On October 16, 2025, The Writing Center at Ball State\u2019s leadership team presented at the International Writing Center Association (IWCA) Conference in Cincinnati, OH. The team\u2019s goal was to share some in-progress research about the role of graduate student administrators (GSAs) in writing centers, and to hear from attendees about their own practices in mentoring and designing GSA roles.<\/p>\n
First, Director Charlotte Kupsh introduced the team and presented the exigence for their research. She discussed that mentoring writing center GSA is not explicitly taught to administrators and often, administrators mentor in the same ways that they were mentored. Next, Associate Director Kat Greene presented the team\u2019s literature review, which focused on these three inter-related topics: 1. Pre-Professionalism, 2. Supporting GSAs in administrative roles and 3) Mentoring. First, scholars discuss the issue of pre-professionalism as GSA\u2019s conducting or expected to take part in professional activities (administrative task, publications, etc.) before they are ready. However, given the job market (and its status for the past two-decades) GSAs are looking for professional experiences. One opportunity to professionalize is graduate student administrative positions in the writing center. Writing center scholars suggest various interventions for supporting GSAs, such as providing clear expectations of the GSA role, supporting GSAs\u2019 career goals, and mentoring. Finally, mentoring GSA in the writing center is incorporated into the administrators\u2019 job; however, most administrators are not trained to be mentors. Scholars suggest strong mentoring includes setting clear expectations, modeling professional behavior (e.g., self-care, setting boundaries, and ethical research practices), and encouraging mentees to seek out multiple mentors to support them in diverse ways.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Assistant Directors Roman and Khadija presented their experiences as GSAs in the writing center and what they have learned from their experiences. Roman shared his experiences with the transition to a GSA role and the tension he feels between his roles as a peer or friend of the tutors in the center and his responsibilities as an administrator. Khadija shared her experience as an international student in the GSA role and the ways that administrators can support this international GSAs in their centers.<\/p>\n
This is an on-going research project and next the team will collect survey rand interview responses from Ball State\u2019s peer institutions. Again, the team\u2019s hope is to explore the positions of GSAs in the writing center and find best practices for supporting them in these roles. They hope to present these findings at the Conference on College Communication and Composition this March in Columbus, OH.<\/p>\n
The Writing Center also wants to support all writers at Ball State. All appointments are available either in person at one of our two locations or online via the WCOnline website. Our main location is in the Robert Bell building, second floor, room 295, and we offer all our daytime appointments (Mon.-Thurs. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. & Fri. 11 a.m.-2 p.m.) at this location. Our evening appointments (Sun. \u2013 Thurs. 6-10 p.m.) are offered at our satellite location in Bracken Library\u2014First Floor West. Visit our website (bsu.edu\/writingcenter) to make your appointment today. We can\u2019t wait to see you in the Writing Center!<\/p>\n
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On October 16, 2025, The Writing Center at Ball State\u2019s leadership team presented at the International Writing Center Association (IWCA) Conference in Cincinnati, OH. The team\u2019s goal was to share some in-progress research about the role of graduate student administrators (GSAs) in writing centers, and to hear from attendees about their own practices in mentoring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":310,"featured_media":89,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2,13],"tags":[26,25,27,24],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-featured","category-news","tag-26","tag-iwca","tag-leadership-team","tag-research"],"yoast_head":"\n