We greatly appreciate the support of professors across
campus in promoting the Writing Center to their students. However, we have
limited resources and, unfortunately, we cannot support
required
use of our services.
This issue is not unique to the SJSU campus -- it is a
problem that many university writing centers face. We think the UNC Chapel Hill Writing Center
does an excellent job of explaining why required visits can be detrimental not
only to writing centers but to students as well.
- Demand for our services exceeds the supply of
appointments. (This is especially true of our workshops, which have a maximum
of 15 people per workshop.) When students make appointments because they are
required to come in, they prevent students who voluntarily seek help from
getting it. We seek to reward intellectual initiative and commitment by
keeping all appointments available to those who make their own decisions to
improve as writers.
- Writing Center services complement and supplement the
writing instruction that takes place within courses. We do not have the staff
to support individual writing instruction for all students in any single
course. Our services cannot replace the writing instruction necessary in any
particular course.
- Students who aren't invested don't learn well. Past experience has taught
us that students who visit the Writing Center under some form of requirement
are not necessarily interested in improving their writing skills. Some (not
all) come expecting to stay for just a few minutes so that we will write an
e-mail attesting to their appearance here. While their visits acquaint them
with our services (and sometimes develop into worthwhile sessions), often
these students simply fill up our appointment schedule and prevent other
students from getting an appointment. Given the high demand for our services,
we cannot afford to allot space to students who haven't expressed interest in
their development as writers.
While we request that professors do not
require students to use our services, all professors are more
than welcome to encourage their students to visit the Writing
Center, and we are happy to provide house calls to talk about the Writing Center
to any class.
We greatly appreciate your cooperation in this matter. If you have any
questions, feel free to contact us.
Thank you very much to the UNC Chapel Hill Writing
Center for allowing us to
quote their text and for offering their time and advice.
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