Dr. Haltiwanger Morrison is the Director of the OU Writing Center and Expository Writing Program at the University of Oklahoma, where she is also an Assistant Professor of Writing. Dr. Morrison has taught courses in First-Year Writing, Community-Engaged Writing, Business Writing, and Writing Pedagogy. She earned her PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition from Purdue University.
Over the past 10-15 years, writing center scholars have acknowledged the significance of race to ... more Over the past 10-15 years, writing center scholars have acknowledged the significance of race to writing center work and examined the ways racism manifests within writing center spaces and practices. More recently, conversations have shifted from acknowledging racism to how to combat it through antiracist activism. However, due to the demographics of the field, the voices most often contributing to these conversations are white scholars, many of them directors at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). This study positions Black writing tutors as individuals with expertise to share on how to engage in antiracism through writing center work that stems from their experiences as tutors and as Black Americans. It argues that tutors’ identities as Black students on predominantly White campuses are relevant to their tutoring work and must be considered when making decisions about how to encourage and support tutors in antiracist writing center work. It also challenges professionals in the field to acknowledge the racism still prevalent in writing centers, which also continues to shape writing center dialogue and practice. The study presents a grounded-theory analysis of two rounds of semi-structured interviews with nine current writing tutors, self-identified as Black. Participants included eight women and four first-generation Americans. The argument is presented through a three-part analysis that first examines institutional culture and climate around race for the Black participants, including their interactions with other students and institutional agents, as well their experiences with racially charged events on campus. The second part of the analysis considers how the racially tense and often oppressive environment of the broader campus is mirrored in that of the writing centers where the participants work, where their experiences of racism lead them to filter their words and actions. In the final part of the analysis, I offer the participants’ perspectives on writing centers’ potential for antiracism, as well as their views on responsibility for racism, perspectives rooted in their experiences as Black tutors, students, and Americans. I conclude that while writing centers have the potential to be sites for antiracism, they currently remain tense and unwelcoming spaces for many Black tutors. I argue that White administrators must be more aware of broader campus climate and how it affects their center and staff, and must willing to breakdown the status quo, in their centers and in the field, to make writing centers as spaces and as a discipline more inclusive
The IWCA Special Interest Group (SIG) on Antiracism Activism "is a group committed to undoin... more The IWCA Special Interest Group (SIG) on Antiracism Activism "is a group committed to undoing racism at multiple levels: in the immediate context of the writing conference and local writing center, and more widely through systematic cross-curricular and cross-institutional initiatives" ("WCActivism"). This piece features the SIG's participation in the 2018 online IWCA Collaborative at CCCC: the SIG leaders assembled a diverse panel of scholars and practitioners from different races, ages, institutions, and varying levels and types of writing center experience, but with useful and firm beliefs in action. Using Rasha Diab et al.'s 2013 article "Making Commitments to Racial Justice Actionable" as a starting point, the panelists drew on their various perspectives to examine the potential for and barriers to actionable antiracism activism within both the writing center and the IWCA. The authors reflect on antiracism action in, through, and by writing centers and those who work in them, situated within writing centers' local, academic, and institutional contexts.
This article represents our process, as a group, of coming to terms with our experiences with rac... more This article represents our process, as a group, of coming to terms with our experiences with racism, both situational and systemic, in our writing center. The search began by telling stories, about ourselves and about our experiences in the writing center, on our campus, and in our communities. We tried on different languages for their potentials to help us both understand the stories and to help us imagine new possibilities for working for racial justice and against systemic racism. The coming to terms, it turns out, was just as much a search for terms. How do we talk about the racism that we encounter – both individualized and systemic – and what language do we use in describing our responses to such racism? Even further, how does this language shape our actions and reactions in response to racism?
This article represents our process, as a group, of coming to terms with our experiences with rac... more This article represents our process, as a group, of coming to terms with our experiences with racism, both situational and systemic, in our writing center. The search began by telling stories, about ourselves and about our experiences in the writing center, on our campus, and in our communities. We tried on different languages for their potentials to help us both understand the stories and to help us imagine new possibilities for working for racial justice and against systemic racism. The coming to terms, it turns out, was just as much a search for terms. How do we talk about the racism that we encounter – both individualized and systemic – and what language do we use in describing our responses to such racism? Even further, how does this language shape our actions and reactions in response to racism?
Over the past 10-15 years, writing center scholars have acknowledged the significance of race to ... more Over the past 10-15 years, writing center scholars have acknowledged the significance of race to writing center work and examined the ways racism manifests within writing center spaces and practices. More recently, conversations have shifted from acknowledging racism to how to combat it through antiracist activism. However, due to the demographics of the field, the voices most often contributing to these conversations are white scholars, many of them directors at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). This study positions Black writing tutors as individuals with expertise to share on how to engage in antiracism through writing center work that stems from their experiences as tutors and as Black Americans. It argues that tutors’ identities as Black students on predominantly White campuses are relevant to their tutoring work and must be considered when making decisions about how to encourage and support tutors in antiracist writing center work. It also challenges professionals in the field to acknowledge the racism still prevalent in writing centers, which also continues to shape writing center dialogue and practice. The study presents a grounded-theory analysis of two rounds of semi-structured interviews with nine current writing tutors, self-identified as Black. Participants included eight women and four first-generation Americans. The argument is presented through a three-part analysis that first examines institutional culture and climate around race for the Black participants, including their interactions with other students and institutional agents, as well their experiences with racially charged events on campus. The second part of the analysis considers how the racially tense and often oppressive environment of the broader campus is mirrored in that of the writing centers where the participants work, where their experiences of racism lead them to filter their words and actions. In the final part of the analysis, I offer the participants’ perspectives on writing centers’ potential for antiracism, as well as their views on responsibility for racism, perspectives rooted in their experiences as Black tutors, students, and Americans. I conclude that while writing centers have the potential to be sites for antiracism, they currently remain tense and unwelcoming spaces for many Black tutors. I argue that White administrators must be more aware of broader campus climate and how it affects their center and staff, and must willing to breakdown the status quo, in their centers and in the field, to make writing centers as spaces and as a discipline more inclusive
The IWCA Special Interest Group (SIG) on Antiracism Activism "is a group committed to undoin... more The IWCA Special Interest Group (SIG) on Antiracism Activism "is a group committed to undoing racism at multiple levels: in the immediate context of the writing conference and local writing center, and more widely through systematic cross-curricular and cross-institutional initiatives" ("WCActivism"). This piece features the SIG's participation in the 2018 online IWCA Collaborative at CCCC: the SIG leaders assembled a diverse panel of scholars and practitioners from different races, ages, institutions, and varying levels and types of writing center experience, but with useful and firm beliefs in action. Using Rasha Diab et al.'s 2013 article "Making Commitments to Racial Justice Actionable" as a starting point, the panelists drew on their various perspectives to examine the potential for and barriers to actionable antiracism activism within both the writing center and the IWCA. The authors reflect on antiracism action in, through, and by writing centers and those who work in them, situated within writing centers' local, academic, and institutional contexts.
This article represents our process, as a group, of coming to terms with our experiences with rac... more This article represents our process, as a group, of coming to terms with our experiences with racism, both situational and systemic, in our writing center. The search began by telling stories, about ourselves and about our experiences in the writing center, on our campus, and in our communities. We tried on different languages for their potentials to help us both understand the stories and to help us imagine new possibilities for working for racial justice and against systemic racism. The coming to terms, it turns out, was just as much a search for terms. How do we talk about the racism that we encounter – both individualized and systemic – and what language do we use in describing our responses to such racism? Even further, how does this language shape our actions and reactions in response to racism?
This article represents our process, as a group, of coming to terms with our experiences with rac... more This article represents our process, as a group, of coming to terms with our experiences with racism, both situational and systemic, in our writing center. The search began by telling stories, about ourselves and about our experiences in the writing center, on our campus, and in our communities. We tried on different languages for their potentials to help us both understand the stories and to help us imagine new possibilities for working for racial justice and against systemic racism. The coming to terms, it turns out, was just as much a search for terms. How do we talk about the racism that we encounter – both individualized and systemic – and what language do we use in describing our responses to such racism? Even further, how does this language shape our actions and reactions in response to racism?
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