March 2-4, 2023 | Lubbock, TX | Proposals Due: January 5, 2023
As writing center practitioners, sometimes we get stuck in our routines. These routines can be familiar ways of approaching how we support writers and consultants, as well as how we engage with our institutions and the larger writing center community (Geller, 2008; Wells, 2016). Most recently, these routines are developing in response to the pandemic, which is ongoing even though many institutions have resumed in-person instruction, While some might attempt to return to pre-pandemic routines, this is also an ideal time to re-envision our writing center futures, to rethink the work we do in the center, with intentionality, as we find ourselves in new environments (Grimm, 1999; McKinney, 2013; Salem, 2016).
SCWCA 2023 will be a space/place to move toward inventive ideas that may have been impacted by the sudden shifts in programming and practice over the past few years. These shifts have created a very real feeling of burnout, or “unmooring” (Mayo et al., 2021), for those in writing centers, resulting in a perpetual state of survival. Intentions may have been lost or muted due to the rush of change after March 2020. Conversely, new opportunities may have arisen as we worked to adapt to new practices and modalities (Slaton et al., 2021). At the same time, there have been calls to re/consider equity and inclusion, specifically how we “embrace” multilingual writing and discourse in asynchronous contexts (Camarillo in Mayo et al., 2021).
We ask attendees to view this conference as a time to re/discover what is unique in the familiar behind writing center work. We are looking for participant-driven sessions that support the rebuilding and/or restoration of communities that were difficult to create/maintain online. In addition, we invite attendees to use this conference to break from routine and move toward the invention stage, resulting in energized innovation and creativity.
Please submit your proposal by January 5, 2023, 11:59 pm. If you have any questions, please reach out to the conference chairs. We look forward to seeing you in the Hub City in March 2023!
Conference Chairs Kristin Messuri, Ph.D. Managing Director, Writing Centers of Texas Tech University kristin.messuri@ttu.edu Jennifer Marciniak, Ph.D. Director, Graduate Writing Center Texas Tech University jennifer.marciniak@ttu.edu