Writing Center Administration: Learning the Numbers Game

It’s all in the numbers. I wish it wasn’t, but I became acutely aware of the qualitative pressure placed on writing centers when I became not only assistant director of our university’s writing center, but also when I filled in as acting director while our current director began her research leave. Since I had previously spent a significant amount of time conferencing with my own students in the center itself and knew the tutors and staff well, I was aware of the role in a writing center’s survival that numbers play in a service branch of a university–in other words, how many students use our tutoring services. Our situation may serve as an example of many such dilemmas writing centers face in this recession.University Writing Cente