The politics of writing center as location.
AbstractBecause spatial politics are commonplace in the writing center community and because the political implications of space are often insidious, this article argues that writing center scholars need to carry conversations about writing center space from writing center lore and into research and theorizing.
Introduction
About two months into my new job, a colleague at another institution asked me if my college had a writing center. "Well," I stammered, "we had a writing center, but she just went on maternity leave!" In this moment of responding to my colleague's question, I realized what a potent message the physical space and location and, maybe even more importantly, the lack of space for a writing center sends to the campus community about the worth of the center at that particular institution. At my college, there is no space, no room, not even a broom closet labeled "the writing center." Instead, we had a woman I'll call "Sue" who, among her other duties such as coordinating the campus learning center, advising disabled students, and teaching composition classes, tutored students out of her shared office. Since Sue literally embodied the writing center, when she went on maternity leave, our writing center ceased to exist, in other words, because Sue was both the "concept" of our center as well as its "location," when she was no longer physically present, neither was the writing center.
Unfortunately, this situation is not unusual. Indeed, space issues are so endemic to writing center culture that one cannot escape discussions of it at conferences, in professional meetings, on Wcenter (a listserv for writing center professionals), or when meeting fellow writing center directors. Space and location are of such interest to the writing center community that it is common for host institutions of our regional conferences (and sometimes even the host institution of our international conference, International Writing Center Association) to arrange tours of local writing center spaces. These issues about space and location, however, rarely find their way into writing center literature. A compelling explanation for this lack in the scholarly conversation is easy to discern: When you must defend, at every turn, the legitimacy and importance of the work you do--as writing center professionals have had to do ad infinitum--it seems almost petty to complain about how many chairs and desks you have or about the holes in your carpet, especially since having chairs and carpeting is a luxury many writing centers, including my own, do not enjoy.
On the other hand, there may be another, more nuanced, explanation for this (written) silence on space that can be attributed to thinking about writing center space as "transparent." In "Composition's Imagined Geographies: The Politics of Space in the Frontier, City, and Cyberspace," Nedra Reynolds explains, "It is easy to take space ... for granted because [it is] such an obvious part of our everyday existence" (19). Transparent space makes us "believe that space is no big deal, that every divide is smaller than it seems" (19). Because space issues are commonplace in writing center life, we may have unconsciously adopted the belief that researching and writing about oar spaces are "no big deal," that space issues are best left for our lore, not our journals. While Reynolds is concerned with the spatial politics of composition studies, I believe that her call to pay critical attention to the material realities of space is especially important for the writing center community. Not having a room to label "the writing center," or having a writing center filled with broken chairs and outdated equipment conveys a powerful message about the value an institution assigns to its writing center, and these messages contribute to the on-going marginalization of writing centers and the people who work in them. It is precisely because spatial politics are commonplace in the writing center community and because the political implications of space are often insidious that we need to carry our conversations about writing center space from our lore and into our research and theorizing.
Writing Center as Concept and Location
A first step in articulating the politics of writing center space is to understand the distinctions that have been made in writing center literature between what I call "writing center as concept" and "writing center as location."
Writing center as concept, or in Elizabeth Boquet's words, "writing center as temporality" is "an interaction between people over time in which the nature of the interaction is determined not by site but by method" (464). According to Bonnie Sunstein, writing centers can be "moveable feasts ... in the trunks of part-time adjuncts' cars ... spaces inside other spaces: corners of classrooms, glassed-in sections of libraries, rooms or stairwells ... writing centers defy spatial definition" (9). Additionally, in one of the most often cited essays on writing centers, Stephen North explains that "our job is to produce better writers, not better writing" (27). North's description of writing center as concept has become the unofficial writing center motto as tutors and directors use it, almost mantra-like, to explain what the writing center is and what the center does to the uninformed.
Historically, this privileging of the idea of the writing center--writing center as concept--has been an important strategic move in the never-ending struggle to legitimize writing center work. And, this line of argument has been modestly successful as writing center as concept has become common on many college campuses (Ede and Lunsford 33). However, despite the sustained growth of writing centers, writing centers and the people who work in them continue to be marginalized through being denied tenure track positions and receiving little institutional support. Writing center scholars still have to make a case for the academic merit of their work (Brannon and North 9, Gillespie 40). Why? How do we account for our simultaneous growth and on-going marginalization?
I believe a major factor in this situation has to do with the politics of writing center as location. Even though there are quantitatively more writing centers today than twenty years ago, qualitatively, the institutional status of writing centers has not improved much. The spaces we occupy, or the lack of space for us to occupy, is more than a problem of limited resources. Many colleges and universities seem reluctant and/or unwilling to support a writing center by giving it an actual physical location on campus. On the other hand, when some institutions do provide space, the space is often not in a desirable area. Susan Miller's description of composition teachers being sad women in the basement is especially apt here; many writing centers are not only (literally) located in basements, they are often in inadequate, difficult-to-find spaces in basements, run by people with little or no institutional clout. Since campus real estate at most institutions is at a premium, occupying a real physical space sends a message to the campus community that who or what inhabits that space is important enough to garner a piece of this limited resource; space connotes the power and the value attached to who or what occupies it. Put simply, space on a college campus signifies legitimization. As Carol Haviland, Carmen Fye, and Richard Colby note:
although location is not everything, it too is important, for material spaces have political edges that are costly if ignored. Location is political because it is an organizational choice that creates visibility or invisibility, access to resources, and associations that define the meanings, uses, and users of designated spaces.... These locations ... shape the roles others perceive writing, writers, and writing centers to play as well as the images writers and writing centers have of themselves. (85-6)
Writing center space is political, invested with meaning, and most clearly, a physical manifestation of often unspoken attitudes about writing center work and writing center workers.
The situation at my school provides a poignant example of how these politics operate and explains why I am becoming reluctant to see the kind of liminal existence writing center as concept supposes as something we should continue to celebrate. When Sue's contract came up for renewal, the administration decided it was not beneficial to anyone to have the writing center director also be the director of the learning center and disability services, so I was asked to step in as writing center director. As I explained at the beginning of this essay, Sue was the embodiment of both the concept and location of our writing center, but I was promised that the writing center would get an actual physical location on campus. I felt that staking this physical claim would go a long way towards dis-embodying the writing center; no longer would a person (i.e. Sue) be the writing center. Instead, the writing center would exist both as a concept and a location, an actual place on campus that students could go to, where resources could be kept, and where tutors could congregate.
But, (you veteran writing center directors know where this story is going) after I signed on, I was informed that real estate on my campus was just too precious and that there was no room for a writing center--as location. Of course, the college, with its desire to make writing a central part of its academic mission since adopting a writing across the curriculum initiative, still very much wants a writing center--as a concept. Treating writing center as concept as separate from, and more important than, writing center as location, my administration is able to justify neglecting material conditions and physical presence.
Conclusion
There are some writing centers that do have prime locations, adequate resources, and aesthetically pleasing spaces. I suspect such centers thrive as locations because they have directors who have waged many hard-won battles to get such space. But where does this leave the rest of us, especially those of us in places like mine where the writing center as location simply does not exist? In the past, writing center directors have answered this question by arguing for and creating liminal writing centers, choosing to have at least the idea of a writing center over no writing center at all. We owe much to the pioneers who made these choices since I doubt writing centers would be as prevalent as they are today without their work. However, as I find myself in charge of a writing center with no location, I wonder if we should continue making these choices. Am I helping to legitimate the work of writing centers if I hire tutors but literally have no where for them to sit? Should I put them in the hallway? the cafeteria? the library? the bathroom? How will we hold walk-in hours if there is no place for students to walk into? Where will we keep a schedule book for appointments? How will clients contact us?
The most obvious answer to at least some of these questions is that I could pick up right where Sue left off and become the embodiment of our writing center. I could agree to tutor students out of my office, when my schedule permitted, and I could be the one who keeps an appointment book for any other tutors we may have. With each day that passes, the pessimistic side of me has a sinking feeling that this is exactly the response the administration is hoping for. But if I "become" the writing center, am I really doing anything to further the cause of our writing center? Will faculty and students begin to view the work of our writing center as something important and legitimate if we are always scrambling to find space, squatting in empty classrooms and colonizing cafeteria tables? What are the chances that we will ever get a physical location for the writing center if the administration thinks a writing center can function with this kind of nomadic existence? What if, like Sue, I need to be away from the campus for awhile? Does the writing center come with me? Do I bring a cell phone to conferences so clients can still use "the writing center"?
I wish I could say I had answers to these questions, but I don't. What I'm beginning to realize, though, is that writing center as concept and writing center as location are necessarily imbricated. While writing center as concept may be the foundation of what writing centers do, writing center as location has become an increasingly important overlay, providing shape, form, and material substance to both what we do and how we are viewed by the academic community. What Reynolds says of composition studies is true for writing centers as well:
Imagined geographies have served their purpose in composition's identity-formation and will continue to shape a sense of vision and possibility for writing teachers and researchers. However, the imaginary visions must be more firmly grounded in material conditions ... a spatial politics of writing instruction would resist notions of transparent space that deny connections to material conditions. (33)
Maybe it is time to articulate a spatial politics of writing centers. Such a politics could provide us with the language to talk to administrators about the necessity of having a physical writing center in a good location supplied with adequate resources. Such a politics would call on writing center researchers to think of physical spaces as actual sites for research and to conduct analyses of the relationships between space and legitimization. Perhaps in articulating the ways in which spatial politics affect writing centers and the people who work in them on the material and symbolic level, we can begin to redress the issues of marginalization that have plagued us for at least the last twenty-five years.
Works Cited
Boquet, Elizabeth. "Our Little Secret: A History of Writing Centers, Pre- to Post-Open Admissions." College Composition and Communication 50 (1999): 463-82.
Brannon, Lil and Stephen North. "The Uses of the Margins." The Writing Center Journal 20.2 (2000): 7-12.
'Ede, Lisa, and Andrea Lunsford. "Some Millennial Thoughts about the Future of Writing Centers." The Writing Center Journal 20.2 (2000): 33-38.
Gillespie, Paula. "Beyond the House of Lore: Wcenter as Research Site." Writing Center Research: Extending the Conversation. Ed. Paula Gillespie Alice Gillam, Lady Falls Brown, Byron Stay. Mahwah: Erlbaum, 2002. 39-52.
Haviland, Carol, Carmen Fye, and Richard Colby. "The Politics of Administrative and Physical Location." The Politics of Writing Centers. Ed. James Nelson and Kathy Evertz. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook Heinemann, 2001. 85-98.
Miller, Susan. Textual Carnivals: The Politics of Composition. Carbondale: SIUP, 1991.
North, Stephen. "The Idea of a Writing Center." 1984. The St. Martin's Sourcebook for Writing Tutors. Ed. Christina Murphy and Steve Sherwood. New York: St. Martin's, 1995. 22-36.
Reynolds, Nedra. "Composition's Imagined Geographies: The Politics of Space in the Frontier, City, and Cyberspace." College Composition and Communication 50.1 (1998): 12-35.
Sunstein, Bonnie. "Moveable Feasts, Liminal Spaces: Writing Centers and the State of In-Betweenness." The Writing Center Journal 18.2 (1998): 7-26.
Melissa Nicolas, Penn State University Berks-Lehigh Valley
Nicolas is an Assistant Professor of English and Writing Center Coordinator. She has been involved with writing centers for over ten years and is currently co-editing Working with Graduate Students in the Writing Center.
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| Author: | Nicolas, Melissa |
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| Publication: | Academic Exchange Quarterly |
| Date: | Mar 22, 2004 |
| Words: | 2512 |
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