Digital Commons Network^™

Unsung Heroes, Eric F. Spina

President's Blog: From the Heart

Not all students park an ambulance in their garage. But not all are first responders, either, with a headquarters located in the heart of the student neighborhood.

New In The Libraries: Automatic Renewal, Kevin Cretsos

University Libraries Blog Archive

Catalog enhancement saves time, boosts convenience.

The Honeymoon Is Over, Debra Arbit

Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Blog

I wore a diaper on the airplane ride home from my honeymoon. Yup. You read that right. An adult diaper on the 8-hour, trans-Atlantic flight from Rome to Minneapolis with a Christmas day stop in Chicago. I was in seat 5B snuggled in between my newly minted husband and my dad. This, my friends, is what romantic dreams are made of.

Why Is Marriage Like A Tourniquet?, Jan Marshall

Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Blog

Marriage is like a tourniquet - it stops circulation. That is much healthier than running around looking for a date every Saturday night.

New Book: The Ultimate Cartoon Book Of Book Cartoons By The World's Greatest Cartoonists, Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop

Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Blog

Author and cartoonist Bob Eckstein describes the book as both an "exuberant collection of cartoons" and "an enthusiastic love letter to books and bookstores." The cartoons celebrate and critique the literary world through the work of 33 of the masters of cartoon art, including Sam Gross, Roz Chast, Arnie Levin, Danny Shanahan, Peter Steiner, Mick Stevens, Nick Downes, Liza Donnelly, Bob Mankoff and Michael Maslin. Many of the cartoons have been published in the New Yorker, while others are published here for the first time.

New Book: Puttin' On The Dog And Gettin' Bit, Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop

Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Blog

In Barbara Taylor Sanders' newest book, she "pokes fun at party poopers, cooking disasters, entertaining mishaps, over indulgence, diet failures, senior moments and never measuring up to Martha Stewart, not matter how hard you try."

When Imagination And Metaphor Soar: Poets As Writing Center Directors, Julie Moore, Shanna Powlus Wheeler

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

We, Julie Moore and Shanna Powlus Wheeler, as published poets and writing center directors, propose a presentation in which we explore how we became “mindful of the relationship between creative work and academic work” (Bouquet and Eodice 4). Using the relationship between Dayton neighbors Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Wright brothers as inspiration, we will draw upon Wendell Berry’s argument that science and art are not “inherently at odds with one another . . . [for] ‘science’ means knowing and ‘art’ means doing . . . Out of school, the two are commonly inter-involved and naturally cooperative [even] in the …

Fighting Racism And Navigating Burnout: Supporting Marginalized Consultants Doing Social Justice Work In Writing Centers, Varshini Balaji, Bella Ramirez

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

People of color are expected to approach diversity work in a dissociated and intellectual manner by overlooking our personal experiences with race on a daily basis. People of color embody messy and antithetical roles in academia and Writing Centers, where we are both centered and marginalized, both praised for calling out privilege and simultaneously silenced and policed, both conditionally supported and institutionally challenged, both accepted and othered, both empowered and dehumanized. In this roundtable, two women of color consultants will share their personal narratives of engaging in social justice and diversity work in Writing Centers and will discuss the challenges …

Ready To Launch?: Preparing Tutors For Next Steps, Jackie Grutsch Mckinney, Marilee Brooks Gillies, Harry Denny, Kat Greene

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

The central question of this panel is: What responsibility do writing center administrators have for preparing tutors for their post-writing center careers and lives and what would such preparation look like? In recent years, writing center scholarship has touched on this issue (see Welsch 2008; Whalen 2009; Dinitz & Kiedaisch, 2009; Hughes, et al. 2010); this panel is extension of this scholarship by different administrators at three different universities. Our panel discusses the difficulties and successes we’ve had in shaping and in assessing professional/career development for our staffs based on the models and suggestions in the writing center literature.

Motivation And The Writing Process, David Harrington, Rachel Carroll

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

This study is relevant because it looks at how to engage those students who are too often disengaged from the writing process. Many of us work with them every day in class rooms and writing centers and know how difficult it can be to find a way to motivate the student to engage with the writing process. Our work seeks to provide insight and tools to bring students willingly into the writing process.

Comics And Fictional Conundrums: Art Drawn From And For The Writing Center, Abigail C. Wisser Ms., Caroline J. Clauson Ms.

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

Our goal is to inspire other tutors to be more creative in communicating, educating, and enriching the environment of the writing center. We hope other tutors will better internalize theory through art.

In her story "The Spirit Indeed is Willing", Carrie projected her experience in the writing center into a literary form to better embody the complex relationship between the tutor and student, and to represent heteroglossia in the writing center.

Abigail, in writing "How to Tutor Reluctant Writers", sought to find a new way to illustrate theories in practice. By embracing the relatively new form of the informal comic, …

Listening Across Experience: A Cultural Rhetorics Approach To Understanding Power Dynamics And Relationality Within A University Writing Center, Varshini Balaji, Marilee Brooks-Gillies, Kelin Hull, Kc Chan-Brose, James White

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

Our project looks to the lived experiences of consultants, the assistant director, and director of our own University Writing Center (UWC) to conduct an institutional ethnography of our internal power structures and their impact on the everyday practices within the UWC. The stories of individuals within our community will provide us with a clearer understanding of the dynamics of our writing center, which can be valuable for other writing center communities to consider. A few central questions that panelists will discuss include: 1) How can we make visible the productive nature of power?, 2)How do we work with and against …

Are Post-Session Student Surveys Useful?: An Examination Of Self-Assessment And Gendered Language In Student Surveys, Zach Dwyer, Bethany Meadows

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

Are Post-Session Student Surveys Useful?: An Examination of Self-Assessment and Gendered Language in Student Surveys

Many writing centers have clients complete post-session surveys about their experience in their tutor sessions. In this panel of two tutor-scholars, we seek to examine how useful these surveys are for tutors and writing centers. We explicate this through two different lens (abstracts below): tutor’s ability to use the client surveys as reflection and how clients perceive gender differences in their tutors in the surveys.

Panel Part One:

Post-Session Surveys and the Effectiveness of Praise

The struggle to determine the best assessment practices in Writing …

Evolving Training Techniques & Practices: The Story Of Consult Right, Ashley Cerku, Red Douglas, Emma Shriner

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

Online learning and mentorship programs have greatly influenced the way that knowledge is exchanged in academic settings. This same approach can be applied in writing centers for consultant training. The Oakland University Writing Center has evolved their consultant training program, which further combines traditional and technology-oriented techniques along with mentorship pairings to optimize consultant preparedness. This model can potentially be adapted for future use in any writing center.

Embracing Waywardness: Counter-Narratives Of Progress And Community, Kelin Hull

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

Barely six weeks in to my new position as graduate student assistant director of the writing center and, words – microaggressions, depression, fear, confusion, suspicion, hostility, and suicide - landed like cluster grenades, each one seeming to tear a new hole in the foundation of community in the writing center. How do we feel, what do we do, how does a community survive when the story we’re experiencing isn’t the story we want or expected - when it is, in a word, terrible? We are in a post-grand narrative moment. We know our labor and our centers do not look, …

“What Should I Like To Work On Today?” Assessing Student Response On Appointment Request Forms, Suzanne Smith, Clayton Chiarelott, Jessica Aberl

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

Responses to appointment request forms, whether detailed or sparse, allow writing center tutors to initiate conversations with students about perceptions of their writing and their identities as writers. In this study, we examine how students answer the question, “What would you like to work on today?” from 26 appointment request forms submitted to The University of Toledo Writing Center during Fall 2018 along with an analysis of post-session tutor reports. It is an opportunity, as Muriel Harris (1986) writes, “to listen more closely to hear what is being said ‘behind’ the words” (p. 61).

Our analysis is grounded in the …

Tending To The Tutor’S Toolbox: Addressing Embodiment, Incorporating Kinesthetic Instruction, And Training For Mental Health, Kyle Pratt, Will Chesher, Bethany Meadows, Jake Hennessy

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

The writing center tutor skillset is ever changing and the amount of “tools” in which the tutor has accesses to follows suit. The writing center tutor must keep their “tools” sharp and their toolbox up to date. This panel of four tutor-scholars seeks to enhance the existing toolbox of our writing center tutors. We explicate this through three different avenues (abstracts below): embodiment as a tutor, kinesthetic learning/tutoring, and addressing mental health within sessions.

Panel Part One:

(AD)Dressing the Part: Graduate Tutor Embodiment and Dress/Codes

At our center, graduate tutors are also graduate teaching assistants or instructors; therefore, graduate tutors …

Expanding The Hat Rack: Investigating The Roles Of Writing Center Social Media Content Creators, Amory Orchard

East Central Writing Centers Association 2019 Conference

New adventures mean new possibilities and challenges. Adopting social media for one's writing center is no exception. The level of writing center activity on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram has soared within the past 10 years. Despite writing scholars calling for more replicable, agreeable, and data-supported “RAD” research (Babcock and Thonus; Driscoll and Wynn Purdue; Gillespie et al.), the conversation surrounding this topic remains anecdotal and without regard for individual writing centers’ local contexts and needs.

With this gap in mind, the speaker highlights major findings from her year-long qualitative interview project consisting of 30 high school and college writing centers …

Ud In The News March 29- April 5, University Of Dayton

News Releases

National Catholic Reporter cited Vince Miller's essay in America magazine, International Business Times picked up geologist Shuang-Ye Wu's piece in The Conversation and the Atlanta Journal Constitution included Professor of Faith and Culture Sandra Yocum's comments about the new archbishop of Washington, D.C., in two articles.

Service, Wisdom, Commitment, Kathleen M. Webb

University Libraries Blog Archive

Dean lauds the work of the Libraries Advisory Council.

Chapel Flowers, Lilia Sciarretti

Materials from the University of Dayton Magazine Website

Loosing all hope that spring will never come? Don't fret, flowers are starting to bloom all over campus.

In The Sun, Kathryn Niekamp

Materials from the University of Dayton Magazine Website

Students finally get to get some sun and study, too.

Signs Of Spring, Kristin Davis

Materials from the University of Dayton Magazine Website

Spring has sprung in Dayton!

2019-04-05 Minutes Of The Executive Committee Of The Academic Senate, University Of Dayton. Academic Senate. Executive Committee

ECAS Minutes

Approved minutes of a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Academic Senate of the University of Dayton.

Celebrating Pride: New Titles In Leisure Reading, Rachel Barnett

University Libraries Blog Archive

Browse the collection or reserve through the catalog.

#1day1dayton - Sharon Gratto, University Of Dayton

College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom

Sharon Davis Gratto, Graul Chair in Arts and Languages, invites UD faculty and staff to support our academic community on 4/10/19, the first Giving Day for the University of Dayton.

Feed The Hungry With Food For Fines, Chris Tangeman

University Libraries Blog Archive

National Library Week is April 7-13. This is how we celebrate.

Crossing The Border, Jass Richards

Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Blog

An excerpt from Jass Richards' A Philosopher, a Psychologist, and an Extraterrestrial Walk into a Chocolate Bar.

Miracles, Mysticism, And Madness – Oh My!, Melanie Zebrowski

Marian Library Blog Archive

The Marian Library has found unique ways to help UD professors incorporate collections into hands-on learning experiences for students of all majors.

New Book: Maybe Kevin, Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop

Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Blog

Blurb from Wendy Liebman: "If a novel is a map to emotions, Maybe Kevin (part Faulkner, part How I Met Your Mother) takes you on a compelling trip, teasing you with the truth, all while excavating the layered reality of a family. It left me sobbing. But the good kind of sobbing, where you also feel relieved. I sat down to read a chapter but instead read the whole thing and cried like a baby. Surgically constructed art with words, Maybe Kevin is a masterpiece. Whether a joke or a novel, Brian Kiley is my favorite writer. I'll read all …