Category: Writing Centre Conference

Announcement | Paid Opportunity – Assistant Conference Chair

~ CWCA/ACCR

Access a PDF version of this Position Description

Job Title: Assistant Conference Chair

Location: Remote

Position Type: Part-time, Contract

Term: February 10 – June 30, 2025

Compensation: $3,000

About Us: The Canadian Writing Centre Association/association canadienne des centres de rédaction (CWCA/ACCR) is dedicated to supporting writing centres across Canada through professional development, networking, and advocacy. As the Vice President of the CWCA/ACCR, we are seeking a motivated and organized individual to join the CWCA/ACCR board as the Assistant Conference Chair. The position runs from January – June 30, 2025. This role is crucial in ensuring the success of our annual conference, which brings together writing centre professionals from across the country.

Job Summary: The Assistant Conference Chair will work closely with the Conference Chair and the CWCA/ACCR Vice President to plan, organize, and execute the annual conference. The hired applicant is expected to become a member of CWCA/ACCR.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Assist in the development and implementation of the conference agenda and schedule.
  • Facilitate the blind review process by communicating in a timely manner with reviewers, distributing the review materials, and coordinating the responses/decisions.
  • Coordinate with speakers, presenters, and panelists to ensure timely submission of materials and adherence to deadlines.
  • Manage conference registration, including processing registrations, sending confirmations, and handling inquiries.
  • Assist in the creation and distribution of promotional materials and communications related to the conference.
  • Support the Conference Chair in managing the conference budget and tracking expenses.
  • Organize and participate in regular planning meetings with the Conference Chair.
  • Provide synchronous support during the conference, including registration desk management and troubleshooting any issues that arise.
  • Collect and analyze feedback from conference attendees to inform future planning.

Qualifications:

  • Canadian residency and current work permit.
  • Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (e.g., Communications, Event Management, Education) or equivalent experience.
  • Previous experience in event planning or conference coordination is highly desirable.
  • Strong organizational and time management skills.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
  • Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
  • Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and familiarity with event management software.
  • CWCA/ACCR is committed to putting on an inclusive, antiracist, accessible, decolonial, and liberatory conference. Experience with these approaches is an asset for the role, as are insights from lived experiences of the realities of exclusion, racism, inaccessibility, colonialism, and systematic injustice.

How to Apply: Interested candidates are invited to submit their resume and a cover letter outlining their qualifications and experience to chtaylor@wlu.ca. Please include “Assistant Conference Chair Application” in the subject line.

Application Deadline: February 1, 2025

Contact Information: Dr. Christin Wright-Taylor, Vice President, CWCA, chtaylor@wlu.ca

We look forward to receiving your application and thank all applicants for their interest. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted

CFP | 2025 CWCA/ACCR conference

~ CWCA/ACCR

Precarity, Pluckiness, and “Please Help!”: Negotiating Uncertainty in Writing Centre Work

CWCA/ACCR 2025 Virtual Conference
June 16-18, 2025

Access a PDF version of this Call for Proposals

Please submit your proposals via this FORM.

Use this guide to help with you proposals: Writing a conference proposal: A step-by-step guide

Deadline: All submissions must be received by February 14, 2025.

“The CWCA/ACCR community is rich with experience, diverse perspectives, and, perhaps, pluckiness, but it is worth acknowledging that it is threatened by the very precarity experienced by its individual members.” ~ Dr. Stevie Bell

“All progress is precarious.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Canadian Writing Centres Association / association canadienne des centres de rédaction welcomes proposals for our 2025 conference related to any aspect of writing centre study and practice, with particular interest in proposals that explore the multifaceted nature of precarity and agency in writing centres.

During last year’s conference, the panel on “Precarious Presence and Fruitful Futures in Writing Studies” opened a discussion on the ways writing centre professionals experience precarity in our work. The discussion also included themes of how we might advocate for ourselves on an individual, institutional, and national level.  Since this conversation, many experiences of precarity in our CWCA/ACCR community have escalated in unsettling ways. Some of us may be feeling resourceful and plucky. Others may be feeling decidedly not.  Writing centres, situated at the intersections and margins of institutional structures, have long had to negotiate the tension between precarity, agency, and burnout.

Questions and considerations for this year’s conference include the following: In what ways are writing centres experiencing progress that is precarious, and, in what ways does writing centre precarity challenge or inhibit progress? In the face of precarity, how do writing centre professionals secure progress for our writing centres? In the face of precarity, how do writing centre professionals guard against burnout?  In what ways are precarity and agency invisible or unacknowledged in writing centre work? How have writing centres historically navigated precarious times?   How might we incorporate healthy boundaries into our common writing centre life to avoid burnout? How do we exercise agency in the face of uncertainty?

Other possible connections to the theme include but are not limited to:

  • Employment instability among writing centre staff and tutors
  • The impact of precarious conditions on teaching and writing practices
  • Financial and resource constraints
  • The impact of precarious conditions on equity-deserving writers and professional staff
  • The forms of precariousness that new technologies may create/reinforce and the types of resourcefulness that new technologies may afford
  • Navigating institutional changes and policy shifts
  • Strategies for fostering resourcefulness and agency
  • Strategies for avoiding and/or healing from burnout

We welcome proposals that address these and other related topics through diverse perspectives and methodologies. Submissions may include, but are not limited to:

  • Research Panel Presentations: Report on a study—quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, action research, reflective—or an evidence-based pedagogical practice. Presentations will be grouped into panels of two or three presenters. Presenters are also welcome to propose their own panel of grouped presentations.
  • Roundtable Discussions: Roundtable sessions are ideal for works-in-progress, pedagogical innovations, or taking up an issue of current debate in our field. Roundtable facilitators lead a 30-minute discussion that encourages active participation and contribution from attendees. Proposals should indicate the topic of your discussion, why it would be of interest to writing centre colleagues, and how you plan to engage and facilitate an active and dynamic discussion. *Please note: to ensure anonymity for precarious writing centre workers, certain roundtable sessions covering sensitive topics and discussion will not be recorded.
  • Interactive Workshops: Workshops are an opportunity to model an innovative practice, strategy or innovation for your colleagues through collaborative hands-on activities. Proposals should clearly describe the practice you intend to feature, the overall structure of the session and how you will actively engage the audience.
  • Writing Centre Research and Pedagogy Blog Post: This format offers the opportunity to showcase writing centre practices and research. Have an exciting new program you are proud of? Clever new handouts or resources? A virtual poster detailing a research project? A video walkthrough of your centre? Proposals should clearly describe what you intend to publish on the CWCA/ACCR Blog and the virtual materials you will include (poster, audio, and/or video). *Please note: to protect precarious writing centre workers, blog posts covering sensitive topics can be published anonymously.

Submission Guidelines:

  • Abstract: Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words outlining your proposed presentation.
  • Format: Indicate the preferred format of your presentation (e.g., paper, workshop, panel).
  • Deadline: All submissions must be received by February 14, 2025.
  • Notification: Authors will be notified of acceptance early April, 2025.

Submission Process:

Please submit your proposals via this FORM. For any inquiries, contact chtaylor@wlu.ca.

We look forward to your proposals.

Writing Mercies,

Christin Wright-Taylor, M.F.A., Ph.D.
Vice President, Canadian Writing Centres Association / association canadienne des centres de rédaction

Manager, Writing Services
Wilfrid Laurier University

Announcement | Online Writing Centers Association’s Fourth Annual Virtual Conference, April 24-26, 2025

~ CWCA/ACCR
Call for Proposals
For its Fourth Annual Virtual Conference, the Online Writing Centers Association invites proposals related to any writing center related work (off-line and online). We are particularly interested in questions related to the ongoing trends of globalization and subsequent internationalization of educational institutions. How do writing centers variously situate themselves within these trends and what are the ways they respond to increasing multicultural and multilingual populations?
Areas to Consider
Proposals for this theme may consider, but are not limited to, the following areas:
  • Administration: Budgeting, institutional support, the writing center’s parent department, marketing and branding, physical location, etc.
  • Writing Center Staff: Employment, contingency roles, staff professional development, graduate student professionalization, tutor hiring and training, emotional labor, etc.
  • Student Populations: Overall enrolment, graduate v. undergraduate, STEM writing, multilingual writers, etc.
  • Diversity & Social Justice: Marginalized groups, race/ethnicity, gender and sexuality, diversity, accessibility, access, etc.
  • Questions of Value: Misconceptions of the writing center, skills transfer, the writing center and other academic support resources, student retention, writing center assessments, etc.
  • The 21st Century: AI (ChatGPT, Grammarly, etc.), multimodality, online v. in person tutoring, synchronous v. asynchronous tutoring, pandemics and other major national or global events/crises, etc.
  • Online Writing Centers: Administration, technology, barriers, populations served, synchronous v. asynchronous tutoring, etc.
Submit a Proposal
Conference proposals are due 15 October 2024.
Conference website: https://www.onlinewritingcenters.org/conference-info/cfp/
We encourage all writing center folk to participate, including writing center professionals, graduate students, and undergraduates.
Please email: owca-conference@onlinewritingcenters.org with any questions

Writing a conference proposal: A step-by-step guide

~ CWCA/ACCR

Vol.4, No. 4 (Spring 2023)
Brian Hotson, Editor, CWCR/RCCR
Stevie Bell, Associate Editor, CWCR/RCCR

This is an expansion of the CWCR/RCCR post, Vol. 3 No. 3 (Winter 2022).

‘Tis the season, conference season. For those who have not written a conference proposal, it can seem like a daunting project. The thought of it can cause many to not submit at all. It can be difficult to know where to start and what to write, while following a conference’s CFP format and theme. We’ve had both successful and rejected proposals. As conference proposal reviewers and conference organizers, we’ve read many proposals and drafted several conference calls-for-proposals, as well. Here are some of the things that we’ve learned from experience. We hope this guide will provide you with some help to get your proposal started, into shape, and submitted. Continue reading “Writing a conference proposal: A step-by-step guide” →

Announcement || Rethinking Our Narratives of “Development” | SouthWestern Ontario Writing Centre Symposium, December 11, York University

~ Canadian Writing Centres Association ~ Leave a comment

Rethinking our Narratives of “Development”

Tuesday, December 11th | York University

Featured talk
Dr. Karen-Elizabeth Moroski, Reconsidering Our Rhetorics: Recentering Writing Centre Work To Support Translingual Writing

Please register by Friday November 16th.
Registration

Symposium website

The notion of the “development” of the student writer runs through writing centre narratives. Here at York University’s Writing Centre, our department’s constitution, mission statement, and practiced introductions with new students all clarify that we’re interested in supporting the development of student writers rather than the perfection of student writing. This frees us from taking on the urgency of our students’ deadlines, and serves as a straightforward rationale for our refusals to proofread work on behalf of student writers. However, it raises significant questions about how we conceptualize “development.”

  • What are the assumptions about “good” or “acceptable” writing that inform our understandings of “development”?
  • How are we communicating these standards to our students?
  • What are we telling them they need to learn or do in order to “become better writers”?
  • What forces pressure us to act as gatekeepers, helping to strip away the aspects of student writers’ languages, cultures, or identities that don’t belong in the academy, and what opportunities do we have to resist these pressures?

Continue reading “Announcement || Rethinking Our Narratives of “Development” | SouthWestern Ontario Writing Centre Symposium, December 11, York University” →