North: What's Our Direction

It's interesting, I think, how he thought that writing centers should be kept as the private property of the English Department. I wonder if that's really a good direction to go in because all it does is deprive some students who really need the help, exclude the service to a group of students who (typically) don't attend the wc often, and because of all this, the need for the wc diminishes and then potential tutors would no longer have the opportunity to exercise their English skills by helping others in a professional setting. The writing center serves so many purposes and provides so many services that would be in danger of extinction or, at least, decreased effectiveness if the scope of its clientele were limited.

On a similar note, I think that the direction that writing centers seem to be going in is a good one. Collaboration and a focus on improving writers are excellent goals and achievements. I think that a fitting complement to this current discovery/creation of an effective and helpful identity would be increased advertisement. It seems that so many students still don't know that we exist or don't know what our services are or how to take advantage of them. Some type of advertising campaign or awareness-raising activity might be helpful to centers that are starting to feel comfortable in their own shoes. As North talks about, closets and basements aren't the best places for writing centers. I wonder if there are any other places on Ball State that might be even better locations. What difference does the locale of a writing center have on its clientele?

It seems that there are many different directions/paths that could be followed. I wonder if North is pointing us all to True North.