A letter from the director

I’m writing during finals week of Spring 2024, a time of year that I always experience as both celebratory and reflective. The dogwoods are blooming, the sun is shining (some days), and students are posing for graduation pictures in their caps and gowns, smiling into the future.
I want to begin by acknowledging how fortunate I am to be part of the Writers Workshop’s community. I extend my thanks to our outstanding current and former consultants, our reception and admin team, and the writers who help us learn about their amazing research and creative work. The Writers Workshop is passionate about the work we do, knowing that we provide an inclusive and collaborative environment where we and our writers feel safe to take risks and try out new ideas and skills.
The Workshop’s goal is to participate in fostering a culture of writing on campus; as such, it is our mission to serve all University of Illinois writers, from the first-semester undergraduate to the visiting faculty member. In the last academic year, we provided writing support in nearly 6,500 individual sessions and reached more than 20,500 students in presentations, writing groups, and resource fairs. We often see writers at points of transition: first-year college students, transfer students, students writing in new genres or more advanced forms, graduate students preparing manuscripts, theses, and dissertations. The students and staff who comprise the Writers Workshop’s community are diverse, and many of our appointments were with first-generation students (20%), students from underrepresented and minoritized groups (35%), international students (44%), and multilingual writers (48%). Writers have shared their appreciation in testimonials to the Workshop; as one student wrote, “The … WW and its consultants made me feel supported and don’t have to do this alone. Especially when I received positive feedback, it gave me the confidence to continue to improve my writing.”
Some recent accomplishments have included new and renewed partnerships. In the past year, we piloted a satellite location at the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics’ Irwin Academic Center and drop-in hours at the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center. We look forward to establishing a satellite in the Paul M. Lisnek LAS Hub in Lincoln Hall in the upcoming year.
Our consultants continue to produce cutting-edge research in writing center studies. In October 2023, four graduate student consultants and I attended the International Writing Centers Association’s annual conference, where we had the pleasure of catching up with several Writers Workshop alums. Neal Liu, an assistant director of the Writers Workshop and graduate student in writing studies, received an IWCA Future Leaders Scholarship to recognize his leadership and scholarship; he also shared his research about translingual identities and asynchronous written feedback appointments at a staff professional development meeting. Undergraduate students in WRIT 300: Issues in Tutoring Writing, conducted original qualitative research on topics like discursive tutoring strategies, disciplinary expertise, scaffolding, and STEM students’ experiences of writing. Three consultants, Emma Ortega, Virginia Wright, and Zion Trinidad, presented at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. This research supports our local practices and speaks to broader concerns in writing center and writing studies scholarship. Ongoing studies include topics like students’ and consultants’ experiences across writing center modes and students’ use of generative AI in first-year and advanced composition writing courses.
The articles that follow were proposed and written by current consultants. I read these pieces as a joyful celebration of the community we’ve built, and I hope you enjoy their reflections on this work.
With best wishes,
Dr. Carolyn Wisniewski
Director, Writers Workshop