This Fall, The Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication is seeing unprecedented student traffic. Opening a week earlier than in past years, the Centre has been almost fully booked every day since opening on September 18. Students are able to book appointments up to 10 days in advance.
The CWSC is focusing on an appointment-based model rather than a drop-in model. “We are now able to ensure a ‘reserved’ time for students to discuss their writing,” says Julie Mitchell, Assistant Director of Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, “This prevents long wait times for students and also maximizes the time and talents of our peer writing consultants.”
The Centre, located in the South pavilion on the third floor of the Chapman Learning Commons, in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre provides free support to all writers at UBC, from one-on-one writing consultations to workshops, events and thesis bootcamps. “We work with all writers on campus,” says Rebecca Shaw, the CWSC’s Program Manager, “Undergraduate and graduate students are welcome to connect with us at all stages whether they are struggling with their assignments or if they are confident writers and want a second pair of eyes or to discuss their writing process with a peer writing consultant.”
The most popular service offered at CWSC is the writing consultation, a 25-minute (50 minutes for Grad students) one-on-one appointment where students work with peer writing consultants to improve their writing, shape their writing process, and meet their goals.
“Our aim is to develop writers beyond a single assignment,” says Shaw, “Our peer writing consultants have been trained to support students from across a variety of disciplines, working with students to develop writing goals and strategies.”
The Centre is beloved among students and often appears in guides under “Campus Essentials”, like the Ubyssey’s most recent Guide to UBC. “I love the Centre,” writes one student, “It’s the best resource at UBC.” Writes another, “I have a lot more confidence in my writing now. I got great constructive criticism and clear direction to further develop my paper.”
Shaw and her team also run a full schedule of events and workshops that enable students to learn and practice strategies for writing the Language Proficiency Index (LPI) Exam, develop better academic writing habits and learn how to keep their thesis-writing on track.
Learn more about the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication and how it might benefit you at Library.ubc.ca/writing
That is really good that there are more and more opportunities for students every year Thanx for the article