The Polyvalent Mission of Writing Centers

Abstract

The article focuses on varied goals and the scope of writing centers of U.S. universities and colleges. Over the years, writing center discourse has been characterized by deep uncertainty. Educator and author Terrance Riley's paper "The Unpromising Future of the Writing Center" is referred throughout this article. That paper, published in 1994, offers a retrospective look at the writing center movement and its future. According to Riley, academic disciplines go through developmental stages before achieving institutional recognition. He elaborated three phases in writing center development: high idealism, frustration, and business as usual. According to the authors of this article, the root problem within the U.S. writing centers is that their collective discourse, over the last 25 years, has melded into the form of meta-narrative, or grand narrative. The effect of such discourse, suggestively, is long-lasting, causing attendant fear of cooption. A grand narrative can distract writing centers from the general mission of the academy. In recent years, the scope and mission of writing centers have changed and they have became a center of critique of the institutionalized structure of writing instruction. The new ultimate mission of these centers is to empower students.