Clint Gardner

Since I'm cycling off the Executive Board of the International Writing Centers Association this coming November, I've come to be a bit nostalgic about it. My involvement in the Executive Board first started back when Eric Hobson was President and he gave me the opportunity to engage in committee work. I then took on the role of the first Wed Editor of writingcenters.org, and then was elected to be Community College Representative. I threw my hat in the ring for Vice President (the leadership track in IWCA is V.P. to President to Past President--a six year stint!) and was stunned to actually be elected. My "platform" (it seems a bit pretentious to call it that) was to build on IWCA's excellent history of outreach by allowing for more opportunities for people to be involved in the organization. That's the nice thing about the IWCA Executive Board and IWCA itself--we try to involve our membership as much as we can in official committees and other activities o

I've been prepping for our regular before-the-semester staff meeting/discussion and was thinking of using "You Fix it For me: A Lesson in Women's Work and Cultural Misunderstandings" by Kim Zabel in the latest Writing Lab Newsletter . In the article, Zabel describes a tutorial session in which she was the subject of sexist behavior in the writing center, and how she was verbally attacked by a male client for "shaming him" by not doing the work that he was demanding from her. Zabel then goes on to explore the cultural ramifications, as the student was a recent refugee to the United States from a culture that demands women take on certain roles and always defer to men. Given that I've witnessed sexist behavior in the writing center before, and how tutors who are women deal with it, I thought this would be a good article to spur a beneficial conversation. I think it is important to discuss this matter, as well, since the majority of the tutors who work

Tomorrow a couple of tutors and I are headed down to Cedar City, Utah, to attend the Rocky Mountain Peer Tutoring Conference. This small conference is dedicated to peer tutoring and has been a boon to the struggling Rocky Mountain Regional. This years, as with years in the past, we will start with a director session on Friday afternoon. After our Regional Board meeting (lead by the fantastic Claire Hughes from Weber State University), we will have two presentations from directors. The first by Jonathan Balzotti of the University of Utah is intriguingly entitled “Tracking Discourse: How Tutors Can Teach Writing Centers." The verb's object is what intrigues me most. Writing centers in this becomes a concept to be taught to students at larg...interesting. Next we'll hear from Star Coulbrooke and Susan Andersen of Utah State University with a presentation titled “How Collaborative Programs Redefine and Support Writing on the University Campus and Ripple Out to the surrou

Here's the call I mentioned yesterday: WAC/WID in the Community College--Call for Proposals I'm excited to be involved in this project!

Michael Pemberton editor of Across the Disciplines has honored me in asking me to take on the role of guest editor for a special edition of the journal about Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing In the Disciplines in community colleges. I've got a pretty solid call for papers which I will post here in the Undersea World when Michael gives the go-ahead. I'm excited by the opportunity to guest-edit a journal. It is something I've aspired to do, but never been given the chance. In other news (sorry to be such a bad blogger), I was also honored by current CCCC Chair Chuck Bazerman to be chosen as the CCCC National Day on Writing (NDoW) chair. NDoW (Oct. 20, 2009) is a NCTE campaign to bring wider awareness to writing. I worked with an stellar crew of folks--Eric Bateman, Michael Day, Neal Lerner, Jon Olson, Michael Pemberton, and Bonnie Sunstein. We came up with a strong list of existing online resources and suggested activities. We'll probably keep working for t

I have sadly neglected The Undersea World for far too long. I promise to update soon, as I have many updates and many ideas to post. I will say, however, that I'm honored now to serve as Secretary of TYCA. TYCA is a great organization and it will be great working with everyone for the next three years. I am also am honored to be giving the keynote address at the upcoming Arizona Writing Centers Symposium sponsored by Arizona State University in February. I'm going to be talking about the benefits of peer tutoring.