Lauren Fitzgerald and Melissa Ianetta Selected as NCPTW 2020 Maxwell Award Recipients

December 9, 2020

two women presenting a keynote address
Melissa Ianetta (standing) and Lauren Fitzgerald deliver the 2017 NCPTW Keynote address

The National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing’s Ron Maxwell Award Committee is pleased to announce that Lauren Fitzgerald, Professor of English and Director of the Wilf Campus Writing Center at Yeshiva University, and Melissa Ianetta, Class of ’58 Professor and Director of the Writing and Communication Program at Georgia Institute of Technology, have been selected as the 2020 recipients of the Ron Maxwell Leadership Award.

The NCPTW Ron Maxwell Leadership Award is presented annually to a professional in the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing (NCPTW) organization who has contributed with distinction to undergraduate student development through promoting collaborative learning among peer tutors in writing. The award recognizes an individual for dedication to and leadership in collaborative learning within writing centers, for aiding students in taking on more responsibility together for their learning, and thus for promoting the work of peer tutors. Its presentation also denotes extraordinary service to the evolution of the NCPTW. This year, the Maxwell Award Committee was asked to consider Professor Ianetta and Professor Fitzgerald for the award jointly, as a collaborative partnership, and we received the nomination packet with delight.

In her letter of nomination, their colleague Andrea Rosso Efthymiou highlighted the many ways Professor Fitzgerald and Professor Ianetta have supported and mentored peer tutors in writing over the years. Not only did they collaborate with undergraduates who served as assistant editors of Writing Center Journal during Ianetta and Fitzgerald’s tenure as the journal’s editorial team, but later they also hired undergraduate tutor researchers to work on their co-authored book The Oxford Guide for Writing Tutors, which is quickly becoming a widely-adopted text for tutor education courses internationally.  Efthymiou further detailed Fitzgerald’s and Ianetta’s more visible work in advocating for peer tutors as undergraduate researchers, particularly in their keynote address at the 2017 NCPTW conference, titled “Tutors Front and Center: How the Writing Center Works.” Efthymiou identified their examination of “the impact of tutor research on students’ understanding of their own intellectual labor” as one of the more compelling reasons for her nomination for this prestigious award.

The NCPTW Ron Maxwell Leadership Award Committee also had great things to say about Professor Ianetta and Professor Fitzgerald. One Committee member noted “the myriad ways these two have worked separately and together to empower peer tutors, to mentor graduate students, to ground writing center work in sound theoretical underpinnings, and to validate the work of peer tutors as legitimate academic professional activity.” Another commented that “their leadership within NCPTW and their field-wide mentorship of peer mentors as researchers is clearly significant and far-reaching.” The Committee was pleased to have been presented the nomination letters for Professor Fitzgerald and Professor Ianetta and is delighted to welcome them onto the Committee of past Maxwell Award winners.

More information about the NCPTW and the Ron Maxwell Leadership Award can be found at https://www.thencptw.org/index.php/maxwell-award/ .

2 thoughts on “Lauren Fitzgerald and Melissa Ianetta Selected as NCPTW 2020 Maxwell Award Recipients”

  1. So exciting to see Lauren and Melissa recognized for their contributions to the field.

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