November 2-5, 2023

Sheraton at Station Square, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Accepting proposals for individual presentations*, panel presentations*, workshops, roundtables, and poster presentations

*virtual presentations welcome

Writing centers have been varyingly characterized as safe (Meuse; Welch), brave (Hallman Martini and Webster), and inclusive (Blazer; Wilson) spaces that support students in their development as writers, learners, meaning makers, and citizens. Though such characterizations have been challenged, they emphasize that there is something special about writing centers as spaces of knowledge and community construction. This uniqueness arises in part from the ability of writing center peer tutors and administrators to build bridges and break clichés, to create new connections and to challenge outdated perceptions. This unique capacity gives rise to the theme of the NCPTW 2023: Building Bridges and Breaking Clichés. 

Writing centers are well positioned to build bridges—and have been doing so for years. Writing center peer tutors and administrators work with writers and teachers across campus from multiple disciplines, ages, abilities, and backgrounds. They create connections with community partners. They endeavor to bring literacy education to and grow through listening to the voices of marginalized and underserved populations. 

Likewise, writing centers have also long worked to challenge clichés, including familiar misperceptions that have haunted writing centers since their inception. Many of these clichés were challenged famously in Stephen North’s “The Idea of a Writing Center”: writing centers help writers only with grammar errors, writing centers are remedial spaces, writing centers require students to have finished papers. These notions may still sound all too familiar. But other clichés (unintentionally) arose from North’s idea (which North himself acknowledged): writing center tutors should always use nondirective approaches, writing centers seek to create better writers rather than better papers, line-by-line editing is never appropriate. Further, writing centers have also had to work against other clichés emerging from their efforts to build bridges, such as the notion that writing centers uphold the prominence of standard written English and writing centers are only relevant for English or composition courses. Perhaps most pernicious is the idea that writing centers are now outdated or are even counterproductive (Jacobs).

There is still work to do. And in a time of pandemic, war, and division, writing centers are more important than ever. Therefore, the 2023 NCPTW aims to provide a space for creating connections and challenging clichés. Presentations will provide occasions for peer tutors and administrators to discuss strategies for breaking clichés that hamper our work as well as strategies for building bridges to new communities—be they new populations of writers, new student groups, or new partners off-campus. Our keynote address will embody this approach by including writing center administrators and peer tutors from secondary and postsecondary institutions. Our social events and conference activities will provide occasions for networking, sharing ideas, and having fun!

Pittsburgh is an apt site for this work. Pittsburgh is the City of Bridges, having the most bridges of any city in the United States and the second most bridges of any city in the world. It is also a city that has bridged the past and present, drawing upon its rich industrial history to create new opportunities in cutting-edge fields. Additionally, Pittsburgh is a city that has broken clichés, particularly the notion that Pittsburgh is a polluted, industrial town. In the last twenty years, Pittsburgh has established itself as a leader in medicine, higher education, and clean energy initiatives. With all it has to offer, National Geographic Traveller named Pittsburgh to its “Cool List 2019” of trending travel destinations.

The conference runs Nov 2–5, 2023 in Pittsburgh, PA.

For the 2023 conference, we seek proposals that speak to ways in which writing centers and peer tutors build bridges and/or break clichés. Possible inquiries include:

• In what ways have individuals and full centers worked or struggled to build bridges, make connections, or form partnerships? 
• What practices or processes best support building bridges among individuals and groups?
• In what ways have shifts caused by the pandemic allowed for building bridges and/or challenging clichés that were previously not considered?
• In what ways are the bridges we build mutually beneficial to those living on each side? In what ways are they not? 
• In what ways have recent changes to local institutional policies/practices challenged clichés about peer tutoring in writing?
• In what ways do histories of writing centers–local or writ large–challenge clichés about peer tutoring in writing?
• What clichés about writing centers still circulate? How can we move past them?
• How might efforts to see writing centers as spaces to build bridges in fact perpetuate clichés about our research, theory, and practice?
• Of course, proposals exploring other lines of inquiry are welcome. All are welcome to bridge out and challenge clichés.

Hotel reservations are available at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Hotel at Station Square. See the link below for details and to book rooms.

No refunds of conference registration fees will be issued after September 30, 2023.