Difference and Inclusion:
Writing Centers as Sites for Change
Call for Proposals - NEWCA 2014
Bryant University
Smithfield, RI
March 1-2, 2014
Proposals due by December 4, 2013
Keynote Speaker: Vershawn Young
University of Kentucky
Call for Proposals/Essay Contest
In April of 1974, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)
officially approved a position statement that affirmed "students' right to their own language-to
the dialect that expresses their family and community identity, the idiolect that expresses their
unique personal identity." The resolution goes further to “affirm the responsibility of all
teachers…to provide the opportunity for students to learn the conventions of what has
been called written edited American English [and to have] students understand the nature
of American English and come to respect all its dialects.” Writing Centers by their very
ideals have been inclusive and are arguably engaged in institutional ethnographic work
that “makes[s] the invisible visible,” those who are and can be marginalized. However, our
very ideal of inclusiveness can mask the lines that divide us – as workers, students, and
members of a college/university community.
To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of this groundbreaking resolution, the 2014 NEWCA
Conference invites proposals that explore the range of ways writing center work intersects with
the tenets articulated in Students' Rights to Their Own Language. Proposals may address a range
of questions concerning difference and inclusion, including:
1) How can tutors and directors foster a diverse and inclusive Writing Center environment? How
can Writing Center directors work to create an atmosphere of inclusion among staff members?
2) How do Writing Center workers and their clients work with the differences they might have from
each other- social identity, language, age, learning styles, and more?
3) How can Writing Centers more effectively honor students’ own languages?
4)
Code-switching is the integration of two languages in the context of conversation, as: "Esta
haciendo mucho frio! I should have worn my sweater!" Code-meshing is defined as the
combining of local dialects and vernacular with standard English into academic writing
assignments.
How do writing centers and the clients they serve already experience the tensions between codeswitching and code-meshing, or mixed voices? How do these concepts that Vershawn Young
writes about provide names for the multiliteracies and multimodal practices that students,
consultants, faculty and administrators already engage? What might it mean to continue to
perpetuate flattened notions of correctness in a discursively diffuse linguistic environment?
5) How has your center or graduate students used ethnography or autoethnography in the past? How
has this changed your center, pedagogy, and insights?
6) How can Writing Centers create opportunities for students to use their own languages?
7) What kind of partnerships can Writing Centers form that work toward social and political
change?
8) What kinds of alliances are already being formed between Writing Centers, faculty, disability
Services and other campus organizations to promote inclusion and acceptance?
9) In what ways do online tutorials (online conferences, online writing center work) change the
ways sociocultural identity affects the dynamic between writer and tutor?
10) How can/should/do Writing Centers integrate awareness of difference and inclusion into tutor
training? What kind of tutor training is needed to address the ever changing demographic?
11) Faculty expectations for college-level writing/ institutional norms and students’ needs and
abilities, combined with their own individual experiences with writing, are often two opposing
forces. How do tutors work to reconcile institutional values of language with students'
own languages?
12) How might writing centers become sites or their professionals and tutors become agents for
challenging institutional practices that run counter to multilingual values and pedagogy?
13) In what ways do our staffing practices and hiring decisions disrupt larger and local systems of
domination and structural difference?
Proposal Guidelines
Successful presentations are dynamic exchanges between audience members (peer tutors, graduate
students, and other writing center professionals and faculty). We welcome presentations of original
scholarship and research that foster dialogue with conference participants. In order to include more voices
and perspectives in our ongoing discussions, we especially encourage tutors and first-time presenters to
send in proposals, as well as writing center workers from community college and high school writing
centers.
Please prepare a 250- to 500-word proposal and a 75-word abstract for a 20-minute individual
presentation or a 75-minute interactive workshop, roundtable, or panel. Your proposed
workshop, roundtable, or panel must actively involve the audience. As a result of feedback from
recent conferences, we continue to encourage proposals for the facilitation of roundtable
discussions.
Please include the following information in your proposal:
1. Proposer’s name, position (i.e., tutor, director, etc), institution, institutional or home address, telephone
number, and email address
2. Presenters’ names with title and contact information, as above
3. Title of presentation, a 250- to 500-word proposal, and a 75-word abstract for inclusion in the
conference program
4. Type of session (i.e., individual presentation, panel presentation, roundtable discussion, workshop
presentation)
5. Specific audiovisual and technical requests (NOTE: Presenters should plan to bring their own laptop
computers and adapters).
6. Plans for encouraging interaction and involving the audience in the presentation. This may be included
in the presentation description.
Proposals will be evaluated on the basis of relevance to the conference theme and application to
a broad audience of writing center tutors and administrators. Submissions will also be reviewed
on the basis of originality (novel perspectives, approaches, and methods), interactivity (audience
participation vs. oral delivery of an essay), and clarity.
Proposal Submission
Electronically submit your proposal by December 4, 2013, to the co-chairs of the NEWCA Proposal
Reading Committee, Susan DeRosa, at derosas@easternct.edu, Jan Robertson at
janet.robertson@bcc.cuny.edu or jlr20@hotmail.com or Siu Ng at ngst@sunysccc.edu. You may submit
your proposal as an MS Word attachment or in the body of the email. For more information about
submitting proposals, please contact one of the co-chairs at the addresses above.
For More Information
For more information about the conference, registration, or scholarship opportunities, including the 2014
NEWAAC meeting held at the conference, visit NEWCA ONLINE at http://northeastwca.org. For other
questions related to the conference, email the NEWCA Chair, John Hall, at johnhall@bu.edu.
NEWCA 2014 ESSAY CONTEST
At the suggestion of this year's keynote speaker, the NEWCA Steering Committee invites essays that take
up Dr. Young's theorizing on the concept of code-meshing, a commingling of dominant, vernacular, and
subcultural discursive practices in writing and speaking that exists in tension with other notions of
teaching and learning about literacy. Some advocate adherence and internalization of standard or
academic English, while others advocate strategies that involve switching ("code-switching") between
linguistics practices of discourse communities, of filial or disciplinary collectives of practice, or the
signifying practices of home. Young and others argue that these concepts of "code-switching" render
hegemonic the dominant forms, mark the non-dominant as Other, and make invisible the inevitable
hybridity of everyday and professional language use that is always evolving and contingent.
Student essays that take up code-meshing ought to offer up personal experiences, case-studies, or
challenges to the theory or how it is experienced in writing centers or related spaces for mentoring
writers. The top essays submitted will be featured in a panel at NEWCA and announced at our award
ceremony; essayists will also receive monetary recognition of their work.
Essayists should submit their short essay (approximately 800-1000 words) to John Hall at
johnhall@bu.edu by Feb. 1, 2014.
NEWCA ONLINE:
The resource on writing scholarship, writing consultation technique, and writing center administration
in the Northeastern United States:
1. http://northeastwca.org
a. Read information about this year's conference
b. Register for this year's conference (mail-in form and online registrationc. View/download important
documents and key dates
d. View links to NEWCA recommended resources, articles, and blogs
e. Read up on NEWCA history and leadership bios
2. http://facebook.com/northeastwca
a. Ask questions and get quick responses
b. Chat with other tutors, academics, administrators, and writing center lovers
c. Participate in discussion boards
d. View and post articles, blogs, and links
e. Look at and upload writing center pictures
3. http://twitter.com/northeastwca
a. Keep up to date with NEWCA's daily happenings
b. Enjoy posts on writing scholarship, writing center news, and more
Want to share a link, blog, or article with NEWCA ONLINE?
Email <support@northeastwca.org> today!
We hope to see you at NEWCA 2014!