SACS Reaffirmation
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Assessment : 2007 - 2008 : Educational Support :
Writing Center
4 Goals 9 Objectives 14 Indicators 14 Criteria 15 Findings 7 Actions
GOAL: Knowledge And Skills
| Objective | Evaluation Of The Writing Center | |
| To provide assessment tools to determine the effectiveness of the tutorial process. Associated Goals: Knowledge And Skills, Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction |
| Indicator | Survey Of Writing Center Clients  Writing Center clients will be asked to evaluate the effective of the tutorial process. Clients who came during fall 2006 and did not return in spring 2007 will be surveyed to see if the writing center needs to make changes in policies, tutor effectiveness, or procedures. |
| Criteria | Client survey The Writing Center will survey a representative sample of clients each semester. 85% of clients will be satisfied with the services offered. Non-returning clients will be surveyed. The majority of students who did not return did not have out of class writing assignments we could help them with. |
| Finding | Writing center survey After 1204 sessions, clients were asked to fill out a survey about the writing center and their tutoring experience. This represents slightly more than 13% of the total tutoring sessions. We also did a web-based survey of students still enrolled in fall 2007 who had had a tutoring session during fall 2006, but had not had a tutoring session in spring 2007. We received 150 responses. From this survey, we learned that students found waiting for a tutor to be available a reason to not return to the writing center for tutoring. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Revise client survey Solicit clients'' opinion of appointment system. |
| Action | Survey distance clients Do a survey of students who take advantage of our distance tutoring services to see if we can improve our services for them and to measure their perception of learning. |
GOAL: Knowledge And Skills
| Objective | Increase Client Knowledge Of Writing Principles And Skills | |
| Provide services that facilitate the client learning and applying writing principles and skills. Associated Goals: Knowledge And Skills |
| Indicator | Client Survey Of Learned Skills A survey of clients’ perceptions of the skills they have learned by using the Writing Center’s services. |
| Criteria | Client learning A representative sample of clients will complete a writing center evaluation form each semester to indicate student learning of writing skills and principles. Of the clients surveyed, 80% will indicate that they can apply principles learned in the tutoring session, and that the tutoring session has improved their writing skills. |
| Finding | Client survey data of perception of learning Of the 1204 clients surveyed, 1143 strongly agreed or agreed that "I can apply the principles discussed in this session to future writing/foreign language situations." 1082 clients strongly agreed or agreed that "I can now identify and correct my writing/foreign language errors more easily." 1097 strongly agreed or agreed that "The Writing Center has helped me improve my writing/foreign language skllls." |
Actions for Objective:
This objective has no actions associated with it.
GOAL: Professional And Personal Development
| Objective | Conference Opportunities | |
| To increase staff development through participation in regional, national, and international conferences Associated Goals: Professional And Personal Development |
| Indicator | Identify Conference Participation An accounting of the number of conferences attended and papers presented at regional, national, and international conferences |
| Criteria | Conference Participation Tutors will present research at professional conferences and will attend other conference presentations. |
| Finding | Conference participation 18 tutors and 4 supervisors attended the South Central Writing Centers Association Conference in March, 2008. There were 26 tutor presentations and 2 presentations from supervisors. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Conference presentations Encourage tutors to give presentations at Writing Center conferences. Provide opportunities for directors to attend different conferences. |
GOAL: Professional And Personal Development
| Objective | Mentor Assistant Director | |
| The director will provide mentoring for the assistant director to further his/her education. The position will provide opportunities for professional development with the goal of providing the assistant director with the qualifications needed for full-time employment with a writing center. Associated Goals: Professional And Personal Development |
| Indicator | Assistant Director The director will assist the assistant director in applying for doctoral programs. The director will encourage the assistant director to apply for full-time employment with writing centers. |
| Criteria | Assistant director The assistant director will apply for a doctoral program and, if an appropriate position becomes available, will apply for a full-time position with a writing center. |
| Finding | Mentoring of assistant director The assistant director applied for and was accepted in the doctoral program in rhetoric and composition at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She applied for and received a tenure-track position with San Antonio College as the director of the writing center and the writing across the curriculum program. |
Actions for Objective:
This objective has no actions associated with it.
GOAL: Professional And Personal Development
| Objective | Professional Service By Writing Center Director | |
| The Writing Center director will provide service to the International Writing Centers Association. Associated Goals: Professional And Personal Development |
| Indicator | Professional Service The writing center director will hold an office in the South Central Writing Centers Association. |
| Criteria | Professional service The writing center director will serve the South Central Writing Centers Association by holding office. |
| Finding | IWCA Representative for the SCWCA The writing center director was elected to be the regional representative to the International Writing Center Association board. |
Actions for Objective:
This objective has no actions associated with it.
GOAL: Professional And Personal Development
| Objective | Provide Stable Funding For The Writing Center | |
| The Writing Center will be provided with stable funding in sufficient amount to cover our expenses. Associated Goals: Professional And Personal Development, Provide Quality Facility, Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction |
| Indicator | Stable Funding A budget to provide adequate salaries, resources, and development funds without the need for emergency supplementation and changes of budget accounts. |
| Criteria | Budget A required stable budget of $225,000 that is available in budget accounts accessible to the Writing Center director to cover salaries, operating expenses, professional development, and capital equipment. |
| Finding | Budget For FY08, the Writing Center was provided a budget of $189,000. Changes of budgets and accounts continued to be required again this fiscal year in order to receive this level of funding. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Solicitation of funding Solicit funding from other departments, colleges to provide necessary resources. |
| Action | Stable funding Request a dedicated student fee to provide for a stable and adequate budget |
GOAL: Professional And Personal Development
| Objective | Tutors | |
| Train undergraduate and graduate tutors Associated Goals: Professional And Personal Development, Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction |
| Indicator | Client Survey Of Tutor Skills Client perception of tutor's skills. |
| Criteria | Client perception of tutor skills A representative sample of clients will complete a writing center evaluation form each semester to indicate that their tutor had appropriate skills. Of the clients surveyed, 80% will indicate that the tutor they worked with asked about their concerns and gave clear explanations. |
| Finding | Client survey data of tutor skills Of the 1204 clients surveyed, 1161 strongly agreed or agreed that "The tutor asked what my concerns were." 1148 clients strongly agreed or agreed that "The tutor gave clear explanations." |
| Indicator | Tutor Assessment Assessment of tutors' knowledge and skill in tutoring by the tutor, peers, and supervisor. |
| Criteria | Tutor assessment The Writing Center director will assess each tutor each semester using the Tutor Evaluation Form. All tutors will receive an overall rating of 3 or above to maintain their position. Each tutor will complete a tutor self-assessment twice during each semester. |
| Finding | Assessment of tutors All tutors were assessed by the writing center director. 99% of all tutors received a rating of 3 or better. Tutors helped create a self-assessment instrument. Each tutor did a self-assessment once in the fall and twice in the spring. All tutors showed improvement. |
| Finding | Tutors continued education Two students who began working as tutors as undergraduates have received scholarships to Miami University and Purdue University to work on their doctorate. |
| Indicator | Tutor Certification An accounting of the number of tutors who have reached the Regular, Advanced, or Master’s Level in the College Reading and Learning Association international tutor Certification program. |
| Criteria | Tutor Certification The Writing Center will provide 30 hours of in-house training and additional training for tutors to reach College Reading and Learning Association certification levels. The Writing Center will keep documentation of tutors'' training and tutoring hours. 10% of all tutors will reach Master level certification. |
| Finding | Certifications 8 tutors received certification. 4 tutors received Master level certification, 1 received advanced level certification, and 3 received regular level certification. |
| Indicator | Tutor Training Outline of initial tutor training and continued in-house training. |
| Criteria | Tutor Training The Writing Center will keep its tutor training program certified by the College Reading and Learning Association by providing the required topics and hours of training. |
| Finding | CRLA certification Our training program follows the guidelines of the CRLA and is certified through May 2009. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Additional training for tutors Provide training for tutors to help them use the time made available by the appointment system most effectively. |
GOAL: Provide Quality Facility
| Objective | Increase Writing Center Impact | |
| Provide services within both the university and the community Associated Goals: Provide Quality Facility, Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction |
| Indicator | Client Use Each client logs into a writing center tracking database linked to the university database and also completes a tutor session form. |
| Criteria | Client use The writing center tracking database will show population demographics of writing center use. For a writing center which serves the entire university community, a 10% use is standard according to the Writing Center Research Project. |
| Finding | Client data In the fall semester, the Writing Center provided services to 15.2% of the total student body, a total of 2500 clients. In the spring semester, the Writing Center provided services to 14.3% of the student body, 2207 clients. The demographics of students serviced matched the demographics of the student population in terms of ethnicity and gender. We serviced a higher percentage of freshman and graduate students. |
| Indicator | Departmental And College Use Students who have brought a class assignment for tutoring indicate the class on the tutor session report and in the writing center tracking database. |
| Criteria | Departmental and College Use The Writing Center should serve writing enhanced courses in all departments. |
| Finding | Departmental and College Use The Writing Center worked with students on course assignments in departments in each college. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Appointment system Because of the comments about frustration with waiting for tutors to be available, we implemented an appointment system during the spring semester. We need to monitor the system to improve it and to see if students prefer it. |
GOAL: Provide Quality Facility
| Objective | Provide Stable Funding For The Writing Center | |
| The Writing Center will be provided with stable funding in sufficient amount to cover our expenses. Associated Goals: Professional And Personal Development, Provide Quality Facility, Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction |
| Indicator | Stable Funding A budget to provide adequate salaries, resources, and development funds without the need for emergency supplementation and changes of budget accounts. |
| Criteria | Budget A required stable budget of $225,000 that is available in budget accounts accessible to the Writing Center director to cover salaries, operating expenses, professional development, and capital equipment. |
| Finding | Budget For FY08, the Writing Center was provided a budget of $189,000. Changes of budgets and accounts continued to be required again this fiscal year in order to receive this level of funding. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Solicitation of funding Solicit funding from other departments, colleges to provide necessary resources. |
| Action | Stable funding Request a dedicated student fee to provide for a stable and adequate budget |
GOAL: Provide Quality Facility
| Objective | Resources | |
| Provide quality tools and resources and appropriate facility Associated Goals: Provide Quality Facility |
| Indicator | Instructional Materials Creation and purchase of instruction materials by and for tutors and clients. |
| Criteria | Instructional Materials The Writing Center will purchase new editions of citation guides, new editions of tutor training materials, will create new training materials, and will provide current editions of freshman composition textbooks. |
| Finding | Instructional Materials We purchased books and DVDs to comply with CRLA requirements for different modes in tutor training. We updated our tutor handbook and created handouts. |
| Indicator | Select New Technology Acquisition of laptops and other technologies to assist writers, tutors, and staff. |
| Criteria | Technology The Writing Center will provide state of the art technology to support writing and learning. All computers will be upgraded to system requirements, flat panel monitors will be provided for all computers, and the classroom will be equipped with laptop computers. |
| Finding | Technology Computers that are becoming obsolete needed to be replaced but because of budgetary restraints, this was not possible. There were no technology purchases by the Writing Center in 2007-2008. The Reading Center did purchase a classroom set of laptaps which have been made available for writing center tutors. |
Actions for Objective:
This objective has no actions associated with it.
GOAL: Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction
| Objective | Evaluation Of The Writing Center | |
| To provide assessment tools to determine the effectiveness of the tutorial process. Associated Goals: Knowledge And Skills, Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction |
| Indicator | Survey Of Writing Center Clients Writing Center clients will be asked to evaluate the effective of the tutorial process. Clients who came during fall 2006 and did not return in spring 2007 will be surveyed to see if the writing center needs to make changes in policies, tutor effectiveness, or procedures. |
| Criteria | Client survey The Writing Center will survey a representative sample of clients each semester. 85% of clients will be satisfied with the services offered. Non-returning clients will be surveyed. The majority of students who did not return did not have out of class writing assignments we could help them with. |
| Finding | Writing center survey After 1204 sessions, clients were asked to fill out a survey about the writing center and their tutoring experience. This represents slightly more than 13% of the total tutoring sessions. We also did a web-based survey of students still enrolled in fall 2007 who had had a tutoring session during fall 2006, but had not had a tutoring session in spring 2007. We received 150 responses. From this survey, we learned that students found waiting for a tutor to be available a reason to not return to the writing center for tutoring. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Revise client survey Solicit clients'' opinion of appointment system. |
| Action | Survey distance clients Do a survey of students who take advantage of our distance tutoring services to see if we can improve our services for them and to measure their perception of learning. |
GOAL: Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction
| Objective | Increase Writing Center Impact | |
| Provide services within both the university and the community Associated Goals: Provide Quality Facility, Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction |
| Indicator | Client Use Each client logs into a writing center tracking database linked to the university database and also completes a tutor session form. |
| Criteria | Client use The writing center tracking database will show population demographics of writing center use. For a writing center which serves the entire university community, a 10% use is standard according to the Writing Center Research Project. |
| Finding | Client data In the fall semester, the Writing Center provided services to 15.2% of the total student body, a total of 2500 clients. In the spring semester, the Writing Center provided services to 14.3% of the student body, 2207 clients. The demographics of students serviced matched the demographics of the student population in terms of ethnicity and gender. We serviced a higher percentage of freshman and graduate students. |
| Indicator | Departmental And College Use Students who have brought a class assignment for tutoring indicate the class on the tutor session report and in the writing center tracking database. |
| Criteria | Departmental and College Use The Writing Center should serve writing enhanced courses in all departments. |
| Finding | Departmental and College Use The Writing Center worked with students on course assignments in departments in each college. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Appointment system Because of the comments about frustration with waiting for tutors to be available, we implemented an appointment system during the spring semester. We need to monitor the system to improve it and to see if students prefer it. |
GOAL: Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction
| Objective | Provide Stable Funding For The Writing Center | |
| The Writing Center will be provided with stable funding in sufficient amount to cover our expenses. Associated Goals: Professional And Personal Development, Provide Quality Facility, Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction |
| Indicator | Stable Funding A budget to provide adequate salaries, resources, and development funds without the need for emergency supplementation and changes of budget accounts. |
| Criteria | Budget A required stable budget of $225,000 that is available in budget accounts accessible to the Writing Center director to cover salaries, operating expenses, professional development, and capital equipment. |
| Finding | Budget For FY08, the Writing Center was provided a budget of $189,000. Changes of budgets and accounts continued to be required again this fiscal year in order to receive this level of funding. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Solicitation of funding Solicit funding from other departments, colleges to provide necessary resources. |
| Action | Stable funding Request a dedicated student fee to provide for a stable and adequate budget |
GOAL: Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction
| Objective | Tutors | |
| Train undergraduate and graduate tutors Associated Goals: Professional And Personal Development, Provide Quality Writing Support And Instruction |
| Indicator | Client Survey Of Tutor Skills Client perception of tutor's skills. |
| Criteria | Client perception of tutor skills A representative sample of clients will complete a writing center evaluation form each semester to indicate that their tutor had appropriate skills. Of the clients surveyed, 80% will indicate that the tutor they worked with asked about their concerns and gave clear explanations. |
| Finding | Client survey data of tutor skills Of the 1204 clients surveyed, 1161 strongly agreed or agreed that "The tutor asked what my concerns were." 1148 clients strongly agreed or agreed that "The tutor gave clear explanations." |
| Indicator | Tutor Assessment Assessment of tutors' knowledge and skill in tutoring by the tutor, peers, and supervisor. |
| Criteria | Tutor assessment The Writing Center director will assess each tutor each semester using the Tutor Evaluation Form. All tutors will receive an overall rating of 3 or above to maintain their position. Each tutor will complete a tutor self-assessment twice during each semester. |
| Finding | Assessment of tutors All tutors were assessed by the writing center director. 99% of all tutors received a rating of 3 or better. Tutors helped create a self-assessment instrument. Each tutor did a self-assessment once in the fall and twice in the spring. All tutors showed improvement. |
| Finding | Tutors continued education Two students who began working as tutors as undergraduates have received scholarships to Miami University and Purdue University to work on their doctorate. |
| Indicator | Tutor Certification An accounting of the number of tutors who have reached the Regular, Advanced, or Master’s Level in the College Reading and Learning Association international tutor Certification program. |
| Criteria | Tutor Certification The Writing Center will provide 30 hours of in-house training and additional training for tutors to reach College Reading and Learning Association certification levels. The Writing Center will keep documentation of tutors'' training and tutoring hours. 10% of all tutors will reach Master level certification. |
| Finding | Certifications 8 tutors received certification. 4 tutors received Master level certification, 1 received advanced level certification, and 3 received regular level certification. |
| Indicator | Tutor Training Outline of initial tutor training and continued in-house training. |
| Criteria | Tutor Training The Writing Center will keep its tutor training program certified by the College Reading and Learning Association by providing the required topics and hours of training. |
| Finding | CRLA certification Our training program follows the guidelines of the CRLA and is certified through May 2009. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Additional training for tutors Provide training for tutors to help them use the time made available by the appointment system most effectively. |