Location and Dates

• Hosted by University of North Alabama and Athens State University
• Location: University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama
• February 20-22, 2025
• Deadline for proposals: October 24th, 2024
• Proposal Form: https://southeasternwritingcenter.wildapricot.org/submitaproposal 

Conference Theme: Leading from the Center

Writing centers are often welcoming spaces. Those who work in writing centers are often welcoming too. Writing center staff are described as friendly, helpful, and supportive, but are they ever lauded for being leaders? Is it possible to lead from the Center?

Roy Erister “Rick” Hall, the former owner of FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) studio, was a leader in the music industry in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. A variety of musical artists, such as Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones, along with other pop, R&B, and country music stars made magic and music in that recording studio! Over a span of 60 years, Rick’s drive and endurance for recording and producing music placed the Shoals area on the map.

Hall is one example of what it means to “lead from the Center.” By bringing together musicians, singers, managers, and record labels to produce some of the best music in recording history, Hall illustrates how we can lead as we collaborate, connect, and create. Yet–tucked away in small town Alabama–FAME is not widely known outside of the state. The location of Hall’s work has made it easy to overlook.

Every day, writing center staff lead, but their work is overlooked too. Although we bring together writers, educators, and community members to produce scholarship; to engage in meaningful dialogue; to identify problems and investigate solutions, our intellectual labor is often invisible, our value to the university unseen, our voices unheard, our seats at the table denied.

Strong leadership is vital for the success of any writing center–but what does strength look like? Our positions within departments, colleges, high schools, or universities, shape how we lead, making our leadership styles as diverse as the people who possess them. Outside influences–both personal and political–develop writing center administrators, coordinators, tutors, and graduate assistants into leaders who are flexible, patient, and accommodating.

Strong leadership, then, is redefined by the location of our centers and how we maneuver within them. Each writing center has a unique influence on the environment and context within which it exists, but the extent to which that influence spreads is determined by leadership–those who have the unique skillset to navigate responsibilities that rotate like the vinyl on a record player.

In a small-town studio in Alabama, Rick Hall led from the Center, spinning out records that carried the magic of music over air waves that traveled far and wide. How far does your influence reach as you train tutors who later become teachers, business owners, lawyers or scientists; as you support faculty who later complete degrees, complete publications, and obtain tenure; as you advise administrators, report to board members and collect data; as you pour into learners, writers, and Tik Tok followers? Maybe you know what it’s like to be overlooked, or maybe you’ve overlooked your own leadership because you’ve been so caught up in the activity swirling around you. It’s time, then, to look again–to re-vision your place at the Center as a position of power and influence, not just service. Let’s explore all the ways that our writing centers contribute and enrich our campuses as we lead from the Center!

The call for this conference focuses on writing center practitioners as leaders and invites proposals exploring the dimensions of leadership through different lenses, theories, frameworks, and perspectives. Submissions may explore the following areas in regards to leadership:

Writing Center Practitioners

• Writing centers employ staff who each have unique skills and responsibilities. What does leadership look like for writing tutors (or consultants), directors, assistant directors, administrators, coordinators, graduate assistants, interns or any other writing center staff? What perspectives do their positions provide them that may also enrich entities outside of the Center?
• How have outside influences–either personal or political–shaped writing center administrators’, coordinators’, tutors’ and graduate assistants’ leadership?
• In what ways do writing center leaders balance their roles as listeners, helpers, and healers with being fighters, advocates, and agitators? What challenges or conflicts arise when we step “out of line” in order to support or defend causes that we care about?
• There are many changes swirling around writing centers–changes in scholarship and scholarly debates; changes in enrollment and student demographics; changes in university or department leadership; changes in technology; changes in writing centers’ location, and changes in the nation–politics, pandemics, and people. How does anyone or a combination of these changes impact our ability to lead? How do changes shape the kinds of leaders we become?
• What are the characteristics of leaders who effectively lead from the Center, and what kind of impact do writing center leaders have on those outside of the Center?
• How might the skills acquired by writing center leaders be transferred to other leadership roles outside of the Center?
• In what ways have writing center leaders demonstrated their unique skills through collaboration with others outside of the Center?

Writers

• In what ways have the unique skills of writing center leaders benefitted student writers from underrepresented groups whether ethnic minorities, LGBTQIA+ people, adult learners or learners with physical or psychological limitations?
• Which leadership skills are required to ensure that the needs of all writers, including those from underrepresented groups, are met?
• In what ways do writing center leaders adapt in order to accommodate specific groups of writers? What effects do these adaptations have on writers?
• What lessons on leadership can a writing center administrator learn from the day-to-day engagements–with writers, colleagues and/or community members–in the writing center?

Writing Centers

• How does the location(s) of writing centers in relation to other campus units influence university culture?
• In what ways might writing centers be more influential within university ecosystems?
• What leadership qualities are revealed or re-defined by writing center work?
• How can writing center administrators make their writing centers more visible and valuable to university leadership and other campus units?
• How have writing centers led from the Center by bringing people together from other campus units or organizations outside of the university? What was the result and impact of such collaborations?

Writing Center Scholarship

• What insights have come out of writing center scholarship–whether rhetorical theories, quantitative research, qualitative research, or storytelling–that is beneficial to those outside of the Center? What benefits does writing center scholarship provide to entities other than writing centers?
• In what ways are the skills and knowledge of writing center administrators unique? How can, or should, these skills and knowledge be replicated within academia, and what impact might it have?
• What leadership theories or practices best align with effective writing center leadership? What theories can (or should) writing center staff apply to their work in writing centers?

Proposals for presentations, roundtables, poster presentations and panels will be accepted through Thursday, October 24th, 2024.

We welcome proposals in the following formats:

• Synchronous Sessions
• Individual Presentation: 10-minute presentation/talk with one or two speakers. Individual presentations will be placed in a synchronous panel based on the topic.
• Panel Presentation: 50-minute synchronous session with three or more speakers/facilitators.
• Poster Presentation: 50-minute poster presentation.
• Workshop: 50-minute synchronous, interactive sessions.
• Roundtable: 50-minute synchronous facilitated discussion around a specific topic.

Please include the following information in your proposal:

• Presenter(s) Name(s) and Affiliation(s)
• Contact information for all presenters (email)
• Institution Type
• Type of presentation
• Presentation Title
• 50-100 word abstract (will be used on the conference website; however, if any changes occur between the time you submit the abstract to the time of the conference, please email revisions to Kat Richards - karichards@una.edu - by January 3, 2025 )
• 250-500 word proposal