Vocation in the Writing Center

Students’ work study can be a meaningful part of their vocation in multiple ways: a calling for them right now; a means to develop professional skills, habits, and confidence; and a part of their reflective process of vocational discernment. When designing curriculum for our weekly training meetings, I try to balance these three goals.

As the director of a Writing Center that is staffed entirely by undergraduate tutors, I believe my first priority is to mentor and support my tutors. While every student on campus can benefit from the Writing Center, the students whose undergraduate experiences are most transformed are the tutors themselves. I have a unique relationship with tutors as both a professor and supervisor, at the intersection of their academic growth and their working lives. Hiring them as first- or second-year students, spending a semester together in training, and then mentoring their work as tutors for two or three years, I have the privilege to form meaningful relationships with tutors that contribute deeply to my own sense of meaning and purpose in life.

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