Required Services Statement

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. We also request that you do not incentivize your students to use our services (e.g., in the form of students earning points or extra credit for receiving tutoring services.) Our reasoning for this policy is outlined below. 

• Demand for our services exceeds the supply of appointments. When students make appointments because they are required to come, 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. Also feel free to reach out to our Director, Michelle Hager (michelle.hager@sjsu.edu), if you'd like to discuss requiring or incentivizing Writing Center visits for your students.