Please join us for our fall SWCA-KY event and invite your writing center colleagues.

Crafting Conference Proposals Workshop

Facilitated by Dr. Scott Whiddon

• Thursday, November 5th, 2020
• 1:00-2:00 (EST)
• Zoom Link: https://eku.zoom.us/my/rustycarpenter

Workshop Description

This workshop will focus on 1) reflecting on our challenges and choices as writing center professionals during this time of crisis and then 2) using those experiences to help create proposals for the upcoming SWCA conference.

This workshop is open to anyone involved with KY Writing Centers to attend -- so, please encourage your undergrad staffers, your grad students, and/or your assistant directors to be part of what I hope will be a thoughtful conversation. 

We'll use our time to look carefully at the CFP and then to do some brainstorming about our current and recent work in our respective programs. In the end, participants will have the beginnings of a conference proposal draft. 

It is my hope that we can use this time to demystify conference proposal drafting (especially for folks who might feel less than confident about writing center research) and to encourage each other to showcase their efforts at SWCA. Despite my regrets about us not being able to gather in Memphis (one of my favorite cities for food and music!), I think this could potentially be the biggest and most accessible SWCA ever. I'd love to see a record number of KY WC's represented.

Also, thank you to Dr. Rusty Carpenter for hosting this workshop via Zoom and speaking about our spring event focused on SWCA CARE.

Join us online Feb. 11-13, 2021, at the SWCA 2021 Conference to discuss the transformations writing center professionals and the field undertake during times of crisis and trauma. The COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, social unrest, natural disasters, and significant changes in the structure and leadership of higher education have greatly accelerated the pace of these changes and prompted all of us in the writing center field to reconsider many aspects of our approaches to writing center work and everyday operations. Writing center professionals are called not just to react, but to proactively transform their identities, missions, and services.

We are called to do this transformational work while coping with old and emergent traumas, mentoring and supporting tutors and clients during multiple crises, and seeking to mitigate new realities of higher education. This conference seeks to emphasize the ways trauma creates opportunities for us to transform as a discipline.

Download the Call for Proposals and share with your colleagues and centers.

Further details are available on the SWCA website.

Full details now available for the 

SWCA-GA Fall Forum: Race & the Writing Center

https://southeasternwritingcenter.wildapricot.org/event-3916428

SWCA-GA and the University Writing Center at UWG Present

Fall Forum: Race & the Writing Center

Featuring a discussion led by Kristina Aikens, author of "Prioritizing Antiracism in Writing Tutor Education"

Schedule for the Day:

9 a.m.-10 a.m.:

Welcome & Discussion/Q&A led by Kristina Aikens, author of "Prioritizing Antiracism in Writing Tutor Education: How We Teach Writing Tutors" (make sure you've read this prior to for discussion purposes)

https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/66daf8af9e0148d080bdb3d0a384be56

10-10:45 a.m.: Breakout Session #1

• Racial Justice & the WCC:https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/3262cca67ea84187b0ad25700acbc918
• Asynchronous & Synchronous Tutoring/Pandemic Tutoring: 
  https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/c83af8c0780944fc8d4a2fb13a94c1ed 
• Serving/Working with Students in COVID Times: https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/766a5298bfdd47e18edeb843941a82fa

10:45-11:30 a.m.: Breakout Session #2

• Racial Justice & the WCC:
  https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/3262cca67ea84187b0ad25700acbc918
• Asynchronous & Synchronous Tutoring/Pandemic Tutoring: 
  https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/c83af8c0780944fc8d4a2fb13a94c1ed 
• Serving/Working with Students in COVID Times: https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/766a5298bfdd47e18edeb843941a82fa

11:30 a.m.: Closing Discussion & Farewells

https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/66daf8af9e0148d080bdb3d0a384be56

Registration: https://forms.gle/LqTryUTeD31ESST86
(please do this sooner rather than later!)

Cost: Nothing! Zilch! Nada! :)

Once we get closer to the date, I'll send out a follow-up email to registrants with our meeting links & any final instructions. Feel free to spread this far and wide to your staff at your institutions. I'm excited for this great opportunity & look forward to seeing you all there! 

The latest issue of the  academic journal, Southern Discourse in the Center, 24-1, is now available online. If you are a SWCA member, you should have received your print copy in the spring.

Access SDC archives, submission guidelines, and more.

SWCA-GA and the University Writing Center at UWG Present

Fall Forum: Race & the Writing Center

Featuring a discussion led by Kristina Aikens, author of "Prioritizing Antiracism in Writing Tutor Education"

Schedule for the Day:

9 a.m.-10 a.m.:

Welcome & Discussion/Q&A led by Kristina Aikens, author of "Prioritizing Antiracism in Writing Tutor Education: How We Teach Writing Tutors" (make sure you've read this prior to for discussion purposes)

https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/66daf8af9e0148d080bdb3d0a384be56

10-10:45 a.m.: Breakout Session #1

• Racial Justice & the WCC:https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/3262cca67ea84187b0ad25700acbc918
• Asynchronous & Synchronous Tutoring/Pandemic Tutoring: 
  https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/c83af8c0780944fc8d4a2fb13a94c1ed 
• Serving/Working with Students in COVID Times: https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/766a5298bfdd47e18edeb843941a82fa

10:45-11:30 a.m.: Breakout Session #2

• Racial Justice & the WCC:
  https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/3262cca67ea84187b0ad25700acbc918
• Asynchronous & Synchronous Tutoring/Pandemic Tutoring: 
  https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/c83af8c0780944fc8d4a2fb13a94c1ed 
• Serving/Working with Students in COVID Times: https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/766a5298bfdd47e18edeb843941a82fa

11:30 a.m.: Closing Discussion & Farewells

https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/66daf8af9e0148d080bdb3d0a384be56

Registration: https://forms.gle/LqTryUTeD31ESST86
(please do this sooner rather than later!)

Cost: Nothing! Zilch! Nada! :)

Once we get closer to the date, I'll send out a follow-up email to registrants with our meeting link & any final instructions. Feel free to spread this far and wide to your staff at your institutions. I'm excited for this great opportunity & look forward to seeing you all there! 

SWCA Members,

There is still time to apply for the SWCA Christine Cozzens Research Grant and Initiative Program (CCRGIP) Fall 2020 award. 

The program awards up to $500 in grants per term. Visit the "research funding" page on the SWCA website for eligibility  requirements and instructions to apply. The application deadline is July 15, 2020.

Send applications or questions directly to Lingshan Song (song00@mc.edu), Chair of the CCRGIP Selection Committee. 

The SWCA 2021 conference scheduled to take place in Memphis has officially been postponed to 2022. In Spring 2021, the SWCA board will host a virtual conference so we can still do some valuable work together as an organization. More information to come this Fall.

Please join us for our first SWCA Reading Group, which will take place on Thursday, August 13, @ 1pm EST. We'll meet via Zoom to discuss Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing. Please RSVP by August 1 here: https://forms.gle/wnzTiDBa1gemDgs9A.

SWCA Members,

We hope you’re all doing well. The SWCA CARE program (Center Acknowledgment & Recognition of Excellence) continues to support the outstanding writing center work taking place throughout our region and beyond—this work is even more important now in these challenging times! To learn more, check out the SWCA CARE webpage.

The SWCA-CARE program will host summer webinars that offer SWCA members more insight into the certification program. Each webinar will be hosted online, via video. The webinars will focus on the basic information that you can use to get started (or finish!) your certification application. In addition, facilitators will be prepared to answer questions you might have regarding the application process or your specific questions. Certified centers are eligible to apply for an innovation grant of $250.

We hope you’ll join members of SWCA-CARE for one of the July webinars. Sign up here! 

SWCA CARE co-chairs, Candis Bond & Joy Bracewell

The schedule for Director's Day Out - The "New" New Normal is now available on the SWCA-FL page.

Director's Day Out is a free online event for directors, graduate students, and all those in Florida who are interested in writing center administrative work.

Please email Billie Jo (Billie.Dunaway@daytonastate.edu) with questions about the event.