully) short-term funding problems.
My concern is similar to Prof. Michael Clark’s in the article: Would an entity that is not our gifted English department handle the supervision and programming of a writing center as well as the English Dept?
To have confidence that the quality we now have in our Writing Center will be maintained, it seems to me that the English department would have to remain involved at a high level. Which begs the question of whether the English Dept. should continue to receive some funding for their time and efforts. Which brings us almost back to the system we have now: giving the Liberal Arts College (and English) the money to run it.
I would love it if more of CLAS’s money could be saved for holding more classes. But let us beware of unintended consequences when we make moves like this to react to (hopefully) short-term funding problems.