In the fall, the new writing center in Auburn's library will be open to all undergraduate students who need help with writing in any course offered at Auburn.
"The goal is eventually to be anybody in the whole Auburn community--staff, faculty, graduate students--but we're going to start in the fall with just undergraduates," said Margaret Marshall, director of the University Writing Program.
Marshall said many other universities offer this service to their students.
"Universities around the country work this way, so this is not creating something all that new; it's just implementing something that hasn't been done here," Marshall said. "This is the normal operating practice that we would be serving everybody in the University."
Pearl Shields, writing center consultant and graduate student in English, said she is supportive of the change.
"Personally, I think it's a good idea to open the writing center to all students," Shields said. "When I was an undergraduate at my university back home, it was open to everyone, and I think it's good because it's basically saying the University cares about writing at all levels, which is important."
Employment at the writing center will now be open to more than just English students, and students initiate the application process rather than first having to be recommended by a professor.
"In the past, people had to have recommendations from their professors," Marshall said. "At this time in the semester, professors are too busy to be writing recommendations, so we're only asking that people give us the names and contact information of two professors who can speak to their writing ability, work ethic and interpersonal skills."
Writing center tutors will no longer have to pass an MLA style test or an editing test to be employed.
"Frankly, a writing center tutor can be taught how to help a student look up those things in a style manual themselves rather than having all those bits of information in their head," Marshall said.
Having students with backgrounds other than English will help aid students in a more effective manner, Marshall said.
"Everybody is going to learn enough about all the different kinds of writing and all the different disciplines that they can be helpful to most students that come into the writing center," Marshall said. "They'll also be trained to recognize when they're in over their heads--when a student needs a more advanced person in the field to go more in depth."
This change will allow members of the faculty help their students learn how to write more effectively for their specific majors by allowing professors to focus on content while the writing center helps with the structure, Marshall said.
"People in other fields can recognize that a sentence isn't grammatical, but it's not their area of expertise to be able to help a student figure out how to recognize that and fix it," Marshall said.
Tutors will be able to help students and professors communicate more effectively as well.
"A lot of times what a tutor can do is help the student figure out how to ask questions back to the professor, so the professor can help with the content issues, and what we're helping with are the writing issues," Marshall said.
Study Partners previously helped students with writing outside of English composition and world literature courses.
"For them to actually expand their services is great, because we can help with the curriculum-specific things and they can help with writing," said Tamara Bowden, coordinator of Study Partners.
Bowden said because of the addition of the writing center location in the library, students can get help from both Study Partners and the writing center in one visit to save time.
Classes that have previously not had tutoring available because of a large amount of writing will now be covered because of the expansion of the writing center, Bowden said.
For example, Study Partners has been able to help with history for years, but they have never been able to provide help to students in Human Odyssey, Bowden said.
"They can help with Human Odyssey because it's such a writing component," Bowden said. "Between us and Supplemental Instruction and the writing center, we hope almost all classes are covered."
The writing center seeks to help all Auburn students think about writing as more than just good grammar, Marshall said.
"The writing center isn't just about fixing mistakes," Marshall said. "The writing center is about helping a writer to know how to think through, talk through, get advice from the people who are readers."
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