by Ryan Eddy
It has been a very strange year. As a freshman I can’t say I have had the greatest experience so far but I am hopeful that in the coming years everything will begin to normalize. One aspect that I look forward to normalizing will be shifts IN the writing center.
Non-Covid Year writing Center
As a Freshman in the writing center I had to do a research project on how much each class has utilized the writing center over their years at Coe. While this information was extremely informative and useful it really did not answer the question I really wanted to find out.
How will the COVID year at Coe have a long term effect on the writing center? This question will really only be answered in the coming 4-5 years as we will have to look at the statistics for writing center conferences and the quality of those conferences.
With the writing center being primarily online this year, there were far fewer conferences than in years past and most of them occurred because many professors required more meetings presumably due to being online
My class, the class of 2024 will be the most valuable data when reviewing how COVID has affected writing center participation as a whole. Will the students struggle more because of the shift to in person class and harder deadlines? Or will these students use the writing center less because they have had less exposure to it as freshman?
It will be really fascinating as to how this will play out. The incoming class of 2025 has been robbed of their Senior year of high school and missed out on some important experiences and development that would have been made in their final year of high school. When these incoming freshmen arrive will they need more help? Will they seek more guidance from tutors, writing centers, and speak out? Because they lack the development of years past.
Just as the year 2020 arrived with no one having any clue as to how it would turn out, 2020 leaves us going into the next decade with very little knowledge of how it will have lasting effects. The writing center may have to increase marketing and reach out to new students to better educate them on the usefulness of its staff.
Working with faculty will be extra important in the future. Consultants may have to reach out to better communicate and advocate their jobs.
I have one ask of future consultants. When you begin your research projects in your spring Topics class, could a inquisitive consultant research the long term effects on the writing Center of COVID and the 2020-21 academic year? It will be important to see how the writing center is able to recover and Coe as a whole as well from a challenging and difficult year.
The effects of Covid won’t just be on the writing center; it’ll hit each and everyone of us for years to come ;)
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