Writing Center changes policy
Students not enrolled in an English course at Utah State University will now be charged to use the Writing Center.
“It came to our attention that there was an inequity,” said the center’s director, Charlene Hirschi. “English students were paying for everyone else to use the Writing Center.”
The Writing Center and its employees are funded solely through fees paid for by students enrolled in English classes, Hirschi said. No outside university money is used to keep the center going.
“I was prepared for a lot of flak,” she said, “but I have been pleasantly surprised.”
Students have been very understanding about the new fee, Hirschi said, especially when the reasoning behind it is explained.
The new fee is $6 for three half-hour visits, or $10 for six visits, according to the Writing Center’s Web site. Hirschi said students also have the option to pay a $35 fee, the same as English students pay, which will allow them to use the computer lab in the Ray B. West Building, 200 printouts and six visits in the Writing Center.
“We can actually work on things we never could before,” Hirschi said.
Before the fee was imposed, the Writing Center was required to turn away faculty.
“International faculty especially may want help cleaning up a paper,” she said.
The Writing Center will now also be available to help graduate students with thesis and dissertations and projects too time consuming to be tackled before, she said.
About 6,000 visits are made each year to the Writing Center, Hirschi said, and there has been no drop in numbers of students visiting the center since the fee was imposed in January.
“I’ve used [the Writing Center] a few times, when I’ve been required to for an English class,” said Beckie Sheffield, a junior majoring in English. “They were really good because there are people there trained to know what things to look for.”
But Sheffield said she doesn’t agree with the new fee.
“I don’t think they should charge for it. It’s a resource that should be available to students.”
Hirschi said while students have been mostly understanding, there have been a few that have said they refuse to come back.
About 500 to 600 students outside of English classes use the center each year, Hirschi said. They come to get help for a variety of projects including law or medical school applications.
“We can work with anything here – good writing is good writing,” she said.
A large number of international students also frequent the Writing Center.
“International students are working in a foreign language. We don’t focus on grammar so much as content, flow and organization,” Hirschi said. “As the semester goes on they get better and better. The more exposure they have to the Writing Center the more confident they get in their writing.”
Tutors are trained to guide students to make their writing clearer, she said. About half are graduate students and half are undergraduates. Not all are English majors, she said.
“We have tutors from a broad pool of different disciplines,” she said, including physics and technical writing.
The Writing Center is located on the first floor of the Ray B. West Building and operates from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
For more information about the Writing Center and how to make an appointment or pay a fee, visit http://writingcenter.usu.edu.
-bnelson@cc.usu.edu