Capella University's Mobile Writing Center puts its shoulder to the wheel.

Mobile Writing Center group at May 2005 colloquium in Minneapolis: Front row, l-to-r: Neil Cunningham and Leslie Olsen, Writing Center Coordinator; middle row, l-to-r: Jack Stack, Alex Block, and Dr. Gretchen Michlitsch; back row, l-to-r: Dr. Andrea Luna, Dr. Stone Shiflet, and Dr. Carole Chabries, Writing Program Director. Not pictured: Deb Bailin, Dr. Jody Cardinal, Alice Robison, Dr. Richard Schreck, Dr. Donna Connolly, Dr. Allen Helmstetter, Dr. Mark Peters, and Dr. Kim Surkan.

Name of center
Mobile Writing Center

Institutional affiliation
Capella University

City, State
The Mobile Writing Center doesn’t have a “home” – it travels to cities around the country, including Anaheim, CA; Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Minneapolis, MN; Dallas, TX; Dulles, VA, and Scottsdale, AZ.

Web address
www.capella.edu

Director
Carole Chabries, Ph.D.

Writing Center Coordinator
Leslie Olsen, M.A.

Year opened
2003

History
The Mobile Writing Center (MWC) was started as a way to provide face-to-face writing center services to our online PhD learners. These learners are required to attend three Residential Colloquia during their coursework; at the colloquia, learners attend workshops on research methods and writing, as well as on wide-ranging discipline-specific content. The MWC runs concurrently with these workshops, so that at any point during the day learners can opt out of the workshop setting and choose instead to work one-on-one with a Writing Program faculty member in the Writing Center.

The MWC started small, with four faculty, five writing workshops, and half-dozen handouts. Today we operate with a staff of eight faculty (including a Writing Center Coordinator, a position new in 2005), eight workshops, and twenty handouts. And we’re still growing!

Sponsoring department
Department of Academic Support in the Provost’s Office

Number of consultations in the last year
The number of consultations we offer is influenced by learner attendance, as well as overall curriculum, at each colloquium.

In December 2004 we had five days to serve 1042 learners; in that setting we offered 117 30-minute consultations and worked with approximately 500 learners in writing workshops; in February 2005 we had four days to serve 970 learners; in that setting we offered 93 30-minute consultations and worked with approximately 250 learners in writing workshops.

writer Ola Mopkins (left) and faculty member Dr. Andrea Luna

Square footage
varies from site to site, but the average is about 600 square feet.

Services offered
face-to-face consultations; 90-minute group workshops; use of computers (with internet access) and printers; and access to resources, including handouts and reference material.

For Writing Program faculty, a day in the Mobile Writing Center usually includes working one-on-one with students, teaching group workshops, and an end-of-day curriculum review.

Staff
Staffing varies according to the number of learners registered for each colloquium. Generally, our staff-to-learner ratio ranges between 1:75 and 1:125.

Our one-on-one consultations, as well as our writing workshops, are offered by Writing Program faculty, all of whom have extensive experience teaching in brick-and-mortar settings—in university writing centers and/or in university-level writing courses. All WP faculty are experienced graduate-level writers themselves; many have completed (or are completing) terminal degrees.

Of the 10 Writing Program faculty and 2 full-time staff members, six hold the PhD; two hold the MA; one holds the MFA; two are ABD; and one is completing an MS in Technical Writing. Our cumulative experiences add up to more than 83 years of Writing Center instruction, 124 years teaching writing in classrooms (virtual and traditional), and 59 years teaching writing in “other” capacities (training instructors or tutors, being a writing mentor, teaching workshops, etc.).

In their “other” lives, our faculty are tenured professors at land-based institutions; run Writing Centers in their home states; teach writing to community college and 4-year college students; play music in bands; quilt, knit, surf, sail, bird-watch, study computer games, write poetry, make videos about bugs, and root for the Seattle Mariners.

Clientele
Our learners are all returning adults working on PhDs in one of four fields: Education, Human Services, Psychology, or Business. Some of them are just starting their PhD programs while others are preparing to write their comprehensive examinations or dissertations. Many of our learners are already working full-time in their chosen field, and many have extensive personal responsibilities (family, home, etc.) in addition to their graduate work. Their average age is 41, and they live in all 50 states and in 55 other countries.

Our learners have two overwhelmingly common questions: “Can you help me with APA?” and “I got an ‘A’ on this paper but I don’t know why – can you help me figure out what I’m doing right?” In our experience these questions address the same general concern: uncertainty about what it means to write well at an advanced academic level. To help learners feel more confident and competent as advanced academic writers, we focus on global concerns as well as local ones (when appropriate), and pay a lot of attention to the relationships among writing, research, and thinking.

foreground: writer Christine Lustik (left) and faculty member Alex Block; background: writer Ellen Weber-Segler (left) and Writing Center Coordinator Leslie Olsen

Money Matters
Believe it or not, the Mobile Writing Center operates without a budget of its own; its funds come out of the larger budget governing Capella’s Residential Colloquia. WP faculty are paid a flat fee by the day; their hotel and air fare are covered by the University; breakfast, lunch, and breaks (usually with lots of cookies) are included, and faculty receive a per diem to cover dinner expenses.

Our corollary to fund-raising is increasing the number of staff who are funded to work in the MWC. In the year and a half since we opened we have doubled the number of staff working in the MWC, and hope this number will continue to grow as the demand for our services increases.

Current Events
In March 2005, a group of Writing Program faculty presented a panel at CCCCs entitled “Opening the Doors: Building a Mobile Writing Center for an Open-access Online University”; this panel addressed some of the pedagogical issues we see in the MWC that seem specific to online adult learners.

In April 2005 we hired our first full-time staff member: Leslie Olsen, our Writing Center Coordinator. Leslie will be rebuilding the Online Writing Center so that its services, mission and resources are closely integrated with those we are building in the MWC.

Sometime in late 2005 or early 2006, the Writing Center will begin sponsoring a Dissertators’ Retreat: a writing retreat for advanced dissertators that provides writing consulting and coaching one-on-one and in groups, dissertation group support services, and more.

Philosophy
Capella’s Writing Program helps prepare learners for the rigors of academic writing by fostering connections between clear thinking and clear communication. We enhance our learners’ educations by providing quality writing support in all disciplines and at every degree level. Through our writing courses and support resources, we help learners establish strong writing habits that will carry them through their academic work, and will continue to serve them throughout their professional lives.

Praxis would like to thank Carole Chabries with the Mobile Writing Center for her assistance in helping produce this feature.