Wittenberg’s Writing Center celebrates 35 years.
Written By Leigh Hall '13
Jeremy Glazier ’97 loves words.
An associate professor of English at Ohio Dominican University, Glazier teaches literature courses in poetry as well as courses in creative writing, composition, and the art of the essay. When he prepares first-year students for taking on the challenge of collegiate-level writing, he draws on skills picked up more than 20 years ago in what was then called Wittenberg’s Writer’s Workshop.
“I started working in the old Writer’s Workshop in 1994,” he says, “and that experience continues to inform my own teaching, particularly in freshman composition courses. Learning to talk with other students, getting them to ask the right questions, helping allay their fears, building their confidence in their own writing—these are skills I developed in the writing center.”
What originally opened as a grammar lab in 1979 in the basement of the [Joseph C.] Shouvlin Center [for Lifelong Learning] was passed into the hands of professor of English Mimi Dixon and Maureen Fry at a time when Wittenberg’s Writing Across the Curriculum Program was in its inception. The workshop maintained its independence from any one particular academic department, a rarity among writing centers at the time, and began to grow in its role as a positive, supportive environment in which writers could feel free to take risks and explore their thinking and writing processes.
Over the course of 35 years, the workshop underwent several major revisions, including a move to Hollenbeck Hall, where it
reopened in 2000 as the Wittenberg Writing Center. But one critical element hasn’t changed: the center remains a space
in which students with diverse perspectives come together as writers and advisors to talk about writing at every stage of the
writing process.
“There is perhaps nothing more valuable to a writer than the chance to talk with a reader who is focused on the piece of writing,” says Mike Mattison, the center’s director. “Writers need readers, and the Writing Center provides just that. We constantly tell students that we are not here because they can’t write, but because they do.”
Equipped with sharpened skills for critical thinking, collaboration, and conversation, advisors have been accepted to law school, medical school, graduate school, Teach for America, the Peace Corps, Actors Theatre of Louisville and teaching positions at all levels and around the world. In all of these pursuits, they have been able to connect the work they’ve done in the center with what they will be expected to do in their new positions.
“The Writing Center helped me refine my writing and editing skills and to recognize the importance of clear communication,” says Eric Rusnak ’00, who worked in the center while a student.
Rusnak is an intellectual property lawyer at K&L Gates, LLP. The company represents technology companies in patent infringement matters.
“The center taught me how to write for different audiences. This is important in our patent infringement matters, in which we have to present complicated technical and legal issues to readers who often lack related technical expertise.
“Our clients rely on us to draft clear and persuasive briefs that will help them win cases.”
In a world where nuance is often shunned and there is a call to write faster, the center focuses on helping students write better, a vital skill for professionals like Rusnak and Glazier.
“In the ‘real world,’ wherever that is, there’s a conspicuous lack of attention paid to the nuances of language, syntax, punctuation—let alone careful argumentation, thoughtful articulation of ideas, and, perhaps most importantly, clarity and grace,” Glazier says.
“The workshop was a kind of utopia for us language nerds, where clarity and grace were as essential as salt and pepper at the dinner table.”
Today, both student writers and advisors find the same atmosphere, characterized by a hum of chatter between peers attempting to master the artful representation of complex ideas— an invaluable skill, according to Rusnak.
“No matter your future profession, your credibility will be assessed on the quality of your written communication skills,” he says.