My Writing Center Life Story

I want to tell you a little about how I became a Writing Center Director in order to demystify this humble little corner of academic life and help reaffirm the value of the work you've been doing in the present tense as service to students and the university and in the future tense as diversifying your professional appeal.

For me, it all starts in the spring of '83 at Bellman's full service Chevron station in the sleepy college town of Wilmore, KY. My older brother, Ron, was preparing to graduate from high school that May; for the preceding three years he'd been employed as a mechanic for Bob and Chris Bellman, and for the last of those years I'd been employed (for $2 an hour) as pump-attendant, tire pressure-checker, tire-changer (which entailed a host of ego-inflating sub-tasks and titles), oil-checker, oil-changer (which also entailed a host of even more ego-inflating sub-tasks and titles, plus the added potential for a dirty badge of know-how, i.e. (s)oiled clothing), cashier, and ever-ready assistant to any one of the bona fide mechanics on hand. At 13, I envisioned a satisfying career as a grease-monkey, and I was already on track, having zapped my savings to procure my first articulating ratchet wrench from the MAC tool salesman for a whopping 20 smackers (the equivalent of 1.2 million dollars today). By the way, the MAC salesman's truck was part candy shop, part forbidden city. The accompanying socket index would have to wait a month or so.

But then it happened. My brother--my hero, idol, and role-model--decided to go to college. He'd never mentioned a word about college before. He was a mechanic, for Christ's sake. College was for dumbasses who had nothing better to do. He was paving the way for OUR future. WE would be mechanics, bro-greasers. With concentration and a little luck, I, too, would grow to be 6' 5", sport a magnificent orange afro, drive a '67 Malibu convertible, and rebuild carburetors for a living.

But it was not to be. In August, he started school. He stayed on part-time at Bellman's, but it would never be the same. What the hell was I supposed to do now?

I didn't think about college until my senior year of high school. My parents weren't going to make me go, but I'd have to do something. And when the time rolled around to make a decision, I just did what my brother had done. I went to college. He majored in Accounting, so I confidently declared my Accounting intentions as well. On my first day, I was informed of some concern about my ACT scores. As it turned out, I was a dumbass on paper. My verbal scores were well below acceptable. I'd need remediation before they'd permit me to enroll in Freshperson's Composition. I thought back to testing day and wished I'd put in even the slightest bit of effort, but standardized tests were lacking rhyme and reason. And besides, when I took the test, college was barely on my radar. I'd always liked to write and read, but I had a hard time envisioning how the prepackaged, decontextualized, impersonal verbal tasks on the ACT would impact my future. So I penciled lightning bolt patterns in the answer bubbles instead of actual answers.

I showed up at Mrs. Gardener's office to pay the price for my cute apathy. She was the lady who took care of remedials like me. She was also my friend's mother and a close friend to my own mother, so she knew I was capable of much more. She was on my side; she would help. Her office approximated a writing center but wasn't designated the writing center; it was just an office and foyer, where smart, pretty prudes-in-training assisted bonehead townies such as myself. I was presented with a writing prompt, asked to write an essay, and told that should my essay pass muster, I could enroll in Freshperson's Composition. I gave it serious effort and graduated up to compound-complex sentences.