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 over 7000 individual sessions and reached more than 27,000 students in presentations, writing groups, and resource fairs. 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 (41%), international students (37%), and multilingual writers (47%).
Writers have shared their appreciation in testimonials to the Workshop; as one student wrote: “As an international student with no previous experience with academic English, starting a Ph.D. degree that was fully in English was incredibly daunting. I had to learn to review and write scientific articles in my third language, which was a terrifying experience. The Writers Workshop helped and empowered me since the first year in my degree to write class essays, onto writing my qualifying papers and first journal article! Now, as a graduated Ph.D., I want to thank all the work that WW does for the international student community, particularly to those in graduate school!”
In the past year, the Writers Workshop has been active in campus conversations about Generative AI, and we have developed presentations and resources to foster students’ critical, ethical use of writing with GenAI. We also piloted a drop-in satellite location at the Paul M. Lisnek LAS Hub. In the spring, we were proud to be a featured unit during Orange and Blue Week, where we raised nearly $1000 to support our services.
As always, 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 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
Senior Director, Writers Workshop