WHAT MAKES A SPACE RACED?: EXPLORING WRITING CENTERS AS RACED SPACES By WONDERFUL FAISON A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Rhetoric and Writing—Doctor of Philosophy 2018 WHAT MAKES A SPACE RACED?: EXPLORING WRITING CENTERS AS RACED ABSTRACT SPACES By WONDERFUL FAISON In this dissertation, What Makes a Spaced Raced?: Exploring Writing Centers as Raced Spaces, I interrogate the spatial design and object affect of the Writing Center and analyze how that design and object affect might effect those entering the Writing Center space. Because Writing Centers often position themselves as home or homelike spaces, the purpose of this project was to better understand (1) how Writing Center design may exclude marginalized bodies through its physical design and the various objects placed in the Writing Center, (2) how those exclusions are read by “outsiders” (those not working in the Writing Center space they critiqued), and (3) how Writing Centers can begin to design spaces that are read as more inclusive/accepting of marginalized bodies. By using Black womanism as both method and methodology, I designed comparative analysis of three Writing Centers in which tutors working in one Writing Center would interrogate a different Writing Center space. Using three Writing Center Sites, nine separate tutors—divided into groups of three—analyzed two separate sets photos of these three Writing Center sites. Participants analyzed both the unoccupied Writing Center Space and the occupied Writing Center to discern if the effect of a Writing Center space may be altered depending on who operates in the space. My findings indicate that race is read through a perception of class, e.g., the furniture, technology, and pictures/paintings participants marked as expensive suggested marginalized and working- class bodies would not seek tutoring services from or desire to be employed by the Writing Center. Unlike much of Writing Center scholarship, my research not only focuses on the ways Writing Centers recreate white upper middle class domestic comforts, but also analyzes and provides ways Writing Center directors, faculty, and student staff can begin to be more thoughtful when designing these spaces by (1) allowing input from those who work in the writing center, (2) being more thoughtful and meticulous when choosing paintings or photos for the Writing Center, (3) having more racially and ethnically diverse art in the writing center, (4) acquiring more racially, ethnically, and gender diverse images on the Writing Center website, and (5) actively employing students who represent not only the student body, but also the marginalized bodies many tutors at Predominately White Institutions (PWI) serve, which leads to the not only a broader concept of academic writing but a broader concept of the various bodies that must navigate the institution and its systems while performing academic writing. This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, father, brothers, my sister, and extended family. Without your support, my pursuit to become a black intellectual would never have come to fruition. Thank you for believing in me. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My thanks, appreciation, gratitude, and love to my committee members Denise Troutman, Julie Lindquist, April Baker-Bell, and William P. Banks. My greatest appreciation, thanks and love, I extend to Trixie Smith, who through constant support, nudging, compassion and understanding helped me through one of the more trying times of my life. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: A dream deferred .........................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: From method to sites of resistance: A history of writing centers ..............6 THE MARGINALIZED CENTER: LABS AS METHODS OF DISCIPLINE AND PUNISHMENT ....................................................................................................................6 Building home sweet home: Inclusive design and flexible classrooms .................10 A place to call home: writing centers & the politics of space and place ..14 From the outhouse to the bighouse: Writing centers & bourgeoisie accoutrements ............................................................................................16 Guess who’s coming to dinner: The writing center as home ......................19 FRAMING CLASS: CLASSED OPERATIONS IN THE WRITING CENTER………. 20 guess who’s coming to dinner: community colleges at table............................................................................... 23 guess who’s coming to dinner: university writing centers at the table..........................................................................25 An imitation of life: Writing centers as racialized spaces ..................................26 pariah: a black lesbian on writing center design ..............28 INTERROGATING HOME SWEET HOME ...................................................................31 CHAPTER 2: Womanism at work: Using womanism as both method and methodology .......................................................................................................................34 Embodied Ideologies: Womanism as both method and methodology................36 ORIGINS OF WOMANISM: FROM PURPLE TO LAVENDER (THE FOUNDING MOTHERS) .......................................................................................................................37 USING WHAT YOU GOT TO GET WHAT YOU NEED: WOMANISM AND ITS AFFORDANCES ...............................................................................................................40 WOMANISM AS METHODOLOGY ..............................................................................43 Embodied ideologies: Womanism as method .....................................................44 Institutional demographics: The writing center and geographic locations .........45 Research design ..................................................................................................46 CHAPTER 3: From the directors: Writing centers at community colleges and Universities……………………………………………………………………………………….. 50 A COMMUNITY COLLEGE WRITING CENTER IDEAL: VALUES, PLACEMENT, AND VISIBILITY .............................................................................................................50 implementing a theory of visibility .....................................53 implementing visibility: pragmatic problems applying theoretical solutions ...........................................................57 From the directors: Mount Claire State University..............................................60 creating affect: what the center holds ................................63 what the center holds: client and employee input ..............64 what the center lacks: making the ideal malleable ............67 From the directors: The practical writing center..................................................69 vi Academic Writing as a White cultural production: The effects of what we love: creating and expanding an inclusive writing center .....................................................................71 the absence of color in the writing center ..........................74 CHAPTER 4: Objects and images: Don’t let your eyes tell lies......................................77 CONSULTANT DEMOGRAPHICS ................................................................................77 The Participants .....................................................................................................78 Object affect: Reading race and class through objects in the WC .........................80 aesthetically speaking: fashion over function ....................82 aesthetically speaking: function over fashion ....................85 individualism on marginalized bodies ...................................................................86 Image affect: Critiquing Eurocentric iconography in the writing center ...............88 Critique of an Ideal: Images, modernity, and assuaging White guilt .....................89 What doth it Profit a human?: The Profit of Racial harmony to White People .....89 Racial Harmony: A view from the other................................................................91 Youth and the misappropriation of modernity .......................................................93 Sexuality as commodity: Signifying inclusivity using LGBTQIA+ images .........94 Aesthetics of adolescence: Classicism and the financial resources of race ...........96 How we read: The fissures between praxis and lived experience .........................99 CHAPTER 5: I see POCs: Like flies in buttermilk .........................................................101 Bodies and space: White benevolence, representations, and solitude .................102 the more things change: the power of design ................106 CHAPTER 6: The writing center as optical illusion ....................................................109 Implications of consultant critiques: Reading writing centers as racialized Research design flaws ..........................................................................................112 Implications of an ideal: A writing center director dream ...................................114 spaces ...................................................................................................................116 consultant critiques of WC inhabitants: it’s not the people, it’s the space ........................................................119 DESIGNING A WAY FORWARD: THE ADAPTABLE WRITING CENTER ...........120 And onward I go: The potential costs of Womanism ..........................................128 APPENDICES .................................................................................................................131 Appendix A: Writing Center Photographs ..............................................................132 Appendix B: Writing Center Directors Interview Questions…………………… 134 Appendix C: Survey Questions .................................................................................135 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................136 vii viii Introduction: A dream deferred I have dreams of a space and place where I, as a black, lesbian, disabled, working class, cis-gendered woman do not have to identify all the ways in which I am marginalized. Certainly, I must position myself so that you, dear readers, know the lens through which I read and critique the world. But, I wonder if I am positioning myself in a way so that Whiteness (straight, able bodied, upper-middle class, cis-gendered, males) can reaffirm its own oppressive position. After all, what is the oppressor without the Black or Colored body to uphold its position of power through its constant struggle for equality and, to a lesser degree, egalitarianism? What then, am I, as the oppressed body, without the oppressors’ constant critique of my difference, to which I am beholden, and for which, through that oppressive critique, I am made proud of our difference— of my difference? What are we without one another? I envision what we could be is one people accepting of our strength: the differences between us that bind us together in more ways than they rip us from our humanity. I envision that, if spaces such as these do not exist, it is not because they cannot exist, but it is because we create—bring things into existence—from a narrowed lens—a lens that assumes one body, one ideology, one story, one pedagogy will do. But this will not do. So, I thought; I did. I dreamed; I did. Of a more refined lens, and a more inclusive space, where bodies, ideologies, stories, and pedagogies of difference reigned. And so, I came to the writing center. But it would not do. When I entered Writing Centers, while working on my master’s degree, I, and the rest of my graduate cohort, received a crash course on Writing Center (WC) theory and pedagogy. 1 Though, I didn’t know there was such a thing as WC theory or pedagogy, I was enthusiastic about the collaborative student centered learning approach to tutoring writing. Moreso, I was enamored by its look: the writing appeared comforting, anti-institutional, and inclusive through its iconography and other various accoutrements. Coffee pots, brewing. Sofas, both worn and new. There were posters and pictures scattered about. Noise and laughter heard throughout. I thought: maybe, I was home. And yet, I found no home here. I found an odd silence—a silence that created a loud, yearning, noise in my heart. I saw them there: Black tutors assisting clients or sitting quietly, huddled together, in various corners of the writing center, while murmuring, rolling eyes, and sipping tea, as the shadows of whiteness, all-consuming, and unrelenting, crept ever so closer, surrounding and encapsulating them. What is the noise of this silence? What is this foreboding presence seemingly pushing Black people from their writing center “home?” With these thoughts in my mind, and with my experiential knowledge of the damage of the oppressive gaze, the White foreboding nothing had, and continues to have, on Black and Colored bodies, I sought to understand given the writing center’s ideological positioning1 as a 1 This ideological positioning can be placed in two distinct and different categories: One is which writing centers reproduce hegemonic discourses and one in which writing centers produce counter hegemonic discourses. Bouquet (1999) argues “If we accept that contemporary writing centers grew out of early methods, then we have strong support for a reading of writing centers as producing and sustaining hegemonic institutional discourses,” but “If, on the other hand, we locate writing center origins in the extracurriculum, we then set the precedent for a counter- hegemonic model of writing center operations, one which attempts to wrest authority out of the hands of the institution and place it in the hands of the student” (p. 466). 2 safe house/homelike2, or anti or counter-institutional3, and inclusive, how then, do historically underserved bodies see that positioning enacted (or not) within the praxis of writing center design? Furthermore, I sought to understand if writing centers can be read as raced spaces and, if so, through what lens (class, gender, sexuality) is this raced space read? To do this interrogation, I put those very bodies most often underserved by the institution, and their critiques of the Writing Center space, to the forefront: the bodies of tutors of color, women, working-class men, and Women of Color (WOC). As such, CHAPTER 1: “From method to sites: a history of writing center ideals” gives readers an overview of how writing centers were borne out of a theoretical and intellectual positioning of teaching students academic writing in a less totalitarian, if not less oppressive, way. This chapter also shows how institutional design and the design of the writing center enact with and against one another creating not only a site of tension, but also moments of inspiration and collaboration. CHAPTER 2: “Womanism at work: using Womanism as both method and methodology” articulates to readers not only how Womanism is defined, but also how Womanism is enacted/embodied in the writing center. In other words, Womanism is both a methodological positioning for critical analysis and a tool (method) to collect the stories/data from historically marginalized and underserved populations. 2 Bouquet (1999) posits that while she resisted “the formulation of the writing center as a ‘safe house,’ as an unthreatening environment where students feel free to explore ideas,” she did I believe the writing center offered “possibilities not intended or accounted for in the original administrative idea of the writing center” (p. 469). 3 Bouquet also notes that “the writing on writing labs” began “to show evidence of the tension emerging between the institutional space of the writing center and the individual pedagogies” (p. 467). 3 CHAPTER 3: “From the directors: Writing centers at community colleges and universities,” articulates the ways five directors, across three different writing centers, situated in three (3) separate campus environments, attempt to craft their writing center spaces as welcoming, homelike, and inclusive. Since this dissertation uses tutors from other writing centers to critique these three (3) spaces, understanding how directors envision and create a welcoming and inclusive writing center is critical to this analysis. CHAPTER 4: “Objects and images: Don’t let your eyes tell lies” critiques the three (3) writing center spaces in this comparative analysis and articulates not only how students mark “inclusivity” in the writing center, but also how that inclusivity is often read through preconceived notions of race, socio-economic class, gender, and sexuality. This chapter also explores how those notions also draw on Eurocentric/westernized ideas of racial inclusivity. CHAPTER 5: “I see POCs: Like flies in buttermilk” articulates how tutors’ opinions of the writing center space change (or do not change) depending on the various people they see operating in that space. This chapter also explores how tutors see visible diversity effecting spaces they noted as either white or upper middle-class. Finally, CHAPTER 6: “The writing center as optical illusion” discusses how these critiques impact not only how we think of and conceive of writing center design as inclusive and welcoming, but also, how we theorize the very ideas surrounding inclusivity—racial or otherwise. This chapter will also note the fissures in my own methodology that may have unintentionally biased participants; however, since these biases are rooted in stereotypes (discussed in Chapter III), the only tool often used to categorize race, class, gender, sexuality, and so on—these critiques, while problematic, still show the ways in which writing centers are themselves crafted on stereotypical assumptions of White upper middle-class notions of 4 domestic comforts. Thus, this chapter concludes with the implications of this study and provides suggestions for the various ways writing centers can continue to create and recreate a more diverse and inclusive space. 5 CHAPTER 1: From method to sites of resistance: A history of writing centers THE MARGINALIZED CENTER: LABS AS METHODS OF DISCIPLINE AND PUNISHMENT In the early 20th century, the writing center laboratory “was conceived of not as a place at all but rather as a method of instruction” (Boquet, 1999, p. 466). Students were to write under the watchful gaze of the instructor, and they were “afforded” the opportunity to correct any errors (in grammar and punctuation) they could (p. 467). However, most often, this method allowed teachers the ability “to eliminate errors or other weaknesses at their source and not allow their use at all, thus precluding their possibility of their becoming habitual through thoughtless repetition” (Horner, 1929, p. 218). Thus, in the 1920s and through the 1940s, the “…writing labs they spawned focused primarily on the individual rather than the social nature of composing, and individual improvement was often seen as necessary only for remedial Students” (Bouquet, 1999, p. 468). Thus, WC ideologies girding the skills-based (laboratory) approach to instructing students on academic written discursive practices began. This method/pedagogical approach (more akin to Foucault’s theories surrounding education as a form of Discipline and Punishment) can, and often does, reproduce standard, hegemonic academic written discourse patterns (Boquet, 1999, p. 467). This method fundamentally changed student writing, and approaches to student writing, since until this point in Education, teachers talked (dictated) and students wrote (in essence, they were unemployed amanuensis). While this method was not without its faults, a positive effect of this method is that it shifted the site of discursive regulation from the teacher to the student (p. 467). Although this shift in site was heavily monitored and regulated, it (the shift) empowered students; it allowed them to begin not only to understand what they were writing, but also to begin to 6 practice and learn the rules of academic written discourse and ways to negotiate these manufactured (written) discursive strategies. However, how English departments, and, to a lesser degree, the academy, positioned Writing Centers—as places and spaces for struggling student writers—became a moment of contention for those working in and directing writing centers during the 1920s through the 40s.4 This positioning, at least per North (1984), likened Writing Centers as spaces similar to (a) hospice—[they were] a place for the dangerously and critically illiterate where “one goes [there] hoping for miracles, but ready to face the inevitable” (p. 435). English teachers, often unconsciously, used/enacted discursive strategies that would place writers “…into three fairly distinct groups: the talented, the average, and the others; and the Writing Center's only logical raison d'etre must be to handle those others” [emphasis mine] (p. 435). Subsequently, this dismissive rhetoric led to a physical othering of writing center spaces where many were relegated to basements, small rooms, or [to] an actual individual, whom, when they leave, the WC leaves with them. Writing Centers—whether considered as labs or fix-it shops—have over a hundred years of history within institutions of higher learning. This century long history began in the 1890’s when both teachers and writers began to critique the mass instruction dominating “American schooling at all levels” (Learner, 2010, p. 4). During the late 20’s and 30’s, Writing Centers commonly used “the laboratory approach to teaching” (p. 3), where students entered the center to work on rote, basic, and fundamental writing skills—often augmented by the use of grammar and punctuation worksheets meant to redirect their linguistic difference into linguistic sameness. 4 See Bouquet (1999). “Our little secret: A history of writing centers, pre to post- open admissions 7 Although the Writing Center (WC), as a lab or fix-it shop, gained/achieved widespread approval and support, it was not until the early 1950s when the “free-standing writing center” as it is more commonly known, “came into its own” (Learner, 2010, p. 3). Characterizations and narratives of teachers of English addressing students’ poor writing with “laboratory work” (p. 4) were a mainstay in WC discourse throughout the 1950s. Lerner (2010) argues that an ideological shift began in 1904 when the “seemingly contemporary idea of teaching writing as a process of drafting, feedback, and revision,” introduced by high school teacher Philo Buck became “… widely hailed” (p. 4). Even with this “contemporary idea,” English teachers, as well as administrators, still envisioned Writing Centers as skills-based labs; consequently, they designed the writing center as a lab, with the aesthetics to look like this lab. In 1932 at Minnesota, Dean Malcolm McLean, along with several of his staff, created a standalone institution intended for and dedicated to serving students they deemed ill prepared for college (p. 5). This ill-preparedness led to the creation of the “Writing Laboratory, a substitute for freshman composition, and an elective course in which students would find ‘a room equipped with desks and chairs designed for convenience in writing’” (pp. 5-6). These early foci on writing center design, along with the growing conversations about what a writing center does, and for whom it works, created a burgeoning and still highly disputed struggle over the identity of a writing center. In essence, the writing center was and still is entrenched in identity politics. Boquet (1999) nuances these identity politics further, explaining that a short historical overview of “… writing labs/clinics/centers makes evident the tension between the writing center whose identity rests on method and the writing center whose identity rests on site” (p. 465). This tension is found, Boquet argues, by analyzing the “sequence of discursive maneuvers that collapsed and distinguished and collapsed again the difference between method and site” (p. 8 465). It is through this collapsing of, and entrenchment in, WC identity politics, pedagogies, and practices where this discursive tug-of-war physically manifests in WC design—designs that are read as Laboratory, Burkean Parlor (Lunsford, 1995, p. 41), or Home. These shifts and tensions that attempt to answer questions about how to teach students the written discourse strategies and discursive patterns of the academy also run parallel to the power struggle between not only how best to teach writing, but also who is better suited to teach students academic writing5. Through these opposing discourses and power struggles, along with educational changes, because of WWII, and fears of a Communist takeover, the idea of a writing center separate from the institution and the social practice (read communist practice) of writing began shifting to pedagogies more closely aligned with ideologies related to the individual and his, her, or their sense of self (read American individualism and patriotism). Subsequently, the WC as an autonomous site was most likely manifested to assuage these fears to align more closely to “… the democratic ideals recently challenged from abroad” (Bouquet, 1999, p. 468). While this challenge to American ideals afforded writing centers not only a physical space and place, but also a theoretical one, it was not until the 1980’s, when ideas questioning whom the writing center should serve, how it should serve them, whom it should employ, and how to train those it employs to consult with clients about their academic writing were fully explored. As such, the need for the writing center to both craft its identity against the institution to which it is so tightly aligned, while also still assisting students in navigating, learning, and performing academic written discourse led to a physical manifestation of a WC space that is anti- 5 Donahue, C., & Blewett, K. (2015). The power of writing: Dartmouth '66 in the twenty-first century 9 institutional in look (home) if not in practice (assisting students in meeting, instead of challenging, the demands of academic writing), as Bouquet and Lerner suggested. Because WC scholars and their scholarship continuously renegotiate writing center pedagogy, theory, and praxis, WC design, and thereby WC identities, are at best in constant flux, and at worst, suffering from an identity crisis. This identity crisis is part in parcel of the 125- year-old discourse critiquing mass instruction and the institutional educational practices used in American schooling. Consequently, many WC directors began to envision writing center spaces that countered the functionalist design of certain aspects of schools, i.e., indistinguishable halls that function as “conduits absent of any aesthetic overtures, designed not for congregating or socializing, but solely for bodily flow… the hallways are pedestrian avenues, the classrooms akin to so many exit stops, each with equally nondescript, overtly functionalist interiors” (Owens, 2008, p. 74). It is the desire to counter this overtly functionalist interior persisting in the American academy that led WC directors to envision and create a less oppressive and institutional space I begin to articulate and dissect in the succeeding section. Building home sweet home: Inclusive design and flexible classrooms One way to create the look and feel of a less institutional space is often through the use of inclusive design principles, which afford educators the opportunity to produce flexible classrooms. According to the Inclusive Design Research Centre (2017), inclusive design is “a design that considers the full range of human diversity with respect to ability, language, culture, gender, age, and other forms of human difference” (“What is inclusive design?” para 1). Because writing centers historically are focused on remediation and assisting under-prepared students with their academic writing, a space that considered the full range of human diversity and ability not only makes sense, but is absolutely warranted and needed. However, although inclusive 10 design considers this range of diversity, it is also built on ideas of individuality— as central to inclusive design is a focus on the “importance of self-determination and self-knowledge” (para 2). With this focus, flexible classrooms, and thus, flexible academic spaces, can consider the diversity of the people operating in the space by (1) giving them access to the different tools/materials they need and (2) allowing space for personalization of that space, while (3) ignoring the collaborative and cultural situation in which writing is produced, thereby, leaving those who depend on interdependence and communal knowledge—most often the working class poor and students of color—to fend for themselves when performing academic writing. Drawing on inclusive design theory and flexible classrooms, Weisser, and Dobrin (2001) note the importance in/of paying close attention to place and space in composition studies, positing (that) “Discourse does not begin in the self, as some expressivist theories and pedagogies have erroneously suggested; rather, writing begins externally in location” (p. 8). As such, considering the design of a WC space and its impact on the writers in the space are equally important. In other words, “place, space, and location are certainly important factors for us to consider as we study writing and technologies of writing” (Miller-Cochran and Gierdowski, 2013, p. 52) because “places are hugely important to learning processes and to acts of writing because the kinds of spaces we occupy determine, to some extent, the kinds of work we can do or the types of artifacts we can create” (Reynolds, 2004, p. 157). Since space and place affect the type of writing one creates in the space, flexible design classrooms are increasingly prevalent in higher education. One such approach is the Student- Centered Active Learning Environment for Upside-down Pedagogies (SCALE-UP) Learning Initiative, which is "designed to promote the formation of learning communities through a technology-rich, studio environment” where “active learning is encouraged through a hands-on 11 pedagogy (that is, not lecture-based), as well as the physical design of the space” (Miller- Cochran and Gierdowsky, 2013, p. 54). This type of design showed positive results “including reduced failure rates for women, minorities, and other “at risk” populations” (p. 54). With design principles that both encourage individualism and a more collaborative/communal environment, it is logical to assume that ideas and pedagogies behind flexible classroom are often seen in common/traditional WC design. The idea of the writing center as a home like space most likely originated from Bouqet’s (1999) hesitancy at positioning writing centers as safe houses (p. 469). However, the idea of the writing center as a home and a counter-institutional space still took hold in the minds and was brought forth through the concerted efforts of WC directors to meet these safe house or home aspirations. As such, the ideology around writing centers as anti-institutional sites with anti- institutional pedagogies began in earnest after Bouquet’s reluctant categorization of the WC as a safehouse. Wolff (2000) continues this idea claiming in the center he worked he felt it a “safehouse for students” and himself (p. 43). However, he noticed in his work with inner-city black males that “students often regarded the writing tutorial session with suspicion and me with disdain. No safe house yet” (p. 43-44). This suspicion and disdain these inner city black men exhibited may have occurred because of scholars, educators, legislators, etc. historical and political positioning of Black people and their language as a problem to be solved; thus, creating the “the harsh penalizing of students who were firmly tethered linguistically to an institutionally discredited heritage” (Gilyard, 2016, p. 285). Consequently, I find it curious that the writing center space would associate itself or re- invision itself as a safehouse since a safehouse functions as secret/inconspicuous place where 12 people hide or take refuge from the law. Moreover, historically, it is known as “a house in a secret location, used by spies or criminals in hiding” (Oxford English Dictionary, “Safe house,” para 1). As such, it leaves me to question (1) who is the “law” in institutions of higher education, (2) who are the students they envision would seek refuge from that “law,” and (3) how does the metaphor of a writing center as a safehouse reconstitute ideas of marginalized bodies, criminality, and their need for rehabilitation, which in the space of the writing center is a rehabilitation of their writing? POC, those from a lower socioeconomic class, immigrants, refugees, etc. are often painted as criminals—as threats to the State and its smaller controlling institutions, eg. education. POC are also disproportionately imprisoned in comparison to their white counter parts. Although prison in the U.S. in various ways reproduces slavery, theoretically, prisons were seen as sites of rehabilitation for societies criminals (and undesirables). This “rehabilitation” functions as a way to both pay a debt to society and be afforded the opportunity (in most cases) to re-enter that same society. Thus, if the college/university, or rather its policies, re-enforce a homogenized ideal of writing, one that is rooted in white, male upper middle-class written discourse, then those who do not re-produce this ideal—those who are not upper middle-class and white—are committing a linguistic crime, and therefore, must have their writing rehabilitated. This writing can be rehabilitated in two main ways: composition instruction and writing center services. As such, the writing center could serve not necessarily as a prison, (although a type of imprisonment) but a type of half-way or safe-house in which POC are sent to monitor their written linguistic rehabilitation. Since writing center scholarship positions the writing center as a site of resistance to homogenized institutional ideas about academic writing and, more specifically, the tutoring of 13 academic writing, the “law,” within this framework, is the broader/wider educational institution. However, because of the connotations of safehouses writing center scholars should be cautious when/if positioning or marketing their writing centers as a safehouses because this negative connotation may not cause inclusivity or retention of employees and clients in the writing center. Safehouses are not “pretty.” They, aesthetically, create a home or homelike feel that writing center scholarship has yet to engage: ideologies about the domestic accoutrements of the poor and working class. There is not (or it is presumed there is not) well-made, expensive furniture, high end décor like rugs and art, extra machinery for exercise machines (that may never be used and functions more like a clothing line), or space. By space, I mean, having more space/room to accrue whatever they so desire. The idea of space and the ability to acquire more of it, is an upper middle-class ideal reproduced in some writing center ideas of ways to create more diversity/inclusivity. Some of these ideals are presented and then further nuanced in Chapter 3. A place to call home: writing centers & the politics of space and place In leaving home sweet home: Towards critical readings of writing center spaces,” Grutsch- McKinney (2005), critiques the WC space and asks, “if a writing center is home, whose home is it?” (p. 16). Moreover, if a WC is home, who wishes not to reside in this home, because the concept of “home” is, in and of itself, a traumatic experience. Essentially, for those who have (or had) a traumatic home experience, is a “home” a space within which they will ever feel at home? Grutsch-McKinney also posits “what we ought to stop doing is using description [of writing centers] to fortify a narrative of home simply because it allows us to imagine that our spaces are (or should be) friendly simply because we use a particular code to inscribe them as such” (pp. 18-19). 14 However, scholars such as Howard and Schendel (2009) argue that while there may be issues with the concept of writing centers as home, “the adaptability of home must be alluring because 56% of faculty/staff and 56% of students who took my survey prefer writing in their homes” (p.4). Yet, what Howard and Schendel fail to question, or notice, is that while their respondents prefer working in their own homes, their homes, undoubtedly, look and operate differently for each individual respondent. Therefore, to suggest a WC should be crafted as a home simply because people like writing at home dismisses the very real problem(s) that the WC must face when choosing whose home they wish to reproduce. Whether a WC is positioned as a lab, as a parlor, or a home, all these different positions are encoded and embedded with ideologies about whom a lab, a parlor6, or a home should serve, as well as whom most often would reside in those various spaces. Accordingly, embedded in these ideologies positioning writing centers as labs, parlors, or homes is the latent assumption that writing centers have a physical space on the university campus. However, as Haviland, C.P., Fye, C.M., and Richard, C. (2001) assert, location is political (p. 85). In fact, location is central to the value an institution places on the writing center and the work that happens in a writing center. Nicolas (2004) furthers the importance of writing centers and their need for a physical space when recounting the panic that occurred at a small college when the WC (comprised of a faculty member of one woman) went on “maternity leave” (p. 105). As such, to envision a writing center space as laboratory, Burkean parlor, or home, writing center directors must recognize both their physical and administrative locations are 6 Labs were aligned with skills and drills, Burkean parlors aligned with elite society/socialite public literacy practices, while homes most often aligned with upper middle-class domestic life and comforts. 15 integral to their importance to and “the roles they play on their campuses” (Haviland, C.P., Fye, C.M., and Richard, C., 2001, pp. 85-86). For most writing centers that do have a physical space, they “… can be located somewhere on a spectrum ranging from the invisible on one end to the highly visible on the other—a closet- to-centerpiece continuum” (Owens, 2008, p. 73). No matter the continuum upon which the WC lands, WC design (provided there are adequate resources [funding] allocated to the WC), no longer reflect laboratories, but moreso, it attempts to reflect/mirror certain aspects or comforts of home and provide those seeking services at Writing Centers with a more comfortable writing experience. As such, WC research and scholarship began to constantly position and situate writing centers as comfortable, inclusive, homey, student-centered, and anti-institutional (North (1984); Lunsford (1995)) spaces. In line with this more comfortable, inclusive, and homelike environment, WC missions, pedagogical practices, and spatial aesthetics began to reflect this emerging theory of how writing centers should function within the academy. However, comfort, home, inclusivity, and anti- institutional are not vacuous words simply spoken (or written on a page); they are words embedded with ideologies—ideologies about race, class, gender, and sexuality. Grutsch- McKinney (2013) argues that certain items, i.e. sofas, art, plants, and a coffee pot, become prescriptions for these writing centers and are meant to be seen or read as inclusive spaces, or at least, to some degree, welcoming spaces to and for the students whom writing centers serve. From the outhouse to the bighouse: Writing centers & bourgeoisie accoutrements Grutsch-McKinney (2013) also argues these spaces can, and often are, not only read as writing centers, but also read as writing centers serving (or reproducing) “upper middle-class practices” (p. 2). One such practice is the reproduction of the writing and literacy practices of 16 both the upper-middle and ruling class, while simultaneously dismissing and finding fault/error in the writing and literacy practices of the working class, the poor, and POC, rendering the WC space inhospitable to the linguistic and literary practices of those who are neither upper-middle class nor white. Accordingly, this inhospitability to students who are not white covers and whitewashes the very messiness of not only racism, but also classism, sexism, and homophobia. As Grutsch-McKinney (2013) argues “through their arrangements and objects, spaces communicate to us; we could even say that spaces tell us a story about what they are and how we may use them…. Having couches or photos or coffee pots reveals an effort to construct a space different from classrooms and other impersonal, institutional spaces” (p. 21). Writing Center Directors desired to change the design of writing centers and push away from the skills-and-drills lab like space that so defined earlier eras of writing centers and began to fill WC spaces with certain “… creature comforts—couches, plants, coffee pots, posters” (Boquet, 1999, p. 51). In other words, the writing center would no longer be read as a lab but as home. Consequently, Writing Centers are positioned as anti-institutional spaces, and those “spaces perform” (Denny, 2010, p. 153). As such, designing a WC that looks (and feels) like home is necessary to maintaining and re-legitimizing not only the writing centers place (location), but also their anti- institutional space on campus. In accordance with this anti-institutional space, and to echo Denny’s assertion that spaces perform, Kinkead and Harris edited collection, Writing centers in context: Twelve case studies casts the WC space against the cold, sterile, domineering space of the college/university. Specifically, Harris positions her writing center as warm, messy, and happy, noting, what happens when students walk in the Purdue writing center: 17 First see the receptionist’s smiling face staring at them, as well as couches, the plants, and the informal arrangement of tables and chairs around the room . . .The room is also a mix of comfortable, old donated couches, tables, plants, posters, coffeepots, a recycling bin for soda cans and paper, and even a popcorn machine, all of which signal (we hope) that this mess is also a friendly, nonthreatening, nonclassroom environment where conversation and questions can fly from one table to another. (p. 6) These images of worn couches, of plants, posters, popcorn machines, and an overall “messiness” are repeatedly used by writing center directors to mark, separate, or queer themselves against the institution in which they are physically situated. From Harvard to Purdue, these “common” comforts of home persist throughout writing center scholarship and Writing Centers. Hughes (1994), argues, the writing center is a synecdoche wherein “[t]he community's identity is dependent upon the affective dimensions of space—the tangible details that make people feel comfortable or at ease and that make these spaces decidedly nonclassroom” (p. 173) Essentially, WC directors intentionally focus on creating a space that appears to be “home.” This manufactured home, and this manufactured comfort, can, and often does, obscure the very real tensions between marginalized races, classes, genders, and so on, and the elitist actions, or rather, actors that maintain power and privilege, and limit the marginalized body’s ability to access that power and privilege. Therefore, “writing centers that are homey—marked by objects such as art on the walls, couches, and soft lighting— represent middle-class conceptions of the domestic space” (Leaving home sweet home section, para 5). 18 This physical manifestation in Writing Centers aided its evolution into both an anti- institutional method, as well as an anti-institutional site. Yet, Denny (2010) argues, WC practices reify “conduct that dominates and enacts privilege by teaching codes that naturalize the very people who benefit from it, perform it, signify it” (p. 37), often leaving un- interrogated the hidden curriculum of race in education, “the one that inscribes a racialized margin and center” (p. 37). Thus, it is logical to assume that a WC borne out of a desire to theorize various ways to instruct less skilled college writers, while also commonly set in a marginalized location (such as in a basement, etc.), and often tasked with creating anti- institutional space, are designed to serve anti-institutional (marginal) students, and they may further marginalize and dehumanize those students. Guess who’s coming to dinner: The writing center as home As a Black, lesbian, working class, disabled woman studying in and working at a Predominately White Institution (PWI), I sought a space where I could feel “at home” as both a student and employee—a space where white shadows do not fall.7 I was certain the practice of the writing center would match the “comfortable, iconoclastic places where all students go to get one-to-one tutoring with their writing” (Grutsch-McKinney, 2013, p. 3). However, what I saw were aesthetics (sofas, refrigerators, coffee pots, plants, painted walls, etc.) all meant to serve those who inhabit the space the most: tutors. Many of these tutors, much like the directors, were white and I assumed mostly upper-middle class. However, these assumptions can be misguided as many who work in the writing center are from a lower socio-economic class and, therefore, may be intentionally and unintentionally performing or conforming to the ideologies of the 7 Hughes, L. House in the World 19 upper-middle class. These ideologies often hide the labor (though pictures, pleasantries, and language politics) not only of writing, but also of tutoring those who use writing. Writing is laborious and writing is collaborative labor. The attempt to communicate to vast audiences through written discourse—academic, creative, legislative, etc.—can be, and often is, painstaking. That painstaking process is neither unknown, nor un-interrogated, and the remnants of that labor and the effect of that labor on those who use writing (tissues boxes on tables, crumpled papers strewn in the trash, candy wrappers forming mole hills on tables, arguments between clients and consultants, etc.). The traces of this labor and labor’s relation to presumed socioeconomic status (or lack thereof) became a focus/lens of critique through which consultants read/analyzed these writing center spaces. FRAMING CLASS: CLASSED OPERATIONS IN THE WRITING CENTER Class, like race, gender, sexuality, etc. is a complex set of ideologies, practices, and socio-economic statuses. For Bourdieu (1984), class is linked to education; he argues, cultural needs are “the product of upbringing and education: surveys establish that all cultural practices (museum visits, concert-going, reading etc.), and preferences in literature, painting or music, are closely linked to educational level (measured by qualifications or length of schooling) and secondarily to social origin (p.1). Essentially, literacy is a marker of class and that class acceptance or rejection is “varied according to the extent to which the different cultural practices are recognized and taught by the educational system” (p. 1). While Bourdieu links class to literacy and perceptions of art, hooks (2000) posits: Citizens in the middle who live comfortable lives, luxurious lives in relation to the rest of the world, often fear that challenging classism will be their downfall, that simply by expressing concern for the poor they will end up like them, lacking the 20 basic necessities of life. Defensively, they turn their backs on the poor and look to the rich for answers, convinced that the good life can exist only when there is material influence.” (pp 1-2) Accordingly, this perception of class leads to a perception of (1) whom is both in that class, and (2) whom should constantly be excluded from that class. As hooks explains, “Strangers entering these neighborhoods who look like they do not belong, meaning that they are the wrong color and/or have the appearance of being lower class, are stopped and vetted… To look young and black is to not belong. Affluence, they believe, is always white” (p.2). My own relation to class is somewhat different, as it is neither about literacy nor art (there are enough working class and poor people in higher education who are highly literate and who engage in highly literate practices, to dispel that myth) nor it is rooted in accoutrements put on display or even my black skin. My relation to class is a relation to labor. Essentially, the value is not placed on what is acquired and put on display. It is about the journey, and the work put into the journey, to acquire education, different literacies, and material accoutrements. From this relation to class, those who do not work because they can rest on the labor of others (familial wealth, inheritance, “old money,” call it what you may), those who sit idly by bemoaning the deficiencies of POC (as well as the poor), while philanthropizing the world, in order to assuage their guilt, and those who fear they will “become” us, because they pity (or have compassion for) us, are those lacking class. My relation to class is not a relation to what is acquired; it is a relation to the labor that is put in “in order to acquire” and the labor one does with others as a social practice. This positioning to class is also in relation to the bourgeoisie—those who own the means of production, yet do not themselves produce. However, for many of the consultants responding to 21 this study, (their) expression of class is based on their perceptions of material wealth, and more closely aligns with Bourdieu’s class construct, in that a writing center that consultants perceived as having more material(s), i.e., several computers, paintings, sofas, plants, mascots, etc., catered to clients, faculty, and staff that preferred or, in some ways, “bought into” upper middle-class (White) ideologies, practices, and aspirations. These upper-middle class, white ideologies are often hidden in WC pedagogies that function, by and large, on an autonomous model, which insists “that the dominant literacy is neutral, but… also uses markers of this literacy for political purposes, ranking and sorting people based on features of their texts… in an attempt to maintain their own conventions are superior” (Street, as cited in Grimm, 1999, p. 30). Even Davila (2006) who urges writing centers to become more accepting of students from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, positing, “... writing centers need to be aware of the values and ideology inherent in academic discourses and to rewrite the writing center space as a place where students of all races are able to negotiate the difference between their discourses and those of the academy” (p. 2), still suggests a type of assimilation—they must shift from their “home” languages to academic discourse—that may be detrimental to students entering the writing center from various ethnic, cultural, and racial backgrounds. Instead of showing clients how to codemesh in academic writing, we show them how to mark their own linguistic differences to ensure they can catch these “errors” and remove them from standard academic written discourse. Working in the writing center, I constantly found myself asking, “What is this space?” when hearing other tutors complain about having to work with another international student who “couldn’t speak English,” or when overhearing other tutors dismiss or ignore the suggestions of more experienced tutors of color. This dismissiveness is a common practice by many white 22 writing center scholars who often dismiss stories of racism, particularly from their colleagues, and students of color, in an attempt to label such racism as a “misunderstanding.” For example, I have had other white tutors question what knowledge I had to assume I could tell People of Color (POC) that their home language is not respected by the academy because the academy prefers them to write like a white man would—in a linear, direct, point-by-point manner, utilizing as little narrative as possible. I have also had many a tutee assume that (1) I am the receptionist or (2) that whatever coffee I just made must have been only for them. When talking with other white tutors about this raced, if not racist, response to me, I was often called “sensitive,” given blank stares, or I received a metaphorical wag of their fingers—suggesting I should drop the issue…and move on. However, Denny (2010) argues these responses exposed that these scholars did not recognize their “power-- agency, authority, gumption--in such moves” (p. 2). These power moves, I argue, are also reflected in the design of writing centers in universities and community colleges. guess who’s coming to dinner: community colleges at the table. While working at a writing center in a community college, I gave a presentation on tutor perception of writing center space in one of our monthly meetings. Instructors in attendance asked the Provost why the WC had so many sofas, to which the provost responded, “they deserve nice things too.” This response makes several assumptions, e.g. (1) that whoever is served in the WC is somehow an othered body (racially, socioeconomically, etc.). After all, who is the “they” of which the Provost speaks? (2) that whoever is served in the writing center does not have nice things; (3) that whoever is served in the writing center wants the same nice things as the director, tutor, and Provost (in this case). 23 These classed and raced assumptions are embedded in the Provosts’ discourse. Both class and race are cultural and geographic, i.e. working class southern white people and working class Northern white people are not the same, even though they may both be of the same socioeconomic class. And, similarly, the cultural differences can be the same, if not more burdensome, for working class Blacks with regard to geography and the racial perils that come with being Black in America. However, the Provost’s question lead me to ask, who is the “they” of which he speaks, and why did he believe this imagined “they” do not have nice things? Furthermore, does the Provost assume “they” want the same nice things as his upper middle- class income can afford? Does the Provost assume that working class and poor people are without such things he would value and mark as “nice”? Because community colleges historically serve the non-traditional students, which include POC, working class and poor adults, as well as those seeking certifications for their various professional jobs, would it not be logical to assume that these non-traditional students may have different ideas of comfort and ways a comfortable space might look? I do not suggest a working-class space would be without its own issues. Class is also a cultural performance, and to make a working-class space would collapse those various performances, and it would fall on the same homogenizing discourses that lead to Writing Centers as home and/or comfortable as identities such as gender, class, race, etc. are inseparable from the individual. As Geller, A. E., Eodice, M., Condon, F., Carroll, M., & Boquet, E. (2007) posit, “these dominant images of people of color in the white imagination are operative inside the writing center and that these images can impact how tutors recognize, receive, and respect (or not) one another” (p. 88). As such, it is logical to question the white imagination in the construction of the writing center and if POC were envisioned as inhabitants of that same space. 24 guess who’s coming to dinner: University writing centers at the table. Some of the tutors of color (particularly those who identified as Black or of African descent) in the university writing center in which I work noticed and felt a similar discomfort of both institutional domination8 and oppression9 in this supposedly comfortable, anti-institutional space called the writing center. While we worked in a PWI, we were still at a loss as to why our writing center employed and served so few Black students/clients and I was at a loss as to why our writing center seemed to suffer from a severe case of Black flight10 from the writing center. In other words, why couldn’t the writing center retain the tutors of color it employed and what might cause clients of color to leave or stop seeking assistance from the writing center? As an emerging writing center theorist and pragmatist, my concerns grew as I listened to my fellow tutors of color openly wonder why there were so few graduate tutors of color on certain writing center committees, especially those concerned with race, diversity, and multilingualism. I continuously wondered and questioned if graduate tutors of color were less likely to serve in positions of power in the Predominately White writing center? I also wondered about the math: if there are fewer POC a PWI’s, logically, there may be fewer Consultants of Color (COC) working in the writing center. But for many TOC who operated in the various 8 injustice of domination is normally experienced in the form of institutional hierarchical decision making. Accepting some degree of domination is usually necessary” if one wants to get what they “need from institutions: paychecks, promotions, good grades, and opportunities to learn” (Grimm, 1999, p. 103) However, unlike oppression, one can choose to leave a system of domination. 9 oppression is isolating and all-consuming. Oppression is not temporary or escapable. Individuals experience institutional oppression simple because they are members of a particular group” (p. 104), i.e. the lack of people of color in K-12 history books. 10 Like White Flight, Black Flight occurs when Black people leave White spaces because there are too many white people in the space to feel comfortable and safe. 25 writing centers in which I also worked, we often wondered what mess had we gotten into? Who or what made the mess and who or what was supposed to clean it? It is through this critiquing of the physical space of the WC as home, comfortable, and anti-institutional that I began to listen intently not only to the discourse of the tutors of color, but the discourse of the tutors of color about this supposed comfortable space. Essentially, I wanted to know how, or rather if, a writing center space that is meant to be read as home or homelike is a racialized space that can exclude POC from the writing center. This exclusion, I argue, begins with (the) visual aesthetics, Aloe plants, soft lighting, pastel colors, earthy tones, and so on one encounters within various writing centers across PWIs. An imitation of life: Writing centers as racialized spaces This messy space behind the veneer of coffee pots, sofas, potted plants, painted walls, and pictures, sends a very real message to the POC who enter and inhabit the space—essentially stating, “You are not welcome here.” Writing center research has begun to unpack the different issues, ideologies, and politics undergirding the writing center as both anti-institutional and a place for comfortable intellectual exchange among writers. However, while writing center research has noted the classed assumptions behind whose home the writing center reflects, it does not yet begin to scratch the surface relating to how/ways the bourgeoisie aesthetics of the writing center may negatively impact POC who are neither from, nor aspire to be part of, the upper-middle class. Although, a significant amount of writing centers were designed to reflect certain upper- middle class comforts, it is important to note that the writing center director, who potentially designed the space, and many of the tutors who work in the WC itself, may not necessarily identify as from or being a part of the upper-middle class, leaving uninterrogated why those from 26 lower classes continuously reproduce these upper middle-class spaces within which they desire no association. Nonetheless, considering many POC as well as working class white people often inhabit lower classes due to economic and educational disenfranchisement, and face significant setbacks in ascending in socioeconomic class, a writing center design that reflects the bourgeoisie class, in essence, is a writing center that mirrors the perception of upper middle-class white culture; thereby, rendering it a racialized space. Though scholars (Denny (2010); Rafoth (2015); Grutsch-McKinney (2013); Eodice (2007); Condon (2007)), in writing center research, have begun to unpack some of the raced, heteronormative, classed, and ethnocentric ideologies manifesting in WC design, research is scarce on how the writing centers—particularly those in PWIs—as racialized spaces, impacts the various POC who inhabit the space. The writing center as both method and site is one rooted in various tensions—tensions that no rug, refrigerator, of sofa can hide. Therefore, writing center directors must provide tutors with the opportunity to see themselves, as well as their clients, as “raced, classed, gendered, and multiply situated selves” (p. 12) that are often othered bodies or those who have their writing othered because “mainstream, white, Western (mostly) tutors need help recognizing that such notions as responsible tutor, good student, and good writing cannot be taken as natural or normal” (p. 12) and must be seen as “institutionally defined and constructed” (p. 12). Similarly, Western (U.S.) consultants need help recognizing that notions of the writing center as comfortable, anti-institutional, and homelike are also concepts institutionally defined and constructed. The WC is a rhetorical space because it is meant to perform and be read as anti- institutional, comfortable, or home. The WC attempts to persuade those whom it employs, and those whom it serves, that it is something different from/other than the institution in which it is 27 located and ultimately serves. Broadly, since WC research is constantly interested in retaining and diversifying its staff, as well as becoming a more inclusive space for othered bodies, i.e. multilingual learners, POC, Trans identified persons, and so on, research exploring how WC design can exclude or oppress POC adds to an ever-growing body of scholarship on WC theory and design. pariah: a black lesbian on writing center design. Writing Centers are more than method and site. They are more than spaces that perform or spaces that are read. Writing Centers are contact zones. Pratt (1991) argues contact zones refers “to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as, colonialism, slavery, or the aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today” (p. 34). Essentially, the writing center becomes both contact zone and safehouse. Wolff (2000) argues that while “writing tutorials replicate the social spaces and the symmetrical relationships of power—tutor and tutee are not on a level playing field”, “… the tutorial has the potential for becoming a safe house in the rather dangerous environs of the academic institution, a social space where meaning can be made, where risk-free learning can take place” (p.45). However, Wolff’s assertion that the writing center may be one of the last “comfort zones” in the university where students can come to “decompress” (p. 45), puts too much faith in the power of conversation and in some ways, dismisses the suspicion and disdain she still often faces in her writing center. In other words, recognizing one’s position of power does not necessarily end the power dynamics and the relationships to those power dynamics through lived experiences. Those dynamics include experiences with language and/or linguistic oppression, when language is both regulated and prohibited. This regulation of language inhibits “language users, 28 or “languagers,” from perpetually producing and experimenting with multiple varieties of language. Thus, translingualists grasp that the institutional enactment of language standards is repressive in some cases and restrictive in all” (p. 284). For Wolff, the writing center is a space where students can “decompress” from the institutional demands of producing academic writing; however, to decompress is to take a break from, it is not necessarily to challenge or change the normal production of academic writing. As such, the repressive and restrictive regulation and prohibition of uncommon written discourse practices continues. Consequently, even when writing center is both a safehouse and a contact zone, those asymmetrical power relations are at play in the stories a writing center tells. However, some of the stories the WC tells to POC and other historically marginalized people is another type of story: a lie. These stories are the hidden assumptions that middle class white domestic comforts are neutral and therefore desirable to POC, as well as people from lower classes. Accordingly, there is also the assumption that these bourgeoisie domestic comforts are desirable by POC who are, in fact, middle-class. Consequently, not only does WC design reflect the middle-class comforts of the dominant culture, it also dismisses the possible cultural, racial, and ethnic middle-class comforts of POC--essentially rendering them invisible. For example, many Black people, particularly from the South, are religious and religious iconography, at times, permeates the home: pictures of Black Jesus, the Lord’s Supper, etc. Accordingly, art depicting black or African people may also be found. Similarly, many students from various Asian cultures may not have chairs around their dinner table, but pillows functioning as chairs. This dismissal is what can lead to a system of domination within the writing center with regard to WC design—one that excludes various raced, cultured, and ethnic bodies. 29 This exclusion, I argue, may cause these diverse bodies to refrain from seeking service at (or only coming when forced/absolutely necessary), or to remain under the employ of, the writing center. While writing center directors are often concerned with finding ways to provide services to POC, directors need also be concerned with the acquisition and retention of both POC and culturally and ethnically diverse people. This lack of retention may lie not only in hiring and pedagogical practices, but also in WC design practices. Although writing center hiring and design practices are smaller systems of domination working in larger systems of domination (adhering to University goals, missions, and policies), taken as a whole, and if in the location of a PWI, the writing system, as a system of domination, can become a system of oppression within a racial/racist construct. Silva (1997) posits, “[i]n all racialized social systems the placement of people in racial categories involves some form of hierarchy” and that this hierarchy produces definite or certain “social relations between the races” (p. 470). Consequently, Silva continues: The race placed in the superior position tends to receive greater economic remuneration and access to better occupations and/or prospects in the labor market, occupies a primary position in the political system, is granted higher social estimation (e.g., is viewed as "smarter" or "better looking"), often has the license to draw physical (segregation) as well as social (racial etiquette) boundaries between itself and other races, and receives what DuBois (1939) calls a "psychological wage" (Marable 1983; Roediger 1991).The totality of these racialized social relations and practices constitutes the racial structure of a society (p. 470) As such, any department and any facility, i.e. a writing center, on a college/university campus, must, in some way, adhere to the terms and objectives within the university’s mission. 30 Therefore, it is almost preposterous to assume a writing center in a PWI that desires to cultivate U.S. citizen leaders (leaders who may ascend to the bourgeoisie class) would or even could create a pedagogy that disrupts their hierarchy that places academic writing (aka white male upper-middle class written discourse) above all other types of writing and discursive practices. In fact, it is easier, and more logical, to assume that the creation of this “comfortable space” that, at times, could be viewed as little more than a Red Herring ultimately meant to assuage and whitewash the very real feel of systemic domination, if not systemic oppression, within the writing center. INTERROGATING HOME SWEET HOME Although I came to writing centers seeking a more inclusive and racially diverse space, my years in the writing center made it much more than simply a setting within which I may find some peace from white shadows. It became a place of learning, a place of pedagogy, a place of praxis, a place of research. However, it also became a place of racism (the constant inquiry about, and workshops focused on, how to fix Black Language writers), of isolation (being Black in a predominately White writing center leaves one feeling like a fly in buttermilk11), of anger (at White faces that turn away from me when I enter the WC), of discontent and disillusionment. The writing center’s attempts at making itself a home, by designing a space, also shows a disconnect from the body. I argue, a house is made a home through emotional labor and through acts of love, compassion, and empathy. Where is the emotional labor of writing center design? How can one make a home when the people who inhabit it have moderate, at best, and minimal, at worst, emotional connection to one another? The concept of “home” elicits emotional 11 Baldwin, James. Fly in the buttermilk 31 connotations, and how one makes a home is largely dependent on the emotional connections one has to home. WC research and design focus on how a home should “look” and “function” (what it should do). WC scholars who interrogate the raced, classed, and heterosexist assumptions these home spaces convey have yet to fully interrogate how a writing center “feels.” Racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on are felt through our lived experiences as well as written through the body12. To explain the WC as house, one need to envision what it is to rent or buy a house. When prospective buyers or renters see a variety of houses, they are excited, often enamored, with the layout, interior, and overall aesthetics of the houses they view. However, their emotional connection with each house may be fleeting. They visit a number of houses, admiring the scenery and ambiance, until, at last, they find a space that fits. Once the space that fits is found, the emotional and physical labor of making that house as home begins. The labor it takes to make a house a home starts with the physical moving of possessions. It is expensive to move from one home to another—considering the cost of hiring moving trucks, gasoline, , and paying movers or family and friends. Moving is also emotionally laborious, as one becomes frustrated with packing, indignant at the cost of moving trucks, and frustrated with inevitable logistical complications and unplanned for costs, etc. Sometimes these labors are shown in writing center design, i.e. having to replace a microwave, coffee maker, furniture, etc.; however, many of these labors are under-interrogated across writing center literature. 12 Banks, W. P. (2003). Written through the body: Disruptions and "personal" writing. College English, 66(1), 21-40. 32 Beyond the emotional labor of making a home. A home is also a place where the owner and those who reside there can deny access to those who do not reside in the home. One cannot just enter one’s home without using an implement that allows access—most notably, a key. In fact, if one does not have this special access, one is committing the crime of unlawful entry or breaking and entering at worst and trespassing at best. I argue writing center directors should not propagate the writing center as home, as it may lead some students to believe they are trespassing or in some way burglarizing the writing center space. However, if there must be some positioning of the writing center as home or homelike, we should consider informing clients and tutors that the writing center is intended and attempting to function as an Open House. This function is meant to not only welcome as many people as would like access to our house, but also, and undoubtedly, reshape our writing center spaces, potentially changing WC design pedagogy/practice. With this repositioning, writing center directors can further push the boundaries of comfort by adding objects that shift and change as the students do from semester to semester. One semester students may want plants; the next semester they may want them gone. The WC should be stocked with disposable items. Items that look nice for a season, but must be replaced. Much like an Open House looks nice, every now and then someone must come in and dust. The longer the WC remains static in design the more homogenous it becomes. While institutional budget restrictions present certain obstacles to change (one cannot buy furniture, computers, etc. every semester/term), there are still everyday mundane changes that can be made in the writing center relatively cost free13. 13 More on these possible changes in the conclusion 33 CHAPTER 2: Womanism at work: Using womanism as both method and methodology Admittedly, I, like most, have multiple identities, and as a part of my own ideologies, my ethics, and my epistemologies, I adhere to ideals of transparency, positionality, and intersectionality within my own research. Within this very dissertation I have identified as Black, cisgender, lesbian, working class, and disabled. However, what I have not done is identify who I am as a scholar. I am a rhetorician; I use cultural rhetorics and African American rhetorical practices; I also am a race scholar, or (as I prefer) a racial pragmatist, meaning, I constantly theorize and practice ways in which society and the university can pragmatically and practically have racial (and thereby gendered, sexual, etc.) advancement. While it may seem reductive to equate racial pragmatism to social pragmatism—and I do not dismiss, or intend to collapse the intersections or constellations of identities—I do suggest that, as a Black woman, the deviant of deviants “by virtue of our race and gender” (DuCille, 1997, p. 37) that the body that is both theorized about and theorized upon, the position of the Black woman—and specifically, my position, as a Black, lesbian, working class, disabled woman—positions me as the “lowest of the low.” However, I am also considered a part of the “highest of the high”—the “both… and.” I am at a prestigious university, seeking my PhD. I am highly literate, and I am an intellectual. I am that which I critique while remaining a visible reminder of that which should have never have come to pass given systemic oppression: The Black intellectual. I am a constellation, a mesh of identities. This mesh of identities that allow me to critique from the Ivory Tower in which I now sit—this mesh of being positioned as the lowest of society no matter where I sit—can only further uplift and bring awareness to issues facing various marginalized people, if only because social capital (even of other colored bodies that are 34 not black) is gained through the constant subjugation and relegation of Black people to the bottom of the social and capital (status) ladder. It is because of Blackness, of Black woman-ness, of Black lesbian-ness, and of Black Nationalism that my tensions with diversity begin. Nirmal Puwar, cited by Ahmed (2012), notes, “The language of diversity is today embraced as a holy mantra across different sites. We are told that diversity is good for us. It makes for an enriched multicultural society” (p. 51). In other words, diversity is desirable for the institution to maintain a certain appearance as well as a performance of a well cultured and learned body. This performance of being both well cultured and well learned is rooted in the centuries old ideologies that undergird the American education system. It is a system originally made to use higher education as an intellectual pursuit, but more importantly, as an access point to the bourgeoisie class, which required one to be both refined/cultured and learned. Consequently, “diversity has a commercial value and can be used as a way not only of marketing the university but of making the university a marketplace” (p. 52). This marketplace is often seen in campus brochures picturing smiling POC littered among the many pages, thereby gaining capital with White students seeking refinement and POC seeking inclusion and visibility. Therefore, if the university is perceived as a marketplace, and diversity (is) mere capital to be acquired for the pursuit of bourgeoisie comforts, then a body that lacks capital and analyzes space, bodies, and their modus operandi through a lens created specifically for those who share similar bodies and marginalized positions, is the most logical approach to providing an outsider lens on the Writing Center as spatial performance par excellence. It is important to note the impact of stereotypes on consultant responses to this survey. Stereotypes, for many of us, bring negative connotations into our psyche. Although stereotypes can be problematic in that they generalize and essentialize people, places, things, 35 behaviors, etc., stereotypes also play a vital role in how societies, and more specifically, U.S. society functions. In other words, stereotypes are the very basic of the social constructions of race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. As such, the critiques consultants made of these writing centers (while stereotypical) provide valued insight into how a WC space may reinforce/sustain problematic constructs that negatively affect historically marginalized peoples Embodied Ideologies: Womanism as both method and methodology Much scholarship that focuses on Black women and Black girlhood as a subject of research uses positivistic research approaches. These approaches, noted by Cohen and Crabtree (2006) and by Lindsey-Dennis (2015), are “… based on the belief that knowledge is gained from positive verification of observable experience as opposed to introspection or intuition. Positivistic research focuses on prediction and control, empirical verification, and value-free research” (p. 2). While this approach has its uses, it disregards the lived experiences and the impact of those lived experiences on Black women and girls. As such, “Ignoring this aspect of Black girlhood fails to situate girls’ experiences and their perspectives within the appropriate cultural context” (p. 2) and conversely, a Black Feminist-Womanist methodology, which values and takes as a given (a control, if you will) that the lived experiences of Black women and girls is desirable, continues to reproduce/uphold white supremacist beliefs that the experiences of POC are not to be trusted. This experience, our lived experience, is desirable because of its intersectionality of gender, race, socio-economic status, etc, not only because we theorize misogynoir, homophobia, and so on, but because we must navigate the intersections and various institutions of domination, i.e. the white patriarchy, the black patriarchy, the white matriarchy, the black matriarchy, etc. 36 ORIGINS OF WOMANISM: FROM PURPLE TO LAVENDER (THE FOUNDING MOTHERS) To speak of Womanism, often, is to speak of her desire as a Black lesbian novelist to summon and articulate a methodological practice by which many Black women, and more specifically, Black lesbians, critique and navigate the world. Alice Walker created Womanism for Black women, to be consumed by Black women, and to be used as a method of critique and analysis by Black women. Because of this consumption and Walker’s sexual orientation, many assumed that Walker was discussing a type of lesbian (or Black lesbian worldview). However, as Walker, quoted by Marpayan (2012), noted: The word “lesbian” may not, in any case, be suitable (or comfortable) for black women, who surely would have bgun their woman-bonding earlier than Sappho’s residency on the Isle of Lesbos. Indeed, I can imagine black women who love women (sexually or not) hardly thinking of what Greeks were doing… [W]omen who love other women, yes, but women who also have concern, in a culture that oppresses all black people (and this would go back very far), for their fathers, brothers, and sons, no matter how they feel about them as males. (p. 19) As such, when Walker noted womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender, Marpayan (2014) posits “this sentence is often interpreted as a suggestion that womanism is a more intense (literally, more saturated) form of woman-centeredness than is lesbianism” (p. 21). In other words, to make purple into lavender, one must add the color white to soften the intensity of its original color: purple. Consequently, Womanism does not “bootstrap itself from systems of human classification, rooted in Cartesian dualism, reinforced by Linnean taxonomies, and exploited by sexism, racism, capitalism, and the like. Rather, it proceeds directly from the 37 recognition of humanity’s basic commonality and fundamental, if not woefully underrealized, oneness” (p. 21). However, though Walker’s womanism, of African American womanism is most referred to when discussing womanism, its origins can be placed with two additional scholars Clenora Hudson Weems and Chikewneye Okonjo Ogunyemi. According to Marpayan (2012), “most feminist scholars in the United States (and some outside it) trace womanism back to Alice Walker, exclusively, contemporary womanism is actually constituted by a number of distinct strands of womanist discourse pioneered by different authors…” such as, “Nigerian literary critic Chikwneye Okonjo Ogunyemi and U.S. African studies scholar Clenora Hudson-Weems introduced and developed original womanist perspectives” (p. 15). These three women are considered three “founding mothers” who “contributed to the womanist idea,” specifically in that it “coordinates, harmonizes, and synthesizes—in deed, metaphorically braids—three autonomous yet interrelated perspectives” (p. 15). For Ogunyemi, quoted by Marpayan (2012), Ogeunyemi’s womanist version is “conscious in its underscoring of the positive aspects of Black life… it is more complex than white sexual politics, for it addresses more directly the ultimate question relationg to power: how do we share equitably the world’s wealth and concomitant power among the races and between the sexes?” (p. 23). Although Ogunyemi first connected her version of womanism to Alice Walker’s version she soon changed the name of her womanism, after troubling Walker’s definition, to African Womanism. Since feminism and African American womanism “overlook African peculiarities, there is a need to define womanism” (p. 24). Ogunyemi separates her version of womanism from Alice Walker’s on two fundamental grounds “(a) the African obsession to have children” and “(b) incompatible attitudes towards lesbians” (p. 24). However, 38 though African womanism’s incompatibility with lesbians seems to rip and disassociate—make itself distinct—from African womanism, it does not dismiss lesbianism, as much as it suggests that the overlooked African peculiarities must be articulated as different than those of African American womanism and, as such, provides a broader landscape on which womanism can function throughout the world and through various lenses. For Hudson Weems, her articulation of womanism and rejection of feminism is threefold: “First, she argues, feminism is semantically and philosophically rooted within a Eurocentric cultural frame that automatically marginalizes not only Black women but also Afrocentric cultural frames” (Marpayan, 2012, p. 26). Second, Because feminism is not and cannot be fixed upon the African woman/girl, “women of color, particularly Africana women, must create and name their own frames that are centered within and semantically linked to their own cultural contexts” (p.25 – 26). Third, “the relations between Black women and Black men are significantly different from the relations between white women and white men, necessitating a different gender-based politics between the two racial groups” (p. 27), which plays into ideologies of Black separatism and nationalism where “the enemy is considered,” not the man, or the black man, but is “considered to be the oppressive forces in the larger society which subjugate black men, women, and children… Africana womanists privilege racism and class- based oppression over gender-based oppresssion, because the racism and economic injustice affect the whole community, while sexism only affects half the community” (p. 27). However, it is important to not the Hudson Weems Africana womanism does not tolerate the subjugation of men, the mis or “maltreatment” of women, or condone any “violence against women within Africana contexts” (p. 27). Essentially, just because racism and classicism are the main operating modes of womanism does not dismiss, render ineffective, or push aside 39 the very real effect of sexism on the black woman as she is subjugated through the White or Black patriarchy, a basic commonality. What is important to note and what goes beyond commonality is that “womanism is something bigger than identity. It is a way of understanding the world that is predicated on taking action which harmonized the elements—people, spirits, nature—that make up the world… womanism is a worldview” (p. 29). USING WHAT YOU GOT TO GET WHAT YOU NEED: WOMANISM AND ITS AFFORDANCES That world view and that basic commonality is that we all live within social constructs rooted in systemic and oppressive constructs meant to extend the effect or illusion of social Darwinism. As Marpayan (2012) posits: [a]ll three perspectives are pragmatic, with an emphasis on everyday people, healing the wounds of oppression, restoring communities, and bringing order and balance to the world. When all three are interpolated, we get a dynamic and magnetic discursive space into which an infinity of Black women and others can enter, participate, and mold the ‘what it is’ of womanism. (p. 29) For many, Black womanism and Black feminism are the same analytical tool and approach, and even Walker noted that it does not matter what it is called; it matters that the work is done. However, there are tensions I have with Black feminism, as it is centered on the ways in which Black women are oppressed in multiple ways (race, gender, class) through both the White and Black patriarchy. What Walker contributes is “an express connection to the ‘everyday’ woman whose life is not constrained by artificial structures of hardline ideologies but who remains committed, nonetheless, to making better lives for herself and the people around her however she can (aka ‘by any means necessary’) (p. 29-30). As such, I argue, using Walker, Ogunyemi, and 40 Hudson-Weems’ version of Womanism allows me to center on the needs of women outside of the individual man or the broader patriarchies to which she is subjugated. Accordingly, there are enough differences between womanism or Black womanism and black feminism that I am provided with an exclusive analytical tool available to Black women since “[w]omanism in its wholeness cannot be apprehended unless all three ‘versions” of womanism are simultaneously maintained, contradictions and all” (p. 29). It is through this maintaining of contradictions that “[r]eal-world womanists enact a type of interpolation that utilizes all three perspectives at once and acknowledges the deeper reality that the womanist idea ‘goes way back’—further than Walker, Ogunyemi, or Hudson-Weems—to an unidentifiable past” (p. 29). As a method, Black Womanism allows me to position myself as an outsider, affording me the ability to analyze spaces positioned as welcoming to the outsider through the Womanistic strategies/tools of “mothering, dialoguing, using mutual aid/self-help and spirituality as a way of solving problems” (Lindsay-Dennis, p. 6). These affordances will allow me to understand how spaces are promoting or acting against raced, classed, and gendered concepts of home or inclusivity. This mothering, dialoguing, mutual aid/self-help and spirituality are part of what Linday-Dennis (2015) calls intergenerational survival strategies learned through socialization: Socialization constitutes the indirect and direct messages transmitted from one generation to the next that contribute to identity formation. Mothers, grandmothers, and other mothers teach/show Black girls how to use these strategies to navigate through multiple spaces. Womanism stresses the importance of viewing intergenerational strategies of survival as an intuitive and measurable process. (p. 6) 41 It is through this socialization, and this desire to center on this socialization and the experiences therein, that Womanism, as a culturally based perspective, can take “into consideration the contextual and interactive effects of herstory, culture, race, class, gender, and other forms of oppression” (Thomas 2004, qtd. in Lindsay-Dennis, p. 4). The main or guiding principle of Womanism is “the absolute necessity of speaking from and about one’s own experiential location” (Phillips and MaCaskill 2006, qtd in Lindsay-Dennis, p. 5). In other words, Black womanhood and girlhood experiences are situated (located) within a cultural context. Black Womanism allows “… for examination of the Black female psyche and social experiences, providing a means to contextualize Black girlhood” (p. 2), and, I assert, Black Womanhood. Accordingly, I contend that womanism takes these human conditions, e.g. racism, sexism, classicism, homophobia, ableism, transphobia, etc., as actualities, or what I call givens. It is given that racism, sexism, classicism, etc. is always already operating. It is given that how these constructs operate is different in each space and place, because it is given that racism, sexism, and classicism, is a global condition in localized spaces. As such, the way these systemic constructs operate in the writing center is not indicative of how/ways they operate in politics, business, another geographical location, etc. Therefore, how to “undo” them in each space and place is varied and complex. Some of the more suitable people to articulate how these systems operate on their bodies in these spaces, as well as how they may begin to be undone are those most affected and impacted by these constructs. Womanism shifts the lens of inquiry from proving racism, sexism, classicism, etc. exists within various spaces, to articulating how people may begin to undo those constructs, given they are always already embedded into these spaces and places. 42 As a social change methodology, “The goals of Womanism include using everyday people to solve problems, ending all forms of oppression for all people, restoring the balance between people and nature, and reconnecting humans with the spirit realm” (Marpayan, 2012, p. 6). This focus on using everyday people to solve problems, or rather, societal problems, is a suitable methodology for this dissertation, as it uses the rhetorical practice of dialoguing and story (both valued by Black Womanism) through interviews, surveys, focus groups, historicizing, and narrativizing as a means to both collect and analyze data. WOMANISM AS METHODOLOGY While I am using Womanism as a method, I am also using it as a methodology—one borne out of Black Feminist-Womanist (BFW) research. According to Lindsay-Dennis (2015), “BFW research is a culturally congruent model to guide studies about African American girls” (p. 6). This paradigm considers both the intersectionality and the “metaphysical aspects” (p. 6) of Black girls’ cultural perspectives. Because BFW is a research paradigm that, within the context of Lindsay-Dennis’ research, is suitable for Black girls, it is my contention that Black Womanism (BW) is also a culturally congruent model that can also guide not only research on and about Black girls, but also research on and about Black women. More specifically, BW is a research paradigm suitable for Black women scholars/researchers because it is a lens through which one can consider both the cultural impact and intersections of race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, etc. in the ways oppressed bodies navigate not only the larger societal world, but also the WC space. If, just as in Womanism, the “BFW research paradigm acknowledges that only within the context of the community does the individual appear and, through dialogue, continues to emerge (Dillard 2000, as cited by Lindsay- Dennis 2015, p. 7), then using womanism to analyze the dialogue (interviews, survey responses, 43 and so on) about how the WC space operates on bodies will make visible (the) lived experiences of the various bodies operating in the WC space. However, before this lived experience can be made visible, I want to (1) define some terms that I use throughout this dissertation, and (2) describe the importance of stereotypes to this critical analysis. When referring to the writing center, readers will note that I use the acronym WC. When referring to Black or White culture both “black” and “white” are capitalized. However, when referring to black or white people, the words “black” and “white” are written using lower case letters. Embodied ideologies: Womanism as method Before I began researching writing center spatial design and object affect, I formed a connection to, and a communal bond with, the three (3) writing centers used for research within this study. Since womanism is about creating communal bonds and tighter communal bonds with women, I had formed this bond through several years of engaging, theorizing, having dinner and creating friendships with the three main directors of each writing center site studied in this dissertation. All three directors are women. My writing center journey began at Eastern Shore University,14 and it culminated at both the Endicott Community College and the Mount Claire State University writing centers. At these various writing centers, I also built long-lasting bonds with the various consultants working within these writing centers. During the time I spent within these writing centers, I shared stories of my own struggles with being a consultant in a predominately white writing center, and they shared their stories of struggle over gender, race, pedagogy, and more. Through our shared stories, through this act of narrativizing our experiences as consultants, —those “less heard” than the dominant orators of 14 Pseudonyms used for the three (3) writing center sites 44 WC studies (directors, scholars, etc.)—womanism was at work. It afforded us the opportunity to mark and articulate what we thought might be problematic within the WC space. This building of community through shared stories, even if they were not shared experiences, granted me access to these WC communities and provided me the opportunity to share their experiences with the broader academic world. Institutional demographics: The writing center and geographic locations Endicott Community College is located in the Midwest and serves 15,000 students each year. It is also a PWI and serves over 400 international students. Endicott Community College’s minority enrollment is 30% (mostly Black [14%] and Hispanic [3%]), which is slightly under the national average (31%) for minority enrollment. Their writing center is recently remodeled and is in their Arts and Sciences building at the center of the campus. Mount Claire State University is also located in the Midwest and also a PWI. MCSU serves over 50,000 students. MCSU is also a research institution. Its total minority enrollment is 22.3% (mostly Black [8%] and Asian [5%])—well under the national average of 31%. MCSCU has one main writing center hub (the site used in this dissertation) in the center of campus and seven (7) satellites located around Campus. Because the main writing center hub is the only site where the directors have say over its design, participants only critiqued the main hub. Eastern Shore University is located on the East Coast in the Carolinas. It serves over 29,000 students each year, is a research institution, and is a PWI. The minority population at Eastern Shore University is 30% (mostly black [17%] and Hispanic [6%]). The University Writing Center at Eastern Shore is located within the main library at the center of campus. The Endicott Community College WC is a stand-alone writing center. While this WC currently has its own space, it will merge into a shared space—the learning commons—where 45 students can more easily access some of the resources available to them, i.e., writing and math tutoring. The Mount Claire State University WC has a main (primary) center and it has seven (additional) WC satellite centers. Because the satellite centers are contracted out to other parts of the institution, and cannot be aesthetically altered, only photos of the main WC hub were used within this study. The Eastern Shore University WC is located in the main library of Eastern Shore University, which is located in the center of the campus. Research design To begin this study, I took ten (10) pictures15 of each separate WC site—a total of thirty (30) pictures. Five (5) pictures showed the WC space devoid of people. The other five (5) pictures showed the same WC space, but with the addition of the people who normally operate in the space: consultants, clients, directors, and WC staff. These images were sent to participants via email. Participants then answered the survey questions and emailed the answers back to me. After transcribing and coding their survey answers using micro-level Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I then used follow-up interviews via Skype (which I audio recorded) to ask participants for clarification on the ways they identified/marked writing centers as raced/racialized spaced. I then transcribed these follow-up interviews and coded them accordingly. The photos of open space and people operating in the space are different and may have altered some of the ways participants read the space. However, some of this difference could not be eased as participants who consented to their phots being used decided what pictures of them I was allowed to use. Accordingly, some of these pictures show staff/faculty of the writing center because few clients consented to having pictures taken of their sessions. Two clients consented to having their pictures taken. Similarly, many of the writing centers have changed, some 15 Pictures in Appendix 46 drastically, since these photos were taken. I took these photos the summer of 2017 when all three (3) writing centers were far less populated than during Fall and Spring semester. I used three writing centers because I previously worked at each writing center. Because of the connection I created with the staff, tutors, and faculty, along with my womanist methodology requiring me to form lasting bonds with the communities I research, and because the writing center directors saw the importance of this study, I chose to use those three writing centers as sites of inquiry. After transcribing the interviews, I began coding information using one of the three- dimensional frameworks of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA): micro-level. CDA is primarily concerned with “the discourse dimensions of power abuse and the injustice and inequality that result from it” (van Dijk, 1993, p. 252). CDA is also not a method specifically attached to any particular discipline, field, discourse, or school of thought (p. 252). As such, CDA, and those who use CDA, are “primarily interested and motivated by pressing social issues, which it hopes to better understand through discourse analysis” (p. 252). CDA also demands that those who use it are explicit about their stance, socio-politically. Essentially, those using CDA should state their perspectives, goals and principles both within the academy and the society at large (p. 252). Of importance is that the perspective of those who use CDA, if possible, are “those who suffer most from dominance and inequality” (p. 252). Therefore, using CDA further aligns with a womanist methodology that affords those at the lowest positions in society and institutions to see cracks/fissures is these complex hierarchical systems. CDA becomes a tool and method of using what you got to get what you need. It is also a tool that, much like womanism, does not connect itself to a discipline or particular school of thought, but is committed to making visible the power structures that complicate our educational institutions, as well as the global society. As I have argued, one of these power structures is the discourse surrounding writing centers as 47 home/home-like spaces. Accordingly, using CDA means that my work, although not at each stage of the analysis, “is admittedly and ultimately political” and my hope “if occasionally illusory, is change through critical understanding” (p. 252). As such, understanding not only how writing center research and directors frame writing centers as home, but also how those centers are read by writing center tutors may provide the critical understanding needed to make writing centers, specifically those at PWIs, a more racially inclusive space. I chose to use macro-level CDA because a part of womanism is to listen to and analyze the stories/experiences of the communities within which you are engaging. Macro-level CDA requires one to pay close attention to what is said during my analysis because “[t]he interpretation stage reveals the hidden power relations and the purpose of this stage is to establish whether the verbal cues in the text contain certain assumptions or other hidden elements that are not obvious at a first glance” (Fairclough, 1989, p.129). Using micro-level CDA afforded me the ability to analyze various aspects of consultant responses, including syntax, rhetorical structure, etc. and attempt to connect those thoughts/musings to a larger context—one within the framework of the writing center as home. For the transcription analysis, I marked what objects and images (paintings, posters, etc.) consultants said were inclusive or exclusive, highlighted what they said those objects were conveying, and then analyzed what those interpretations may mean. Accordingly, I used follow-up interviews with consultants 16to ensure my analysis conveyed their intended meaning. These follow-up interviews were used as a way for me to check back in with participants as a means to (hopefully) continue and sustain the communal bonds we made. The same process of data analysis was repeated for the photos depicting WC directors, staff, and consultants operating within the WC space. 16 More information on consultant backgrounds, i.e. race, gender, etc. provided in Chapter 4 48 Because of restrictions on the size of photos that can be sent via email, and to avoid sending consultants many emails with multiple images, I chose to limit the number of images (10) I sent to consultants. Accordingly, I used a survey made up of five questions17, and I conducted follow-up interviews, to gain further insight into the ways consultants read and marked these various WC spaces. The original survey was sent in the same email as the photographs. Because the photos sent were limited in size, and therefore they could not capture all of these WC spaces, I attempted to photograph the most used and populated areas within each WC space. 17 Survey questions in Appendix C 49 CHAPTER 3: From the directors: Writing centers at community colleges and universities Since writing center directors, by and large, are attempting to construct their WC spaces as welcoming, ifinclusive, and, to some degree, homelike, the ways in which WC directors in university and community college writing centers idealize and construct those spaces are uniquely important. Because directors’ construction of their writing center spaces, noted in this chapter, are the actual sites participants critiqued for their very inclusivity—racial or otherwise—this chapter focuses on the ways the directors of the writing center at a community college and at two four- year universities responded to interview questions18 asking them how they attempted to create a more welcoming and inviting space, as well as how they wanted their writing centers to function (operate/perform). A COMMUNITY COLLEGE WRITING CENTER IDEAL: VALUES, PLACEMENT, AND VISIBILITY Writing centers at community colleges often function in similar ways to writing centers in universities because they have similar philosophies, theories, and pedagogies about the visible messages a writing center space should send, as well as the ways in which a writing center should perform19. In other words, in the space of the writing center, optics matter. Accordingly, optics matter to a college or university. The way directors construct learning spaces, whom they envision operating in those spaces, and where those spaces are physically located on campus show the value the institution and directors may place on the learners and the learning that happens in those spaces. Essentially, beyond design, the physical location of the writing center 18 See Appendix B for writing center director interview questions 19Unlike Butler’s notion of performance and performativity, I use perform to show how one might describe how a car performs on the road to understand how the directors wanted their writing centers to function. 50 on college or university campuses shows students, parents, faculty, and staff the value that they also place both on the learners and the learning happening within those spaces. Marcia Logan20, Director of Endicott Community College Writing Center, articulates the importance of the institution showing its value in a writing center simply by (1) it placement on campus, and (2) its monetary investment in the writing center(s) a given institution may have. She argues, “The actual design and layout of it I think is nice. I think it creates the impression—I mean this is true of the building in general, I think, but I think it hopefully sends a message that the writing center matters to the college. It was given a nice space with cool, new furniture and colors” [emphasis mine] (M. Logan, personal communication, March 31, 2017). The importance this college placed on the writing center, by moving it to a central location, and granting funds for its remodeling, shows not only Marcia, but also current and prospective faculty and students, that the college is committed to aiding and enhancing the services, and, to a large degree, the theories and practices around WC pedagogy and spatial design. Accordingly, it is this visibility that Marcia values the most. Marking the WC as highly visible not only conveys the confidence the college has in the WC and the services it provides, but also, it gives Marcia a medium/mode for presenting the WC as welcoming/inviting: I want it to be highly visible in a high traffic area when people walk by in between classes. And we always wanted a space where people can see into it easily and imagine themselves there. Or like you know, like an inviting place where people come in to hang out to write, not just to get help with writing and a place where faculty members [inaudible] where they want to hold office hours in an open space 20Pseudonyms used for the names of directors, the writing centers, and the institutions in which they worked 51 like that. And I think we got—we went a little too far originally with the visibility because everything was just open glass in the hallway, so we had to put those frosted glass panels in because we felt it was a little too much like a fish aquarium [emphasis mine] (M. Logan, personal communication, March 31, 2017). Clearly, Marcia desires to have her writing center viewed as an inviting space where clients and faculty can envision themselves operating, coinciding with ideas propagated by Stephen North, and furthered by subsequent WC scholars. Similarly, as with many theories, the outcome, despite her approach, created some issues/fissures in tangibly constructing an inviting WC space. In the attempt to make the Endicott Community College writing center a more visible and inviting space, a fishbowl/panopticon effect21 was created. According to Marcia, another aspect of creating an inviting WC at Endicott Community College is its having a central location on campus, as well as (its) operating as a stand-alone WC separate from a specific academic department. She posits, “we don’t border on any specific department and, in some ways, I think that’s advantageous… we’re kind of our separate space and I think that’s important too that it’s hopefully not perceived as something that’s just for English departments.” As Haviland, C.P., Fye, C.M., and Richard, C. (2001) assert, location is political because “it is an organizational choice that creates visibility or invisibility, access to resources, and associations that define the meanings, uses, and users of designated spaces” (p. 85). Similarly, Nicolas (2004) asserts that since space is at a premium on college campuses, “occupying a real physical space sends a message to the campus community that who or what 21 Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (2nd Vintage Books ed.). New York: Vintage Books. 52 inhabits that space is important enough to garner a piece of its limited resource; space connotates the value of who or what inhabits it” (p. 106). Essentially, having a physical space for the writing center—whether in a basement or in a building at the center of campus—demonstrates the value the university places on not only the idea (theoretical purpose and method) of a writing center, but also the very embodiment (physical place/site) of a writing center. Additionally, Marcia also places value on the Endicott Community College Writing Center operating as a standalone center instead of operating as one housed within, and therefore in service to, an English department. Because many writing centers were born out of English departments, and many are still housed within these departments, it is logical to make the assumption that students would believe such a center was only for students in English classes, such as Composition I and II or that the consultants can only help with those sorts of intro to English/writing papers. Accordingly, it is also logical to assert that a stand-alone WC would draw students from other university departments. In terms of the most inviting/welcoming WC, Marcia envisions her ideal writing center as one with a larger space. In reflecting on her previous WC at her current institution, she noted it was more ideal in that it was a significantly larger space, positing, “I think, in a lot of ways, that space might be ideal a little bit more because it was quite a bit larger, there was a space for the staff to kinda hang out and debrief separate from students—they had their own like little staff office.” Her desire for extra space is to not only accommodate staff, but also students. Yet it is necessary to begin to nuance the idea, or rather the assumption that more space inherently allows for more diverse bodies to operate. implementing a theory of visibility. Marcia noted some of the practical problems with attempting to link the theory of the WC as highly visible and inviting to issues high visibility can 53 create not only for WC clients, but also those working in the WC. Marcia comments that what they “…hoped, was that people would just walk by and could look in and notice cool things happening—people talking about writing, and wonder what was going on in there and maybe wanna come in and check it out… The minus side of that is that you really can’t go into the Writing Center without being seen” and she notes this visibility is “…a bit of an issue with students who have learning disabilities, or attention deficit, or even some of our staff who deliberately try to sit with their back to the hallway or you know in such a way that they’re facing a wall” [emphasis mine] (M. Logan, personal communication, March 31, 2017). While Marcia uses visibility as a reason for why the Writing Center is accessible to more students on campus, she also sees visibility as a problem, potentially causing certain anxieties and tensions within clients, staff, and faculty who may feel exposed. Consequently, the lack of the ability to hide may adversely affect various bodies and their willingness to inhabit and work in the WC. Certainly, Marcia’s vision and imprint is on the Endicott Community College Writing Center space. However, this recently remodeled WC space included design ideas from (at the time) current WC staff and faculty, though client/student input was not requested: I will say that when we saw the architects drawing of our new space, it was divided into little offices and cubicles and we said, “no, we don’t want that,” so we—so they did—they did listen to us on that. They did a fairly extensive—we had to fill out—I mean I remember it being multiple pages of like questions about how we were using our space and what we would like it to be like in the future. (M. Logan, personal communication, March 31, 2017). While Marcia was concerned with how her writing center looked, she was also concerned with how her writing center would perform over time. The writing center is a resource that performs 54 an important job: assisting clients with their writing. Consequently, how inclusive or homelike the writing center may seem, as well as how well a writing center functions are of equal importance not only to Marcia, but all the writing center directors interviewed. Despite the concern Marcia displays for some of the problems with both the writing center design and its high visibility, she clings (and rightfully so) to the idea that the more clients, staff, and faculty see the writing center and the happenings therein, the more likely they will be to use, or make use of, the writing center and its services. This understanding is the rationale behind Marcia’s assertion that the openness of the WC helps it achieve an inviting look. However, Marcia makes certain associations between openness and the ability to see activity happening within a space, to the ability to draw a high volume of students to that space. Logically, this act would, to some degree, assure that some racially diverse bodies would, at the very least, enter the WC space. However, this assurance is housed in the idea that the various activities happening within the WC would cause students to come into it of their own volition for writing assistance. Accordingly, this visible activity is not necessarily causative of racial inclusivity or racial exclusivity. Yes, it is more likely that a WC will have more clients enter the space if (1) clients are aware of its location and (2) it’s placed in a high premium, high traffic area. However, at Endicott Community College, Marcia noted (that) one issue they often face as teachers, and she as a WC director, is students either do not know about the resources available, or they do not make use of these resources for a myriad of reasons. In other words, high visibility in a high traffic area neither causes students to enter this writing center nor seek services from, or work in, this writing center. 55 What visibility does afford is the chance to be seen. The WC is a resource geared to assist students. No amount of window dressing changes this fundamental function of the writing center. Students of color are often hesitant about receiving help in predominately white spaces and are even more suspicious of being seen receiving help from a tutoring service. In the interview series, “Women of the writing center: Black, female, on the periphery—being black in a white writing center,” Previously, I interviewed black women consultant on their experiences in the writing center. One consultant pointed out the lack of black consultants and clients in the writing center and argued, “the center needs color, but that starts with who applies for the job, so if Black people don’t apply the people here [WC] will be white. Black people don’t tend to know about this and they tend to not be confident in their writing to consult” (Faison, 2014, para. 21). For many black students and other students of color, tutoring services/resources are based on a cultural deficit model—the perspective that minority group members are different because their culture is deficient in important ways from the dominant majority group22 (Salkind, 2008, p. 217)—and is meant to weed out their “problems” with science, math, writing, etc, which can lead to further discrimination if those within the writing center mark clients who are POC as always already deficient. Similarly, the cultural deficit model can also adversely affect consultants of color because if clients from the dominant culture have a consultant of color assisting them with their work, clients may devalue the assistance the consultant provides or desire that the consultant prove he/she/they have the knowledge to assistant them in their writing. Accordingly, black consultants may also have to prove this knowledge not only to white clients, but also to other students of 22 Cultural deficit model. In Encyclopedia of educational psychology 56 color. This proving is rooted in how POC may often internalize the effects of the cultural deficit model, which adversely effects how how POC see other POC and how they see themselves. implementing visibility: pragmatic problems applying theoretical solutions. Marcia does not pretend or even suggest her WC space is without fault. In fact, she tends to notice certain deficits in WC design, or rather, the way her WC is designed. One such design issue/flaw she noted was how noisy her writing center became during consultations and the need to create a quiet space to better serve both the clients, consultants, and staff: But the limitations, I mean, sometimes I think people need a more quiet area to write in and maybe some separated spaces where they can’t see and be seen and overhear everything else that’s been going on. We’ve had to sometimes have the writing assistants and the students go down the hallway to a conference room or over to the English Department to a conference room, if they needed to be in a space where they weren’t in the middle of four conversations going on at the same time. And sometimes that’s per request of the student or per request of the staff member because we have some staff members whose voices really carry and they are aware of that. [emphasis mine] (M. Logan, personal communication, March 31, 2017). There seems to be a correlation between the WC as an open and inviting space and what that open and inviting space might produce. If the WC should be viewed as a welcoming, home-like space, an interrogation into whether this space is causative of discourses larger society would often consider private, and the effect of moving those oft private discourses into a public space attempting to function as a private domain is sorely needed. 57 Marcia provides an anecdote showing the impact of this largely uninterrogated issue. She explained that “though we want students to come in and hangout and write, we’re always issuing this disclaimer to them when they do, like this isn’t really a quiet area, necessarily, it gets a little loud in here.” (M. Logan, personal communication, March 31, 2017). The loud conversations occurring in this writing center commonly revolved around student papers and the general frustration or enlightenment one has after a session. However, many conversations revolved around politics. These conversations left many clients feeling unwelcome or as if they had entered a hostile environment. Since political talk among co-workers is often discouraged, due to the emotional hostility it can cause, clients experiencing this kind of private discourse in a faux home-like space may leave disoriented. It is not that politics is never discussed in public spaces beyond congresses and senates, it is that in American culture these discourses peel back and appear to expose the root of who we are to listeners—these listeners may often be racially, culturally, ethnically, etc. differently aligned from those same political positioning(s). Marcia explains this negative effect further: …sometimes I think that those conversations can turn to things that are inappropriate or people getting upset with each other. And then sometimes in the midst of that we may lose sight of the fact that there’s a student or two sitting there trying to write and it’s either loud or they’re overhearing conversations that if we were more aware—I just wish that there was a space for our staff to have to go to debrief to decompress. And sometimes even to remove themselves from those conversations. There’s really no place for the staff to escape sometimes. (M. Logan, personal communication, March 31, 2017) 58 Thus, a wide gap exists between the idea of visibility and openness equating to racially diverse bodies (or any body) willingly entering the space because they see “cool things happening.” Yet it is necessary to note that we keep returning to this underlying idea that more space is equivalent to more diversity. Marcia returns to this idea more often because the writing center is moving into a significantly larger space over the next year. As such, it makes sense she would focus on the space and design issues she has in her current writing center. More space/area does allow for different happenings to occur in the WC. However, in this instance, there is a conflation, collapsing, or rather, misappropriation of term diverse as this director, in fact, as this chapter will show, to some degree, all the directors interviewed equated more space to affording more diverse types of interactions. The issue with diverse is how it is used. The academy commodifies diversity and has found ways to expand its meaning beyond the common connotation society has when discussing diversity: it’s a discussion about race. Because this study intends to show how race is read in the writing center, pointing out the differences between racial diversity and the commodified academic term, diversity. However, these diverse interactions are needed and could lead to more racially diverse people inhabiting the WC space, but more space for diverse interactions is not necessarily causative of more racially diverse people entering and remaining in said space. Within the context in which this and the other directors in this chapter discuss space, space is equivalent to variety (i.e. an area for group writing, an area for video editing, an area for one-on-one tutoring, an area for workshops, and so on); in this context, variety does not refer specifically to racial diversity. This gap in what Marcia and the other directors interviewed envision as an inviting or welcoming space to clients and consultants becomes more apparent in the following chapters as WC consultants critique the WC spaces discussed in this chapter. 59 From the directors: Mount Claire State University Kassandra Stephens, Director of Mount Claire State University Writing Center, places high value on not only the writing center as home, but she refers to the writing center, in some ways, as a place of play. Her ideal of how she would like her writing center to be viewed/perceived, and to function, are similar to Marcia’s. Both directors desire that the writing center be a place where people “feel like they can get work done” (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). And for Stephens, the ways in which clients can get work done involves making “the right kind of working space. It means the right kind of materials: it might be computers; it might be pencils and paper and crayons. It definitely means coffee and other forms of sustenance for them, typically.” (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). Accordingly, Marcella Anders, associate director of Mount Claire State University Writing Center, views the WC as a space that is not seen as clinical or reminiscent of a visit to the doctor where patients come to be fixed, harkening on the history of WC as “a space similar to a hospice—a place for the dangerously and critically illiterate where “one goes there hoping for miracles, but ready to face the inevitable” (North, 1984, p. 435). Instead, what the directors of Mount Claire State University Writing Center desire the most is to “be a welcoming space in that when they walk in they see it’s not like a doctor’s office, necessarily, and hopefully, the space itself can somehow put them at ease, if not by the colors on the wall and those kinds of things then by the toys on the table… we want them to feel comfortable… to feel like they can bring problems to us of they need to” (M. Anders, personal communication, May, 27, 2017). Clearly, Kassandra and Marcella, like Marcia, want options within their writing centers. Options provide them with the ability to have more occur in the WC. However, as Kassandra points out: 60 Of course, this is an impossibility because one person’s quiet will interfere with another person’s need for noise, really more the other way: somebody’s need for noise is going to interfere with somebody’s need for quiet. I dunno, maybe we should have our own headphones available, but then you gotta clean ‘em cuz people—there’s wax in people’s ears. (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017) Kassandra’s humorous critique of her writing center shows the cracks in her ideal of creating a space that is “all things to all people” and a practical “impossibility” (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017) of creating any space that could be all things for all people who operate within the space. And her joke about cleaning ear wax from ear buds should not go without nuance, as it is its own critique. If the writing center is a home where people regularly visit, exactly whose job is it to clean the visible traces of former and current bodies operating in the space? Another connection between Kassandra, Marcia, Marcella, and Timothy Thumb (Associate Director of the Mount Clair State University Writing Center) are their views of space, specifically, how much more space they need and what more space could afford them. Kassandra notes, “we don’t have enough space because I would like to set up different spaces for people doing different things. And that requires more physical space, which is the argument I keep trying to make to upper administration” (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). Kassandra’s ideas of more space and more activity links to her concerns about remaining visible to clients at Mount Claire State University and are similar to the same needs Marcia has about remaining visible: I think it’s important for people to come into our space and have a workshop. A WC workshop in the WC makes perfect sense. It introduces people to the WC in a 61 tangible way. They can’t just say, ‘I don’t know where the Center is,’ because they’ve been in here, and they’ve interacted in it, and they find that the space is not scary like they may have thought it was [emphasis mine]. (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). However, again there is this problematic idea of space and what it affords. It affords more activities, it affords more space to consult, and it affords more space to assist the needs of various learners. As Kassandra argues, “because the space does multiple things, I think we need multiple pieces of that space, if that makes sense, so we need spaces that have different functions, instead of one space that has multiple functions” (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). Timothy Thumb concurs, offering that more space provides more flexibility “… I think that’s almost like an ideal kind of space that has a lot of flexibility to manipulate, and move, and shift the space in order for the needs” (T. Thumb, personal communication, April 30, 2017). Thumb also links space with ideas of open-ness noting the lack of walls conveying a more open, less enclosed feel. While the importance of space is highly valued for all the directors of the Mount Saint Clair State University WC, as previously stated, none of what space affords is indicative or causative of more racial diversity. In other words, having more space does not necessarily create more racial diversity. What having more space can provide (at most) is an opportunity, not a certainty, for more racially diverse people to enter and operate in any given space. Thus, if a WC is fashioned as comfortable, with various places for diverse activities and interactions to occur, it is feasible to assume that the WC directors have a latent assumption that creating this type of space will create more space for diverse bodies, racially or otherwise. 62 creating affect: what the center holds. Because Mount Claire State University is a well- funded WC, many of the ideals that Kassandra, Marcia, and Timothy desired for the WC are reflected in the various items within this WC. For Timothy, a welcoming environment begins at the front desk, where clients can be greeted with a smile and warm salutations. While the front desk clerk could operate as a gatekeeper to the WC (and often does function as one), Thumb argues, “it does play an important function in helping people who have never been to this space to feel like they can come to the space” (T. Thumb, personal communication, April 30, 2017). Another object Kassandra draws heavily on, as a marker of her ideal(s) in affording clients the tools they need within the WC, is the technology it makes available to its clients. Kassandra posits consultants can pull up clients’ papers on Google “because a computer is available or an IPad is available, so the technology is there to help them if we need to look up things” (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). She further articulates the importance of having the appropriate technology in the WC that meets clients’ other needs as well, e.g. having phone “charging ports” (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). However, with this access and ease comes a certain amount of risk. While Kassandra wants to create an environment where everyone feels welcome, she recognizes that the WC is not, in fact, everyone’s home, and keeping temporary occupants from leaving the WC space with WC tools is a necessary, albeit exclusive, act: We, you know, we made it easier to plug in your stuff, even to the point that you can charge your phone while you’re here because we know that people need that. Um, if they would stop taking the cords more people would get to do that, but we also can’t lock these things down because they’re counterproductive to the kind of atmosphere that we’re trying to create. I think there’s only one thing locked in our 63 Center and that’s the sign-in computer. Because it’s just there and it’s more about not having something in that particular location, than somebody taking it. (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). Clearly, the more items a WC space has that clients and workers need, the more likely some of those items will disappear from that space. While it is reasonable that those who work in a place offering services to the wider population understand it will, at some point, incur some loss of several of its resources (such as a charger cord or the odd style guide), it is also logical to assume this loss must be curtailed to stay in operation. Therefore, it is admirable that Kassandra chooses to keep valuable tools that Mount Claire State University used in an open WC space since many of the tools that are commonly stolen, e.g. laptops can be expensive to replaced and may not be replaced immediately depending on the length of the process for replacing lost or stolen equipment. what the center holds: client and employee input. As a WC scholar and queer theorist, Kassandra understands the value of client and employee input on how the WC looks and operates. However, this input revolves around aesthetics or accoutrements not necessarily needed to either consult with clients about their writing or to perform the act of writing. We do have coffee. People ask for more tea and more varieties of tea. People ask for chocolate, other people don’t want chocolate, they want candy that’s just pure sugar. We’ve got it all, right. We got a new—the water cooler was always acting up and the hot water was a pain, so we got a new water cooler, that easily dispenses both cold and hot water, so that you can easily make your tea or hot chocolate and do those things. So, um, we’ve been intentional about that kind of stuff. (K. Stephens, June 1, 2017). 64 Yet, this intentionality creates even more cracks in the ideal, as many theories about people often do, when attempting to apply the theory of a space as “all things to all people.” What Kassandra sees as reflecting having it all—coffee, tea, candy—can also reflect the problem, conveyed by Kassandra earlier, I further nuance here: when differing bodies enter a space, the need for resources grows and those resources must distributed, depending on the demand. This demand can leave people in the space to “fight” for access to more or similar resources. Since a WC can only be “everything to everyone” in theory, the ability to continue to acquire and distribute needed, or aesthetically pleasing, resources is likely limited financially (no matter how well- funded the writing center’s budget), and, as such, must make decisions on how to allocate those resources. For example, if a writing center has eight (8) computers and there are fifteen (15) clients who need to use a computer to work on their writing, to whom one decides to give computers, to deny access to computers, or who must wait to use a computer are based on methods/practices of exclusion. While these practices of exclusion do not have to be based on race, gender, class, etc., practices of exclusion must occur when the writing center has less resources than are available for the people in the writing center. Kassandra, the writing center director, has an allergy to citrus. Because she has this allergy, she removed much of the lemon-flavored tea from the writing center. Although she excluded much of the lemon tea, which both clients and consultants like, her method of exclusion is not based on race, gender, class, etc., but on her health. Aesthetically speaking, Kassandra also draws on the power and importance of having plants in the WC. “I like the plants. I like plants. Because one, they’re healthy and they’re natural. And they add green to our very blue WC. So, things are important, um, it’s important to have living things in the space, in the Center, and so I have tried to do that with plants and it 65 works better out in the Center than it does in the office” (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). Explicating on how the plants in the WC are to function, Stephens posits, “it’s a part of being organic and natural; it’s—I don’t know that it’s about welcoming; I do think plants can be welcoming, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s about being ecofriendly in this kind of queer feminist way” (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). Kassandra, Marcella, and Timothy all valued client and consultant input when designing their writing centers. Timothy pointed out, “from everything I’ve seen and been a part of so far, there’s almost nothing done here without consultant and student and graduate student, in particular, coordinator input” (T. Thumb, personal communication, June 1, 2017). The directors sought specific input about the WC wall and ceiling décor. She noted, “the summer that we were testing colors, there were a lot of clients who voted, as well—people who regularly use the center talking about why they liked different colors and what they wanted, which led us to have the whole matrix of color, instead of a color. And um, people tend to like that” (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). Additionally, Marcella mentions the personalized ceiling tiles as a way visitors to the WC find a point of contact: “the minute they look up and see the ceiling tiles, they want to know ‘why’ and they wanna know ‘who’… when you tell them they’ve been designed by people who work in the WC, they find that really amazing, right and it gives them something to kind of relate to people” (M. Anders, personal communication, May 27, 2017). Throughout these writing centers, directors work to make their spaces as welcoming as possible by listening to suggestions from the various bodies who interact within their respective writing centers. These directors also attempt to respond to client and consultant needs when or as they present. 66 what the center lacks: making the ideal malleable. The directors of Mount Claire State University WC agree that there is a space issue. This issue is one that specifically can disrupt and exclude the various bodies attempting to operate within the WC space. For Timothy, the best way to solve a space issue that possibly excludes people is to use the available space more efficiently, so it includes as many happenings and people as possible. He envisions creating more space, therefore establishing increased inclusivity, by the sectioning (off) of spaces within the center as they pertain to specific WC activities. “I think we could do a better job partitioning spaces, so like workshop spaces versus consultant spaces versus graduate student offices versus conference rooms, stuff like that. It could do a better job partitioning without necessarily using walls. And then I think we need to have space for digital consultations” (T. Thumb, personal communication, April 30, 2017). Timothy places a clear value on including various forms of writing, and certainly, the more diverse writing across genres, disciplines, and audience’s consultants assist writers with, the more they can learn about the various demands within writing that spans these varying genres/disciplines. When a space can allow access to racially and culturally diverse people in the WC, these racially diverse bodies create a contact zone with other raced and cultural people. However, race and cultural practices vary throughout (and within) these groups/groups of people, and navigating certain cultural and racial norms can create tensions for even the most ardently inclusivity and diversity -minded WC director or administrator about inclusive writing centers: This is a weird thing, but smell is very real… we’ve tried to be really accommodating of our consultants, in particular, with the refrigerator and the microwave, the toaster oven and all that kind of stuff. But sometimes there are things heated up in that microwave that make the whole center smell pungently. 67 And I’m not always sure if that’s welcoming because there’s so many different— you know smells are so cultural. And the smell of different foods and spices are so cultural that I’m not sure what is welcoming—what smells appropriate to people or what might smell inappropriate to others… So just thinking about that is one thing that kinda concerns me at times. (K. Stephens, personal communication, June 1, 2017). Noticing that odor is also a cultural construct presents other possible problems with Stevens’ writing center being all things to all people. Since odor is cultural, how then does the WC allow for certain odors uncommon to more permanent residents of the WC, i.e. longtime employees, the director, etc., or rather, by what measures does the WC determine which odors should and should not be present within the WC? Accordingly, while Kassandra, Marcia, and Marcella desire more space for more activities to occur in the WC, Marcella argues that sometimes the activities the WC space can afford are also activities that may exclude those who normally populate the WC. “At times the space is not welcoming because people walk in and there’s a workshop going on and people feel like their presence is an interference in something important that’s going on” most namely a workshop. When these workshops take up the WC space, “[t] here are still times when people walk in and there’s something going on to make people feel not welcome” (M. Anders, personal communication, May 27, 2017). Thus, lack of space can most certainly lead to exclusion, since not too many people can fit in a closet. 68 From the directors: The practical writing center Ashley Zimmer, director of the University Writing Center at Eastern Shore University, envisions and creates her ideal space, not based on what objects or images are situated in the center for consultants and writers to use, but on how consultants and writers use her writing center as a space/tool of empowerment. “Since our furniture is on wheels…the consultants feel empowered to move things around to meet the students and the writers they are working with… the consultants are willing to be flexible depending on who’s coming through the front doors” (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017). Similarly, Zimmer also wants writers entering the WC for consultations to feel empowered, arguing, “I think, ideally, I would like a space for writers to feel empowered to make those sorts of changes and suggestions, so consultants don’t have to read the space and move to adjust to the writers, but the writers can be like ‘I need us to be sitting in bean bags, cuz I’m brainstorming and that’s comfortable.’” (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017). Ideas surrounding empowerment also play into Zimmer’s ideas around crafting an inclusive writing center space. More importantly, I argue that for Zimmer as well as the other writing center directors, empowerment and inclusivity are housed within functionality. Zimmer notes, “I want it to function well” (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017). I suggest that some of Zimmer’s ideals of usefulness creating an empowering writing center space is rooted in a working class ideology that is centered on practicality and functionality. How, then, does functionality and practicality play/enact within and against aesthetic accoutrements to create a more inclusive space? To some degree, functionality and practicality must be taught. One envisions ideals, finds what’s possible within that ideal, and then does what’s feasible to create that ideal given the constraints—funds, space, and so on—available. 69 It’s been a learning curve. I mean, it’s wonderful to have chairs on wheels but that doesn’t mean people know how to use them. One of the other things we did this last Fall was… training on how to use the space... So like, ‘furniture moves and this is how you take the lock off the wheels to move the furniture. You always need to have a walkway for ADA compliance.’ (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017) Of the directors interviewed, Zimmer was the only one to focus not only on how her WC space should feel, or be perceived, but also on the importance of training people to make optimal use of the space. If space performs, and tells a story, then how that space is used or misused also tells a story. However, to actualize this story, it relies on institutional and monetary support. That support ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes, with each year and every institution that allocates funds. What must be remembered is that, to some degree, reducing the cost of operations without reducing quality of education is the end goal for institutional redistribution of wealth to colleges, departments, and/or support services. Zimmer claims, “we used to have exceptional lighting a few years ago but the library came in and changed it to fluorescent lighting. I’m a little angry about that still.” Zimmer continued: we had nice, soft, academic learning lighting. And then they came in and put the fluorescent back in because the fluorescent is cheaper, but that’s also more headache inducing, so. There’s a lot of ideals that we had already built in that have now gone away because of sort of institutional rules and regulations, so that can get a little frustrating. (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017) What Zimmer suggests is the anti-institutional ideology to which many writing centers are beholden is always already subservient to institutional ideologies about how they should function 70 and operate. In other words, if there is no (or only partial) buy-in to the theoretical and ideological positions of the writing center, then the writing center is always susceptible to succumbing to institutional operational pressures. what we love: creating and expanding an inclusive writing center. Despite these institutional pressures to conform, or rather, re-conform, to standard classroom operations, Zimmer continuously finds ways to reposition and re-envision her writing center as an “anti- classroom,” if not an anti-institutional space, using certain wall designs/décor and objects in the center. “The one thing we love the green wall—the half circle green walls we have in here because it sort of breaks the space up” (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017). Zimmer also notes that her writing center, due to the very design, and the circles she likes so much, can create an “invisible barrier” which their writing center mascot, Rhetorica, the Giraffe, helps assuage. “… [P]eople want to come in just for a selfie with the giraffe… [s]o Rhetorica is" positioned at the scary threshold of our writing center. They’ll walk in and go ‘Oh let me take a selfie with Rhetorica’ and they’re like, ‘look, I’m already in the writing center.’ So, we’re trying to be strategic” (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017). How directors strategize to make a space less scary and more inclusive should not be lost here. At the University Writing Center of Eastern Shore University, as with the other writing centers in this chapter, everything situated within them, from the wall décor to the moveable tables and chairs, was designed with specific intent—and with the hope—of (their) being inclusive spaces. Admittedly, some of that inclusive design comes at the cost of the appearance of exclusivity or utter solitude. Zimmer explains that consultants working alone on computers, as they conduct online consultations may imply or project an atmosphere of solitude to passersby, but (that) the consultants are all doing engaging work. “…but the appearance is that it’s very 71 solitary work. And so, for starters we’re trying to figure out what makes it a more collaborative space than you see when you actually walk in. But again, those green walls kind of block off that collaboration” (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017). Accordingly, and similar to the other directors in this chapter, Zimmer wants to find ways to expand—if not the physical space of the writing center, then the physical geographic boundaries consultants can cross: We’ve been toying around with the idea of pop up centers… I think there is a lot of value in showing up on the first floor of residence halls. There’s a lot of value to having some sort of quick consultations at the Starbucks. There’s a level of being on display there but there’s also showing that people get writing help all the time. And that they’re studying at the cafeteria table like everyone else is studying. (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017) For many writing center directors, the need to acquire or have more space is ever present. While most admit that getting more space, or more room within their writing centers, is highly unlikely, the directors in this study found ways around the barriers keeping them from achieving as much inclusivity as possible in their centers. Thus, pop-up centers, hubs, satellites, and even applications (apps) for mobile devices, for use in conducting brief consultations, are possibilities, and, in some, realities, within the lexicon of services offered by their writing center. In terms of possibilities, Zimmer desires “to have some sort of writing center app where it has a GPS tracker on it where they can go to like Belk and be able to send out an announcement like ‘there’s a couple consultants down here if you have a writing center question’—like just a true traditional, just pop up and just be able to alert people that you’re there” (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017). 72 In actuality, the University Writing Center of Eastern Shore University has some ability to meet students in places and spaces outside the writing center proper. Having these hubs affords Zimmer the opportunity to apply her theory about writing consultants who meet writers where they are, not only within their writing, but also in their various geographical locations: “We did four or five [consultations] …with the Biology and Chemistry… they have this half hour block between classes …they could—kind of hop in—and wait in between classes. They wouldn’t have had time to walk to the library and get help and make it back in time for class” (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017). Although Zimmer wants a writing center that is flexible enough to meet writers in their location(s), she also puts consultant learning on display to help break down that “barrier of expert and non-expert” between consultant and client: We started using the Giant sticky notes and the little sticky notes. We started using them for professional development leaving them on display, so that the writers that do come in can sort of see the conversations happening. That has helped break down that barrier of expert and non-expert. We’re gonna put our learning on display for you just as you put your learning on display for us. (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017) However, sticky notes, pop-ups, green circles, and meeting writers where they are has not assuaged some of the fundamental problems this specific writing center has had with the hiring and retention of students of color, and the lack of students of color coming to the writing center for consultations. Zimmer’s concern is not to suggest she believes POC need writing assistance over others. In some ways, her concern is similar to my own inquiry, because she desires to know if POC do, in fact, need writing assistance and they are aware of the writing center 73 services offered at this institution and they still abstain from using the writing center as a resource, what, if anything, is causing them to abstain from using the WC? the absence of color in the writing center. Zimmer notes many reasons her writing center is operating/functioning well—namely its physical flexibility, the way students and consultants can move chairs, tables, whiteboards, and other objects around the space, as well as its ability to conduct some pop-up writing consultations. However, a growing concern she has is with the racial diversity (or lack thereof) of the writing center consultants: I think we do well meeting the needs of the students and consultants who do use us. But I’m concerned about the groups that don’t. And if there’s something that we were doing that’s preventing them from coming in. I think we’ve done, not purposefully, but actively seek to diversify our staff and it has happened. We’ve increased to not just being white females, but African American males and African American women on staff, then you have more African American students come in the space and I can track that by the numbers. (A. Zimmer, personal communication, June 5, 2017) Zimmer’s desire to actively seek diverse students is a type of tracking. However, unlike the problematic educational tracking that categorizes students based on race and perceived intellectual and physical ability, what Zimmer does is not meant to categorize consultant or student ability, due to a preconceived notion about what they should and should not know; instead, she uses tracking to show (inherently) what her writing center does or does not know about the entire population they are intending to serve. In other words, Zimmer tracks racial diversity in her writing center as a point/catalyst of WC critique—a moment for her to say and question, what might we be doing to push students of color away that also makes us a less viable 74 possibility to assist with their writing or even provide them a modicum of income? What is important to note is not that Zimmer plays close attention to the racially diverse bodies that move into and out of the writing center, but that out of all the directors interviewed, ways to achieve and maintain racial diversity in the writing center was an explicitly expressed concern for Zimmer in this specific interview. The perception that Zimmer’s attention to, and concern with, the lack of racial diversity in her writing center is at the forefront of her mind does not necessarily (and in no way, should) reflect a lack of concern by the other WC directors’ interviews about the diverse bodies that do and do not operate within their WC spaces. In fact, this vocal and explicit concern Zimmer has expressed more to do with place (geographical location) than space (the WC). Eastern Shore University is in the South, and although it is classified as a PWI, it also serves one of the highest populations of African American students who attend PWI’s in that region of the State. Thus, Zimmer’s vocalization of the lack of diversity in the Writing Center is possible because of the visibly colored bodies she encounters every day walking to and from her place of work that never (or rarely) enter into, or seek to be employed by, the University Writing Center at Eastern Shore. It is evident that each director interviewed not only promotes the idea of the writing center as welcoming, inclusive, and homelike, but they have also made specific decisions about how one makes a space welcoming so that it can be read (rhetorically) as welcoming and/or inclusive. These decisions made to create this desired effect include: exceptional lighting, food/snacks for sustenance, moveable tables and chairs, artwork, and consultant input about proposed writing center changes. The directors in this chapter also included visibility or high 75 visibility, being in a central location, and expansion (desiring more physical space) as a method/means to attract and retain a more diverse population. While the directors have tried to make these spaces as inclusive as possible, they mentioned certain institutional pushbacks and constraints. Some of these pushbacks generated from writing centers separating from English departments, becoming stand-alone centers. However, some of the constraints to the writing center and its ideological position are because that positioning often runs counter to larger institutional goals. These institutional goals can become insurmountable if the institution in which the writing center is situated does not or has not fully bought into either their writing center ideologies or the practice of those ideologies. As such, the following chapters put the directors’ ideals and the tangible applications of those ideals—constructing a welcoming, inclusive, and/or homelike writing center space via iconography and objects, i.e. furniture—under a womanist microscope. The following chapter “Object and images: when your eyes tell lies” provides consultant critiques of these three writing center spaces along with my analysis of those critiques and what those critiques say not only about the WC as a welcoming space, but also the writing center as a space welcoming to racially diverse bodies. 76 CHAPTER 4: Objects and images: Don’t let your eyes tell lies This chapter continues to show consultant critiques of these three (3) WC spaces, showing how the very objects used in the WC may convey classed and raced assumptions about who may operate in the space. In other words, because the WC space performs (Denny, 2010, p. 153), and that performance is intended to welcome consultants and clients into the WC, in part through the use of the various objects located in the space, a critique/reading of that performance by those who operate within and outside that performance can broaden concepts of both inclusivity and diversity and how/ways to attract more diverse bodies to the WC. While the consultants in this study were all currently working in writing centers, to avoid bias, none of the consultants critiqued the WC in which they worked. What follows is a brief background of each consultant who participated, as well asthe schools and their writing centers used in this study. CONSULTANT DEMOGRAPHICS Before introducing the participants, readers should be advised that there is a lack of racial diversity amongst those tutors who participated in this study. This lack of diversity is due to many factors 1) when I went to each writing center to solicit participants, most participants who consented were white; 2) each writing center in the study is housed at a predominately white institution and the majority employed were white consultants; 3) while I could have solicited participants from HBCUs, HSIs, on ISIs, not having the time to build a bond with these institutions opposes my own womanist methodological position; 4) although I received some responses from POC, their responses were not sufficient, e.g. one sentence answers to the survey questions; 5) Even though I personally pitched this study and directors circulated it via email, most participants who consented did so if they were in their respective writing centers during my 77 initial pitch. Accordingly, while most of the participants are not POC, all of the participants are marginalized in some way, e.g. race, gender, socioeconomic status, and ability. The Participants Aspasia is a middle-class white woman with a PhD in Philosophy and an MA in cultural rhetorics. Aspasia is in her mid-forties; she is married, with one child, and lives in a modest home located in the Midwest. She worked in the Mount Claire State University WC for one year. Aspasia discussed with me, on many occasions, her personal struggles with her internalized racism and classicism and how that impacts how she views the world. Aspasia noted “my critique of the writing center might be impacted by this [racism and classicism], but it provides a unique look into the white—I don’t know, psyche (emphasis mine).” (personal communication, May 2017). Aspasia critiqued the Endicott Community College WC. Christina is a Latina woman seeking her undergraduate degree. She is in her early- twenties, and she self-identifies as being from a working-class family. She has worked in the Mount Claire State University WC for two years. Christina’s critique focused a great deal on ability/ableism and if the WC had resources for Latino/Chicano students. Christina also critiqued the Endicott Community College WC. Mario is a Mexican-American man seeking his undergraduate degree. He is in his early twenties and is from California. Mario says he and his family are both working-class and poor. He is interested in multilingual clients experiences within the WC space. He currently works at the Mount Claire State University WC. Like Aspasia and Christina, Mario also critiqued the Endicott Community College WC space. 78 Celeste is a white woman in her early twenties. She is middle-class and is seeking her BA at Eastern Shore University. Celeste also identifies as queer. She presently works at the Eastern Shore University Writing Center, and her critique focused heavily on the pictures/paintings and rugs located in the Mount Claire State University WC. Celeste was the only respondent from the Eastern Shore University Writing Center who consented to answer the survey questions about Mount Claire State University. Brad is a white working-class man in his early twenties. He is seeking a BA in computer science. Brad also identifies as disabled and queer. Brad has worked in the Endicott Community College WC for 4 years. His critique focused on the ways he perceived the WC space as one similar to a waiting room in a doctor’s office. Brad critiqued the Eastern Shore University WC. Amber is a working-class white woman in her early twenties. She is seeking her MA in Clinical Psychology. Amber worked in the Endicott Community College WC for three years. Her critique focused on certain LGBTQIA+ iconography located in the WC she critiqued— specifically noting how/ways this iconography appears a catalyst for a misleading perception of the WC as a safe space. Amber analyzed the Eastern Shore University WC. Eileen is a white working-class woman with “middle class aspirations” (personal communication, December 2017). She is a Registered Nurse (RN) and had worked in the Endicott Community College WC for seventeen (17) years. Her critique centered on the childlike stickers/posters located in the WC. Eileen critiqued the Eastern Shore University WC. All the participants were recruited via email from their writing center directors or in person when I visited each writing center site and asked for study participants. 79 Object affect: Reading race and class through objects in the WC With the use of images, i.e., paintings, posters, pictures, and photos to craft the WC as an anti-classroom/anti-institutional space, certain objects, such as computers, chargers, tables, etc. also play into this anti-institutional/anti-classroom branding. One of the more interesting critiques consultants had about the writing center space was their perception of whether the writing center space they interrogated had objects that could be considered to place “fashion over function” or “function over fashion.” Aspasia, in a follow up interview, noted that she thought the Endicott Community College WC had potential. By potential, she argued, the dark green of the couches, the simple round tables, and lack of extraneous trappings (toys, etc.) on theses tables showed the writing center as a more “functional and practical space” where working class individuals and POC would most likely operate (Aspasia, personal communication, May 2017). In a follow up interview, I asked Aspasia if she may have had some classed and raced assumptions she was projecting onto the objects in the writing center space she critiqued? She admitted that she assumed most college students, no matter their families economic background were “poor or working class,” even if they pretend not to be (Aspasia, personal communication, June 2017). When I asked her how her assumptions about the socioeconomic class of those in the Endicott Community College WC played into her assumptions about POC desiring to operate in that WC, she mentioned that since POC have been systemically economically disenfranchised most, she assumes, are always already working class or the working poor (Aspasia, personal communication, June 2017). This perspective through which Aspasia read race and class, I argue, is not a homogenized lens. What Aspasia focused on to mark racial diversity and/or those within the working class, Christina focused on the perceived lack of needed educational tools as well as the 80 very shape of the tables to suggest the Endicott Community College WC serves upper middle- class clients. “Since there doesn’t appear to be a computer station or a lot of paper for brainstorming and writing, I get the impression that the Writing Center staff assumes that all students will have their own computer/technology. This assumes, to some extent, that all your students are middle or upper class.” While, in actuality, this WC does have some computers available for students to use during their consultations, her critique of this perception about the center speaks to a broader issue. Accordingly, it is important to note the paradox between Aspasia and Christina and how this paradox could/may be rooted in their own positionalities—Aspasia the white middle-class woman with a doctoral degree and Christina, a Hispanic working-class MA student—as differently marginalized bodies on different socio-hierarchical planes. It is not uncommon for two people to read a text—and I argue the writing center space and its inhabitants are a “text”— in similar and dissimilar ways. However, since womanism focuses on those marginalized in society, and often listens to and makes visible the experiences of historically marginalized people of color, what Christina’s read of the writing center affords is a disruption of the voice of the dominant racial culture—in this case, Aspasia—that suggests a writing center that appears to serve or have the potential to serve POCs and working-class individuals, may still be in service to white upper middle class academic ideologies, even if it does not, by and large, serve white upper middle-class students. When noting that the WC appeared to have no computers, this lack of visible technology suggested to her that the students must all have laptops, as the WC space did not appear to allow for them. Thus, the subsequent assumption that clients must have laptops, or some other electronic device, in order to get writing consultations, leads to the assumption these clients are 81 of a higher socio-economic class than other students. These assumptions are liked by Christina’s associating owning technology with a luxury expense, and, consequently, the socio-economic status of the upper-middle classes to be able to afford such an expense. Furthermore, Christina also links her perception of the WC as an abelist space to another marker of the WC as exclusive rather than inclusive. Historically, WC design theory discusses the types of objects differently abled students may need in the WC, one need only look at the Bedford guide for writing tutors. For example, reading written material, or pieces of written material, aloud in the writing center is a common and proven pedagogical practice; however, this pedagogical practice may be harmful to students with certain learning disabilities and behavioral issues. Should they need a separate space, and the WC cannot provide them access to this type of space,. Christina uses a table to articulate her theory further: “Of most salience for me is the ‘young’ feel of space and its able-bodied presumption… [t]he furniture as well as technology I see available also leads me to think they imagined all of the users of the space are able-bodied. I’m not sure how accessible the space and its features are to all students.” The technology Christina notices is the old copy machine near the receptionist desk. For Christina, ther critique of the objects in this WC space as abelist shows another possible hidden assumption that the Endicott Community College WC space is inclusive for many abled bodied clients, and may, in some way, exclude differently abled people. As such, it would require a retrofit that has objects readily accessible and useful to differently abled clients. aesthetically speaking: fashion over function. In her critique of the Mount Claire State University WC, Celeste notices the art created (for example, the ceiling tiles) by many of the consultants in this space, serve as markers of the young traditional consultant and/or student. Granted, this consultant has no way of knowing that some of these tiles were, in fact, created by 82 faculty, i.e. the Director and Assistant Director of the WC, as well as non-traditional students also made artistic contributions to the ceiling tiles this consultant critiques. Similarly, the chargers located on the tables signified, and pandered to, the needs of traditional 18-21-year-old students. Celeste, again noticing the various decorations, suggests that these objects relay a message of inclusivity for all those entering, and operating within, this WC space. It is interesting that the multicolored rug was said to be inviting to students from all racial backgrounds, and Celeste does not articulate why such a Tie-Dyed pattern would be inviting to students of diverse racial backgrounds. While historically, Tie-Dye design is rooted in India, China, Japan, and various parts of Africa, this consultant does not note its cultural association/s as an explanation for her reasoning the rug appears to have an inclusionary influence within the Mount Claire State University WC. In fact, Celeste may be conflating Tie- Dye clothing’s influence, most notably associated with the 1960s and its cultural and artistic implications within U.S. citizens’ opposition to military involvement in the Vietnam Conflict. In his critique of how protests change over time, Dawes (2009) citing Crawley posits, “the playbook for opposing a war has changed markedly since the street-protest ethos of the anti- Vietnam movement. Tie-dyed shirts and flowers have been replaced by oxfords and BlackBerries” (p. 418). As such, I surmise it is one of the reasons why the Tie-Dye design relays a message of inclusivity to Celeste. The political ideals of the 1960s, especially those held by White upper-class men and women fighting against the drafting and killing of POC and the working poor, in the Vietnam Conflict, are romanticized, as times, as, primarily, members of the dominant culture fought in earnest for the rights of the working poor and POC. When looking at the tables with charging stations, Celeste noted that those people who inhabit the space must be young and financially secure enough not to need to borrow a computer 83 from the library. Celeste likens these students as well off without noticing the classed assumptions of that statement. While the consultant makes some incorrect assumptions, particularly about the computers or lack of them (this particular WC does have around 25 Mac computers students can borrow during their sessions), her pull on Eurocentric ideologies extends to her critique of a Medusa drawing located in the Mount Claire State University WC. Celeste argued that the drawing of Medusa created an inclusive space. However, Medusa is (1) a murderer and (2) is a Greek/Roman mythological character. As with her relating inclusivity to the tie-dye rug, the marking of this space as inclusive because of a Gorgon, a European mythological character, is still rooted in Eurocentric ideas about inclusivity. Thus, I question how does intrinsically tying space to Eurocentric mythology become the marker for the inclusivity of other races, sexes, sexualities, etc., many of whom neither know nor care about Greek/Roman mythological characters? Since Celeste was one of the few participants for which I could not get a follow-up interview due to multiple conflicts in scheduling, I admit that I may be over-intellectualizing and overanalyzing Celeste’s responses, e.g. one could argue “what does it matter why someone feels welcome in a space, only that they do feel welcome in a space?” However, because womanism demands that one be in constant conversation and consort with the communities/marginalized communities to make their experiences visible, heard, and valued, the fault or disservice to Celeste would not be the possible hyper intellectualizing and analysis of her critique, but the possible simplification/oversimplification of her reading of the writing center space—a reading based on complex layers of experiences rooted in identity and positionality. However, I cannot deny that my analysis of Celeste’s comments are altered in that she was unable to review them or consult with me about her responses and what led her to those 84 responses. While this may seem counter to womanism, womanism does not disavow that it works within certain social and institutional hierarchies—hierarchies concerning ethical research, gaining consent, and not misappropriating/lying about the information participants give researchers. These same constraints are what led me to work within this institutional hierarchy realizing that “ethical research practices” were implemented due to the exploitation of the poor and POC for the benefit of an individual or a certain set of individuals research agendas/goals. aesthetically speaking: function over fashion. A continuing theme of youth across these Writing Centers is also connected to openness. Much like many of the consultants critiquing the Eastern Shore University WC space, Brad marks this as a space and place where people between 18-26 operate, despite that the faculty supervisors, some pictured in the photos, are 30-45 years in age. No matter how Brad perceives this space, and who operates in this space, certain clues continue to give this consultant a cue and a belief that younger people operate in the space if only for the stuffed animal (giraffe), lovingly named Rhetorica, sitting at the threshold of the entrance to the WC. Toys, and particularly stuffed animals, are equated with children and child-like wants and desires. Clearly, Brad believes adults under 27 would be drawn to stuffed animals, which Brad marked as a cut-off point for those imagined working in, and operating within, this specific WC space. Brad, however, takes this idea of the WC appealing to youth a bit further, as Brad asserted this WC space was one where younger people would come to receive tutoring services or possibly, even to work, because the space appears to be modern and situated on an updated college campus. Yet, Brad still sees the WC space, despite all its modern trappings as (1) a norm of the educational institution and (2) either clinical or workplace reminiscent. 85 Academic Writing as a White cultural production: The effects of individualism on marginalized bodies. Writing center pedagogy, while simultaneously promoting collaborative pedagogies, i.e. using a method of asking specific questions about the clients/consultants writing designed to assist the client with writing and revising prose to adequately convey their message to readers, uses these collaborative/collective pedagogies to hide their individualistic intent: to transfer agency and ownership of writing to the client/student23. Many women in composition and women studies promoted “student-centered, active learning as a way of democratizing higher education and encouraging students to see that they don’t have to assume the role of “other” themselves” (Lassner, 1994, p. 148). However, I argue, that “other” is not a role one plays— marginalized bodies are not actors in the game of oppression, they are living within power constructs and politics intended to keep them oppressed. Accordingly, marginalized people, while othered, are not collapsible into people experiencing the same types of oppression, systemic or individual. Collapsing marginalized people into the category of othered body with a single story of oppression erases the different stories of oppression in an attempt to find one solution to assuage the needs of the oppressed. Similarly, this idea of agency, ownership, and individualism in writing is rooted in a U.S. ideology and cultural identity that is scarcely interrogated. Accordingly, to promote ideas of ownership, agency, and individualism disregards the people who produce writing in a collective social and cultural environment. Thus, WC pedagogy falls in line with past and current movements in Composition24 and Rhetoric towards student-centered learning, which, according 23 See the Bedford guide for writing tutors 24 Composition and Rhetoric are capitalized when discussing them as a disciplinary field 86 to Grimm (1999), promotes “an ideology of individualism” that “not only shapes writing center discourse but also races writing center practice, making it inhospitable to students who are not white” (p. 76). If, as Grimm asserts, WC pedagogy promotes an ideology of individualism that could exclude some non-white students from seeking services from, or being employed by, the WC, how then—outside of actual tutoring pedagogies—is individualism read through the various objects in the WC? In her interrogation of the Endicott Community College WC, Christina marks the tables, specifically the rectangular tables in this WC, as encouraging or, at least, sending a message that encourages more individual writing and less group writing. She notes, “based on the way the room is set up, I assume that the users of the space are working independently and assisted perhaps by one person. There doesn’t appear to be any large tables where groups of writers can work together.” Taking Christina’s first analysis of this WC as ableist, due to its lack of functional materials/tools for differently abled clients and consultants, and considering her marking of rectangular tables as a space where individualized writing happens, coupled with a WC pedagogy that vigorously supports student-centered learning, one begins to understand how one could read a WC space as promoting and encouraging individualism, while using collective or collaborative pedagogies, i.e. group work, using dialogue and questioning, etc. as a means to an individualistic end. It is not that individualism, as an ideology, is invalid; in fact, its continued propagation and enactment, are evidence to the contrary. However, any ideology left uninterrogated through its impact on the bodies it attempts to mold, obtain buy in with, or rather, indoctrinate bodies into leaves itself subject, exposed, indeed, ripe for becoming a system of restrictions, oppressions, and exploitations. 87 Image affect: Critiquing Eurocentric iconography in the writing center Writing center theory places significant importance on designing a space that provides a visible illusion of the writing center as anti-classroom—if not anti-institutional. As such, one way to mark a space as anti-classroom/anti-institutional is to use visual cues that mark the space as “other” (as in other than a traditional educational space). In some sense, the writing center is using otherness as both commodity and capital by which (at least, to some degree) it uses its own “otherness” to attract the Other (other than the dominant culture). While, on the surface, this attempt may make a parody of the marginalized, while simultaneously pandering to the marginalized, there is some earnest desire to position the writing center as a space that—to some degree—desires not necessarily to welcome the Other, but to connect with the Other through forming a welcoming and inviting space. To make this attempt at connecting with people through spatial affect, it is logical to assume that this attempt would include picking images that, in some way, convey openness to students historically closed off from the academy, not only through its practices, but also through its use of written discourse. As Grutsch-McKinney (2013) argues “through their arrangements and objects, spaces communicate to us; we could even say that spaces tell us a story about what they are and how we may use them…. Having couches or photos or coffee pots reveals an effort to construct a space different from classrooms and other impersonal, institutional spaces” (p. 21). However, as this research will suggest, this construction of “creature comforts” including “couches, plants, coffee pots, posters” (Boquet, 1999, p. 51) can become problematic for those working in, or seeking services from, the writing center depending on what those images depict and how those depictions are read (analyzed) by those in the writing center. 88 Critique of an Ideal: Images, modernity, and assuaging White guilt Aspasia drew heavily on her own research, and her classed and raced position, as well as client and consultant body language to draw her analysis of the writing center space. She notes that the rather modernist pictures belie its possible raced/racist assumptions, noting the “aesthetics of modernism were ideologically part and parcel with the eugenics movement of the 1930’s. Thus, is not hard for me to imagine that a stylistic furnishing choice does not make a statement about the kinds of bodies that are accepted in that space.” As she associates this “modern looking” WC with the eugenics movement, which is an extension of the violent colonial practices of modernity about which Mignolo (2011) writes, Aspasia also notes the employees more scrupulously performed upper middle-class self- presentation in both their attire and perceived demeanor. Aspasia’s notions of race are also rooted in classed assumptions and certain notions of maturity. These assertions regarding the space as upper-middle class, which she reads as white, and, in the space of the WC, appear to inform her sentiments about who does not inhabit that space: “Black or Latina women, with clothes are [sic] either sexier or more pajama-y (especially given that they are younger).” Her own classed and racist notions of about Black and Latina sexuality, and the presentation of sexuality through clothes, which Aspasia admitted are most prevalent in her analysis of the WC space. What doth it Profit a human?: The Profit of Racial harmony to White People Of important note is how Aspasia sees the specific WC space she critiqued as catering to white people’s desire for racial harmony. After focusing on the picture of the black hand pointing to written words on a paper, and a white hand holding a pencil seeming ready to take instruction, 89 Aspasia posits, “The payoff from an image of a black teacher teaching a white child to write… is small for Black people, compared to the political potential in an image of a black teacher teaching a black child to write. Images of racial harmony serve White emotional needs and desires, rather than Black.” This admission by Aspasia suggests that the desire for racial harmony (by rectifying the racism and slavery of the past and present), as a white desire, presents (or is perceived to be presented) within this specific WC space. However, that desire—as it is constructed in this WC space—is not necessary meant to achieve true racial harmony, but rather, the desire itself to appear racially harmonious. As she aptly notes, that image says, “‘This is a White house where we fervently desire to welcome and respect Black people, and we advertise that desire.’” I argue that Aspasia’s positioning still implies that the house, and the power to invite (or implicitly, to disinvite) is White.’” Interestingly, while Aspasia notes this is a white desire for the “look” of racial harmony, apparently the only space she can conceive of where this racial harmony between black and white people exists is in youth and during intellectual pursuits. Again, she ties youth to class, and, therefore, class to race. While she marks the space as for people between the ages of 25-32, the candy she saw in the photos changed her perspective. She marked this candy as a signifier for “… an undergraduate space, a space for everyone who is busy, doesn’t have time or money for lunch, and could do with something, even junk food. That seems like a more practical, welcoming space-- possibly more diverse.” This utopic idea of racial harmony during these young adult years is apt, because economic disenfranchisement may continue for POC and as they enter their middle-age -years, economic enfranchisement may increase for white people entering middle-age. This economic enfranchisement often leads to an increase in White flight from neighborhoods of those 90 disproportionately disadvantaged (POC), causing a reduction in resources for those neighborhoods, as well as acting as a catalyst for reconstituting segregation (in terms of neighborhoods, and thereby, public education). Therefore, Aspasia’s assumption that poor white people and POC have a better chance of enacting with one another during their more traditional college years, is one example of this presumed socio-economic enfranchisement for whites and disenfranchisement for POC. However, Aspasia also sees this WC space as one with clear aspirations. When noting the furniture and arrangement of the WC space, she begins to see how this WC may be welcoming to POC. Interestingly, much as she makes assumptions about this WC as an upper-middle class White female space, so too does she make assumptions about why the WC space (upon further review) may be welcoming to POC. Aspasia posits that though the furniture is nice, it is not overly expensive, and this inexpensive look “… actually makes it more appealing, more welcoming—more practical space that looks ready for use by anyone who is busy.” Her use of words that suggest practicality and cost-effectiveness as welcoming to POC expose the uninterrogated history and effect of the financial disenfranchisement of POC, as well as the classed notions of working class people preferring functionality and cost-effectiveness over the modern aesthetics of the upper-middle class. Racial Harmony: A view from the other To further Aspasia’s assertion that images of racial harmony profit white people, Christina, a Latina, reads a different message when noticing the photos of a white and black hand—a message of racial exclusion. Christina notes that the photos in the WC show a lack of racial diversity, “with the exception of a hand in one the paintings, which appears to be that of a Black person.” Accordingly, this entrance of the black hand into the photo did not change the 91 participant’s assertion that the WC is designed with white people in mind—the exclusion of POC is noted by the presence of the one black hand. Furthermore, the participant argues the very framework the writing center is designed within excludes people of color, as the participant asserts: I get the sense they’re seeking to look “trendy” and “modern,” as to attract “traditionally-aged” college students, aged 18-22. I hate to use the word traditional, but in this case, I use it intentionally, because I imagine that is the frame of mind the designers of this space had. With this frame, I think they’re also thinking of a college student, who is a cisgendered, able-bodied White man or woman, of middle to upper-middle class standing. While Christina never mentions where her assumptions that the space was designed for traditional white male college students, this assumption is most likely linked (historically) to whom the PWI was designed to serve: first white male men, subsequently followed by white female women. Although both Aspasia and Christina made similar connections between the “modern” photos hanging in this writing center and the attempt to show racial diversity within one specific photo, the dissonance comes from two different intellectual viewpoints: one in which the racial harmony shown is more profitable to white people and one in which the racial harmony shown in the photo attempts to mask the lack of actual racial harmony existing within the writing center. Akin to Aspasia and Christina, Mario is drawn to the photo of the black and white hand and ascertains two meanings: (1) the white and black hand is meant to show some type of racial diversity in the WC and (2) the white and black hand perform racial diversity and unity but do not actively enact the practices to make the WC space a place for, and welcoming to, racially 92 diverse people, and the picture of the racially diverse body is often visible only in the (3) margins; the “diversity” in this specific WC design is hidden by a lamp. Accordingly, Mario also noticed a photo of a black person blocked by a lamp positioned in front of it. If you examine very closely, it seems like that picture includes a person of color, and if I had to guess, maybe a black man. How symbolic, right? The picture with the person of color is at the margins, and blocked by a white lamp. Moreover, the picture that has the black and white hand…I believe it is supposed to be symbolic or something, because it looks like it was taken with the intention to try to send a message, maybe of “diversity” This photo of a black man rendered invisible by the lamp positioned in front of it (I could have moved the lamp; however, the lamp is commonly placed directly in from of this photo) becomes a metaphor for racial exclusion instead of racial inclusion. Thus, photos can become as much an object of contention, or rather, tension, for the perceived racial exclusivity of the WC as having the perceived effect of a racially inclusive WC space. Youth and the misappropriation of modernity Ideas about modernity are historically (according to Marx) ideas surrounding the separation of the individual from their traditional rural family, while also focusing on industrialization to produce centralized goods through the exploitation of the rural and urban poor. And According to Mignolo, Western modernity is a complex matrix of power controlled by Western men through its institutions. As such, while this act/practice may be connected to the upper-middle class—if looking through the lens of Mignolo—or exploitation of the urban and rural poor—if taking a Marxist lens—Modernity is not (again, historically) associated with youth or being young. It is possible that most consultants, when marking this space as being or having 93 a “modern” look or feel, were not considering modernity in its theoretical context, but they were, in fact, conflating being modern/modernity with being contemporary. When reviewing this same WC space with its student and faculty employees, Amber was taken aback by the actual perceived ages of those photographed working in the WC space. As Amber noted, the space seemed to be a space where younger adults 18-26 would operate. However, some of those pictured in the photos are clearly older than 18-26. While it is true that many people work in a space or place that seems “unfit” for them, the affect such a space may have on its older inhabitants is unclear. Similarly, Brad was also a bit surprised at how the faculty did not seem to represent the student body or, at least, the student bodies he perceived would enter this WC space. Those faculty and staff pictured were white and appeared in their late thirties to mid-forties. Since Brad works in a WC where the only staff or faculty above thirty years old in the WC is the WC director, it is logical to assume his dissonance with the age of the faculty and staff at Eastern Shore University correlates to his having worked more with staff in their early to late twenties at his specific WC. Sexuality as commodity: Signifying inclusivity using LGBTQIA+ images The WC often purports to serve all students; however, many times WC literature focuses on struggling writers, and it often marks these writers as young (18-21 traditional students), first generation minority students, Adult Learners (30+), and ESOL students. WC literature does delve into, discuss, or research its work with, and effect on, graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, staff, and those in the private sector; however, its research into the effects of race and class, and how they operate in conjunction with one another to create a narrative or story, is still scarce. This rarity is even more noticeable in Eileen’s response and belief that the WC, and this 94 specific WC space, appears to be open and safe, considering its support of the LGBTQIA+ community. Amber, who critiqued the Eastern Shore University WC. also notes the importance of LGBTQIA+ visual images relaying a message that conveys a perceived safe space. However, this perceived safe space causes some tensions in Amber, because it is also a space of privilege; as Amber notes, “there might be an air of privilege that settles on to the space.” But how does privilege maintain the illusion of a safe space? Amber’s analysis suggests that both privilege and safety are affordances of whiteness, where one must have the privilege to be in, and operate in, a space safely. However, that operation—that safety net—is housed in white domestic comforts that shield, or rather blind, certain people to problematic systems that may be operating within the WC space. While Amber mentions that this specific WC space seems open, she links this openness with LGBTQIA+ magazines and posters. The public history of the LGBTQIA community is one of openness, and certainly, it is logical to assume such a poster would give the effect of openness or, at least, openness to those within the LGBTQIA+ community. However, the private (or not so private) and unpublicized exclusion and dismissal of LGBTQIA+ POC and their contributions to the LGBTQIA+ Civil Rights movement suggest that this “openness” could be a signifier of inclusiveness, instead of being an actual harbinger of an inclusive space. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that some writing centers may use White feminist iconography as a sameness of difference tool as a means to suggest the writing center is inclusive to other marginalized bodies. 95 Aesthetics of adolescence: Classicism and the financial resources of race Similar to Aspasia, Christina, Mario, and their critique of the Endicott Community College WC space, Amber is drawn to the overall décor of the Eastern Shore University WC she critiqued. More specifically, Amber reads the colors, drawings, and stuffed animal located within this WC space as markers, not only of youth, but of adolescent youth, thereby equating the décor and wall art as something to which persons of a younger age would be drawn. However, all high schools do not have the same décor, and more décor could be equated with more discretionary fiscal resources. For example, an inner city high school, located in an impoverished neighborhood, and serving a high population of minority students, hence its demarcation as an “inner city school,” has a more industrial, or prison-like, feel25 than a High School, serving a predominately upper middle-class white majority of students located in an upper middle-class neighborhood, which has the feel of. Consequently, the notion that this WC embodies the feeling or spirit of a high school, because of its use of colors and/or décor could, in and of itself, be a raced/racialized assumption of what students in schools have or have access to. Accordingly, similar to both Aspasia and Christina, Mario also read race through connection with perceived classed positions of both the tutors in and the employees of the WC. He posits that those inhabiting the space are middle to lower class, because the pictures show inhabitants as “fully and nicely clothed. No individual had worn out clothes or shoes with holes in them. The students in some pictures have laptops and cell phones, which I am assuming they own.” 25 Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish 96 More money leads to more resources for aesthetics—a type of fashion over function. While this is problematic as no center is just fashionable and not center is simply a tool that is functional. As the directors noted, they want their WC to perform better than any of its aesthetic may belie. However, recalling what Aspasia noted about the Endicott Community College space reading as functional and a place where working class people and POC would want to operate, the connections between race and class, and seeing race through class, become evident. Amber notes that her high school was predominately white, though other students of color, Black, Asian, and Latino also attended the school. However, a sprinkle of racial diversity (particularly to comply with Federal Laws) does not a non-racist or non-classicist space make. In fact, this admission by Amber is indicative of the continued educational segregation in the U.S. based on race but often masked by class discrepancies no matter how small these discrepancies may seem. Eileen also noted the “juvenile” feel of the WC. Much like Amber, who picked the stuffed animal sitting near the front door of the WC as a mark of younger people entering, working, and being served in the WC, Eileen is drawn to a pencil hanging above one of the whiteboards. Because this pencil was typical of art/decoration often found in elementary or middle school, hanging above blackboards/whiteboards welcoming them back from summer break, this hanging pencil unwittingly created a sense that juveniles may be most comfortable operating this WC. Eileen noted this pencil reminded her of her time in middle school. What is apparent in all these consultant responses is that the WC presents itself as a space that serves younger students, not a space that serves students of all ages. Although I previously asserted that this youthful presentation could be due to the presumed population many writing centers serve (18-21), this perceived youthfulness could also be the reason many writing centers often use bright colors, toys, candies, and tools that do various “cool” (trendy) things. For 97 example, in the Eastern Shore University WC writing center there are no chalk boards; the WC has more markers than pens, and only two desktops—items associated with, or quickly being associated with, an educational space. This WC does have over 30 laptops (which were not pictured)26. Because Brad has not/did not see these laptops, that presumptive absence may have altered Brad’s perception of how he marked inclusion or exclusion in the Eastern Shore University WC. While Brad is hesitant to mark the WC space as exclusive, he does perceive this space is exclusive to those who have access to some financial resources either through presumed socio-economic status (middle-class) or government aid (Financial Aid). However, this assertion again shows how race in the WC is linked to class privilege. Historically, those who received Financial Aid to attend college were the working class and the poor. Though costs for obtaining an education are increasingly exceeding its sustainability—86% of students attending public colleges and 90% of those attending private non-profit colleges are on Financial Aid, which means many white students from upper-middle class and middle-class families receive Financial Aid to attend college (NCES, “Financial Aid”)—the belief persists (and I assert it is exists through continued media and political propaganda) that those who receive FA are, in fact, the working-class poor and minorities, specifically POC. “PEO researcher Tom Mortenson has found that families earning less than $70,000, on average, don't receive the amount of scholarships and grants they need to meet the stingy budget formula the government uses to determine a student's ‘need’ (Clark, 2009, para. 8). Thus, the idea that without the assistance of FA these students may not be able to attend the institution (or at least the PWI). The historical reality that schools are in service primarily to white upper middleclass people and, their ideologies, and their abilities to pay for their education 26 Refer to methods section for reasons photographs did not show the entire WC space(s). 98 play a significant role in who receives (an) education, accompanied with evidence that many minorities and the working class would not be able to afford college if it were not for FA, as well as various other endowments, further shows how racial exclusion is read through assumptions of the classed bodies that will enter and operate within the WC space. How we read: The fissures between praxis and lived experience In their critiques of the writing center space, consultants saw, or rather, read, the WC space, and whom it served, through perceptions of socio-economic class. Under Bourdieu’s framing, consultants, such as Celeste, looked at art (paintings, posters, photographs, etc.) as a marker of middle or upper middle-class taste27; however, other consultants, such as Aspasia, also used hooks’ conception of middle and upper-middle class—always already white—to suggest the WC space she critiqued served a predominately white audience. Although the consultants critiquing these three WC spaces asserted the design of the space seemed more welcoming to white middle-class students, there is an obvious disconnect between (1) how the WC directors desired (and attempted to create) a more open, flexible, and inviting space to clients, consultants, faculty, and staff and (2) how consultants perceive this open and flexible WC space as uninviting, at best, and exclusive, at worst. This disconnect, between the praxis of WC design, and the lived experience of those within the design, I argue, are comprised of a myriad of complexities. These complexities include, but are not limited to racism and classicism, as well as ideologies that surround historically those whomoshowhom higher education in the U.S. was intended to serve (white upper-middle class men, and, to some degree, women), and for whom higher education in the 27“The elaborated taste for the most refined objects” (p. 1). 99 U.S. must also presently serve (People of Color and the working-class). While these constructs and ideologies are at play for those both within WC design and the people who inhabit writing centers, they are impacted by the rhetorical effect of WC design. The following chapter explores if how one perceives who inhabits a empty WC space is impacted/changed (or not) when assessing pictures of these same three (3) WC spaces with their daily clients, consultants, faculty, and staff. 100 CHAPTER 5: I see POCs: Like flies in buttermilk Entering a new space is much akin to meeting someone for the first time. For both parties (or actants), first impressions matter. First impressions often give people a sense of what they’re in for—about how to interact with either the space or the person. While first impressions matter, in any social interaction, they are not the defining factor in whether (or not) we continue to engage with a person we first met. However, what first impressions create is a framework in which we begin to know a person or place. As such, how consultants read a writing center space they enter or see the first time, provides an important framework around how they view the writing center space as inclusive, exclusive, or divisive. However, first impressions can create a false mood of/about the entity with which people are enacting. As such, having repeated interactions with one another often cause people to change their views on a person initially based on their first impressions. Similar to how continued social interaction with people can change first impressions (for better or worse), I wanted to explore how consultant perception/s of whom the WC sites they critiqued served may change once seeing photographs of those same WC sites with their daily consultants, clients, faculty, and staff.28 These pictures consist of two (2)29 WC consulting sessions and thirteen (13) pictures of faculty, staff, and consultants. I sent each consultant five (5) photos of people30 in the same writing center site they critiqued in Chapter IV. Their analysis of the WC with its daily inhabitants follows. 28 Consultants, clients, faculty, and staff pictured signed consent forms allowing the use of their image for this study. 29 Two clients consented to having their images used for this study. 30 See Appendix A 101 Bodies and space: White benevolence, representations, and solitude Aspasia, Christina, and Mario, when first assessing the Endicott Community College WC, commonly drew on a variety of objects or photographs, but all three often came to the same conclusion: the Endicott Community College WC is designed for the use of a predominately white audience. However, when exploring how their perceptions of who uses (or who predominately uses) the WC space, when looking at photographs of the people who often enter this WC, Aspasia drew some comparisons between her perceptions of whom the photograph of the black and white hand served (racial harmony profiting white people31) and who received consultation services at the WC. All the people in the space look like students to me. I count three white people and an Asian woman; I hope I equally expect Black and Latinx people in the space. I think my intrinsic racist expectations anticipate the Black and Latinx folk to be clients rather than consultants. (Perhaps I took the “white people live here” message from the photo of the hands?) I identify the girl behind the desk as an employee for obvious reasons, but for some reason I decided that the Asian woman was the consultant – perhaps her posture, and the fact that she is looking at the other woman? The two men do not look like consultants to me; the bearded man could be. Again, maybe I imagine women as consultants. Maybe it is because the men are sitting in attitudes I associate with waiting for a consultation (personal communication, May 2017). What is important to note in Aspasia’s analysis of the WC at Endicott Community college is how she must imagine POC in the space—even when she clearly sees a Person of Color having a consultation in that very WC space. Essentially, her perceptions of who uses this space 31 See p. 83 for full quote 102 undermine her ability to conceive of/imagine who else could operate in the space, thereby allowing her to erase/eliminate the actual colored body pictured in the space. When Aspasia is not eliminating the POC in the WC space, she reduces them to “fit” the perceived white imaginary: the colored body needing/seeking help from the white body. This repositioning plays into ideas of both White benevolence and the White savior(s). Because Aspasia notes her own internalized racism, and how that impacted how she viewed who would seek writing assistance in the WC, I discuss briefly how white benevolence plays into this notion. This notion of White Benevolence began in antebellum America and acts of benevolence and charity are often critiqued by those who are tasked with being the most charitable (the rich), where “commentators both relied on and mistrusted the body as a legible index of need, returning to it endlessly in their descriptions of worthy and unworthy supplicants, but also warning of its many deceptions. Disability, after all, could be faked, as could illness, hunger pains, and other sympathy-eliciting elements” (Ryan, 2000, p. 686). When such concerns are placed on the colored or Black body, as Melville does in The confidence of man: His masquerade, “the epistemology of doing good” becomes intertwined “with the question of “knowing” blackness” (p.686). However, if knowing blackness is knowing (read assuming) black people need require charity from the rich whom, at this time in U.S. history, were mostly white and male, then the black body and the visibly raced body becomes marked as the always already deconstructable other to which duCille spoke. I assert that part of “knowing blackness” for Aspasia, I argue, is believing that POC lack certain literacy skills and need assistance acquiring them from white people who may provide them with ways to obtain these skills, despite their “apparent physical disability” (p. 686), 103 provided they behave/perform in certain ways. As such, some white benevolent ideologies may have undergird Aspasia’s positive reaction to the photo of the white and black hand in the Endicott Community College WC, as well as the equally opposing views Mario and Christina had of this same photo. It appears that Christina and Mario then link their initial reaction to that photo to the photos of a consultation occurring in the Endicott Community College WC. Since Christina and Mario suggested that the Endicott Community College WC were not as racially inclusive as it appeared to be, Christiana posits that the pictures of the Endicott Community College WC with its daily faculty, staff, consultants, and clients in no way altered her opinion about both whom the WC employs and about whom it serves (personal communication, May 2017). Similarly, Mario argues (that), when looking at the photographs of the empty WC space in conjunction with the photographs of the inhabited WC space, … the last imagine with the presumably Asian-American woman and presumably white guy confirms my assumption about gender and race. I believe the white guy with the purple beanie is the tutor and the other individual is the student being tutored only because the laptop is in front of her and she seems ready to edit on the spot. (personal communication, May 2017). Mario also makes certain assumptions about the people pictured in the consultation drawing on social constructs/hierarchies rooted in power dynamics between writing consultant and client. The position of the client, sitting in front of the computer and the white tutor sitting beside her convey a message about who is giving assistance and who is receiving assistance. Since Mario marked the Endicott Community College WC as White, viewing a white consultant assisting a client of color only reinforces/supports his original view of the WC. For these three consultants who is in the WC at any given time does not necessarily change whom the WC is intended to 104 serve and employ: white, middle class students. In fact, when a POC is pictured in the Endicott Community College WC, these consultants could conceive of these only as those people seeking help, not those providing help. When assessing the photographs of the people inhabiting the Eastern Shore University WC, consultants responded differently. Specifically, Amber’s perception of the WC changed when she saw both the age of the faculty and the various diverse bodies in the space. She posits, “aside from being older than I thought, the inhabitants appeared how I thought” (personal communication, May 2017). Similarly, Brad noted the photographs of the staff, faculty, clients, and consultants confirmed his original ideas about the Eastern Shore University WC when he “noticed that multiple races do enter the space, as students of multiple races are depicted, yet I also notice that all of the staff appear to be white. I find it interesting that the staff do not appear to represent the student body, but I am only looking at a select few images” (personal communication, May 2017). Accordingly, Eileen’s perception of the Eastern Shore University WC, a space she and Amber once marked as reminiscent of elementary school design, suggests this WC appears racially diverse (though solitary) arguing, “The only thing that seemed off to me after seeing people in the space was how solitary they all were. In an open space that seems be geared to small groups, there was no evidence of collaboration” (personal communication, May 2017). Since the director of the Eastern Shore University WC desires more space, and more open space, for the purposes of not only collaboration, but also for various types of writing activities to occur, the picture of the solitary consultant, client, writer is not one this WC intends to convey. However, because those pictured in the photographs appear to show more diversity across (their) 105 age, race, gender, etc., the consultants critiquing this space could more easily conceive of it as an inclusive space. For the Mount Claire State University WC, Celeste noted this WC seemed racially inclusive, due to the Eurocentric iconography on display (the Medusa poster), as well as the Tie- Dye rug placed in the center of the writing center. However, when viewing photographs of the consultants, faculty, staff, and clients who inhabit the space daily, her original conception of this WC was destabilized. Celeste asserts, There is only one student in the space who is does not appear at least white passing. I thought there would be more diversity of students with more races represented, but all the people except one appeared white. I am not sure if this is just because only those students volunteered for the pictures or if this is actually representative of the different races that use this writing center. (personal communication, June 2017). Despite having described the Mount Claire State University WC as inclusive, Celeste is taken aback by the lack of diversity seen in the photos of the WC with its subsequent employees, consultants, and those seeking consultation. Celeste notes that the photos she viewed may seem to lack racial diversity, because those pictured volunteered to have their photos taken, and, therefore, what she is viewing may not be an actual representation of the various races that enter the space. However, a WC that seems to disproportionately represent white people created a disconnect between a space she marked as inclusive—due to the various objects in the center— and one that may seem privileged at the least and exclusive at the worst. the more things change: the power of design. For these consultants, the design of the WC spaces had more impact on their perceptions of who used/operated in the space than did seeing 106 photographs of those very people operating in these different writing centers. Mario and Christina’s perception of the Endicott Community College WC space, and whom it served and employed, never wavered from their original contention that it served and employed white middle-class people, despite photographs showing consultations with racially diverse people. Consultants like Aspasia noted her own internalized racism as causative of why she saw the Endicott Community College WC as White (or as white people aiding POC in acquiring certain upper-middle class written literacy skills). Her critique, though housed within the White imaginary and White benevolence, brings light on the internal discourse of power and privilege constantly at work not only in ourselves but also WC design. If anything, the photographs of the people operating in these various WC spaces changed their opinions of whom they assumed the WC served, if they assumed it served POC. In other words, because Brad, Amber, and Celeste thought the writing centers they critiqued—Eastern Shore University and Mount Claire State University writing centers, respectively—served racially diverse populations, they were jarred when seeing photographs of white staff, faculty, consultants, and clients. While design and optics matter, clearly, fissures exist between the way/s a WC attempts to create an open and inclusive space and the way/s that space, despite director’s best efforts, are read or misread by those who normally do not operate in such a space. However, because WC design theorists, as well as directors, desire to have the WC space continue its anti-institutional look, and its inclusive and homelike feel, the critiques of insiders and outsiders must be constantly considered as valuable sources of data, especially when designing or redesigning a WC space. As such, this text concludes with the implications of this study, a discussion of the 107 flaws in the study (including study design), as well as some ideas for designing a more racially inclusive WC space. 108 CHAPTER 6: The writing center as optical illusion When I began this study, I wanted to show (or rather expose) the various ways in which the very design of the WC was racist and excluded POC. I believed this “truth” of WC design because of my own experiences as a black graduate peer-consultant, who also happens to be a woman, working in a predominately white WC. Aryan and Guzman (2010) posit “women of color in doctoral programs not only experience gender oppression but they are even further impacted by racism” (p. 71) and I argue, sexuality. Accordingly, hearing other black consultants, as well as some white consultants, vocalize their belief that the WC in which I worked at the time was, indeed, White, further emboldened my belief that the predominately white WC may, in fact, be racist. However, I recognized that labeling a space that was predominately populated by white people as racist had more to do with my own individual experience of racism and sexism when amongst hordes of white people than the systemic experience with whiteness’s pedagogical and aesthetic practices in the WC being always already malevolent. What I found is that the WC is always already a raced space and how consultants read/discerned a WC space as raced showed the layers of identities/positionings that enact/act with and against each other to paint the WC space as raced. Since making visible these layers of difference is essential to a womanist methodology and method, I researched to explore the reasons and ways writing centers were designed as comfortable and homelike spaces and whom these homelike spaces were to make comfortable. Essentially, who were the people the writing center décor was trying to put at ease? To explore this belief further, I did an extensive survey of literature attempting to understand the theories (1) behind the creation of writing centers and (2) WC design. Through this survey, I found (that) writing centers began not as a physical site, but as a method of writing 109 instruction (Boquet, 1999, p. 467). This method was first enacted when teachers began to question whether their pedagogies/instructional practices for teaching writing were draconian. Once shifting their methods from teachers dictating, and students taking on the role of an amanuensis, to shifting the site of discursive regulation to the student (p. 467), creating a site (space) where this student discursive regulation could occur became a priority. Out of this priority, some of the first writing centers in the 1920s and 1930s were set up as laboratories where students would come and use grammar worksheets to work on rote, basic, fundamental writing skills. This idea of the WC as a skills-based resource center, resembling a laboratory, persisted until the 1980s. However, as writing instruction began to further theorize and employ student-centered and collaborative learning approaches to writing, not only the pedagogy, but also the physical design of writing centers, changed. Many theories about student-centered learning, collaboration, and under what circumstances students might best collaborate with consultants about their writing exist within writing center literature. Writing center directors such as Bouquet (1999), though hesitant, surmised that productive writing could occur in a type of safe house (p. 469). However, problematic connotations exist between safehouses as havens for criminals and spies from the law—in this study, institutions of higher education—and the politicization of black people as linguistically tied and tethered to “an institutionally discredited heritage” Blackness (Gilyard, 2016, p. 285). Wolf (2000) continued to draw on this metaphor, believing her writing center functioned as a safehouse where students could come and “decompress” from the institutional demands of academic writing (p. 45). However, scholars began to move away from calling writing centers safe houses, the idea of students needing a type of home to write comfortably took hold. As such, 110 writing centers began to be designed and redesigned to mirror/reflect domestic/home life. Howard and Schendel (2009) concurred with this idea and model, arguing, (that) the majority of students/clients they surveyed prefer to write in their own homes (p. 4). However, while clients may prefer to write in their own homes, writing centers are not situated in the home; they are situated within institutions and must serve a general audience. How that general audience is perceived (who one considers is in that audience) is causative of how one designs or redesigns a writing center as a home. Scholars such as Ahmed (2012), however, warn against this idea of comfort, equating comfort not only with “well-being and satisfaction,” but also with “ease and easiness” (p.40). and if white people feel comfortable and at ease, it is because they are in a space that, essentially, extends their whiteness and possibly, their white supremacy. Grimm (1999) argued writing center scholars further critique their pedagogical practices because the promote “an ideology of individualism” the “races the writing center as white” (p. 76). Grutsch-McKinney (2013) furthers Grimm’s argument by deconstructing how writing center’s home design is based on middle/upper-middle class and white, since the writing center conforms to what she asserts are upper-middle class white domestic comforts (p. 2). Consequently, the reproduction of these comforts could unintentionally (or intentionally) exclude those who are neither from the racial category of White or the socio-economic category of upper middle-class. Since participants read race in the writing center space through their perceptions of socioeconomic class, it was necessary to nuance the complexity of class. On the one hand, class, as Bourdieu argued, was a matter of the educational system, and “varied according to the extent to which the different cultural practices are recognized and taught by the educational system” (p. 1). On the other hand, hooks (2000), links class to race and socioeconomic status, positing, “to 111 look young and black is to not belong. Affluence, they believe, is always white” (p.2) In accordance with my own lived experiences with class, I linked them to labor, not the labor behind what one produces, but the fulfillment one gets from having worked towards a common goal with other people. Research design flaws Before discussing the implications of this study, I first discuss some of the flaws in my method. The first problem with my method lies in the questions. While I crafted these open- ended questions to help frame how consultants could analyze these WC spaces, some of these questions may have overly narrowed responding consultants’ analytical lens(es). In fact, the very title of the survey, “Exploring writing centers as raced/racist spaces,” already shows an implicit bias towards proving that writing centers are, indeed, raced/racist spaces. While I understand that using CDA as a tool demands I state my agenda because those who use CDA have clear agendas and biases they do not intend to obscure/hide, especially from their participants, these questions may have unduly biased participants/narrowed their lenses toward reading racism that other hierarchies/systems operating in the writing center that they may have discerned were not rendered visible to these overly specific questions. My goal with my survey questions were to be honest with participants about what I was researching and why I felt that research was important. However, to truly conduct ethical research, one must not unwittingly or wittingly lead/bias participants. One way to avoid this unintentional (or intentional) bias is to set up a folder with better and more pictures, as well as the survey with a broader set of questions and send this link via email. Since I was constrained by Gmail’s restrictions on the file sizes I could send via email (see more below), this folder with its accompanying link provides a way to get around these restrictions and broaden the pictures 112 accessible to participants to gain a more well-rounded critique and analysis of the various writing center spaces. Regarding my initial distribution of photos, the mode I used to disperse both the survey and the photos (email) greatly limited the number of photographs I could send in one email, as did my lack of knowledge about how to reduce the size of photographs. Sending more photographs to responding consultants would give them a broader picture of not only WC design, but writing center iconography, décor, and materials, i.e. tables, writing utensils, computers, etc. Some of the consultants had misconceptions of the WC space, because of the limited number of photos they had to assess the space. Some of these misconceptions included believing the WC had no laptops for client and consultant use, had a limited number of desktop computers for client and consultant use, and that they had paid a professional photographer for their WC art—when former consultants had taken, and their images were captured in, these photos. Although these errors with the methods of data collection create some problems with consultant responses, the critiques of these consultants still provide insight into ways a WC space can be read as raced and classed, or more specifically, how raced spaces are often read through classed lenses. It also provides a glimpse into the types of objects they focus on to support this reading, mainly WC iconography. As such, their analyses are useful in providing feedback on the impressions a WC can give to passersby, or those less likely to regularly inhabit the WC space. There may be some question about whether sharing my own stories of racism, homophobia, etc. in the WC with some of the participants could have unduly biased them. But sharing stories theoretically is a part of womanism. It is a way to form bonds and commune with people. To not share why I was doing this research according to womanism and the principles of 113 CDA would be unethical. Practically, some of these participants were my friends for years, specifically the directors. Accordingly, some of the consultants that participated in this study were consultants with whom I worked or had worked at one point in time. Womanism asks that we not only listen to and render visible the complex experiences of historically marginalized people, but also to continue to commune and make bonds with these people, bonds of friendship and kinship rooted in a love for the community, each individual within that community, and a need for that community to participate in society ethically, equitably, and in an egalitarian way. Implications of an ideal: A writing center director dream While the history of WC design was crucial to understanding what this design intends to afford its inhabits, how directors of writing centers envisioned them functioning both as a resource assisting clients with their writing, as well as being read as a place comfortable enough to discuss their writing with completer strangers was crucial to gaining a more well-sculpted picture of WC design theory and implementation. Consequently, I interviewed the directors of the three (3) separate WC sites included in this study. Having previously worked in these writing centers under these directors employ, they allowed me to openly express and discuss my concern with writing center design and its potential negative impact on POC. With their support, I was given opportunities to not only to interview them but also to put their writing centers on the table for consultant critique. Through these interviews, directors spoke of their desire to create writing centers that had more space and function for the multiple and diverse writers they assist. They all assert that institutional demands that limit space and finances are common hurdles they face when constructing, reconstructing, or even maintaining the design of a WC space. The directors of the 114 Mount Claire State University WC serve a vast population of students with multiple needs and desires, and their consultants are no exception. To create a more inclusive, but also individual, space, the directors at the Mount Claire State University WC often rearrange or redesign their space depending on consultant feedback. This ability to adapt to consultant feedback led to a more personalized space for them. Consultants can draw art or write words of wisdom on the ceiling tiles of this specific space. Their concerns about lacking a consultant lounge were assuaged when the media lab was converted into a consultant office/lounge space in summer 2017. Although this WC is equipped with other signs of domestic life, i.e. a refrigerator, coffee pot, microwave, etc., it is not without flaws. Tensions about types of food and smells, which are cultural, missing computer/media equipment, and overall dissatisfaction with some of the WC aesthetics persist in this WC. The Endicott Community College WC director also desired more space, but also less exposure. She noted the very design of her WC is not ideal, because it is a fishbowl. This fishbowl creates a panoptic feel, which, at first, she thought was ideal, because clients could see all the writing occurring in the WC and want to come in and seek out its resources. However, her opinion changed based on feedback from both clients and consultants who noted the issues with always being seen and never having a place to hide. This lack of ability to hide led to designers adding a cloudy affect to the writing center doors and windows to reduce this feeling of over exposure. Like the directors of the Mount Claire State University WC, the Endicott Community College WC director also considers the opinions of her consultants about WC design. Accordingly, the director of the Eastern Shore University WC noted the extensive research conducted before they designed their WC located in the main library. Using research on the best lighting under which people should read and write, softer lighter was installed in the new 115 WC. However, because this lighting, better suited for the population they serve, is more expensive than fluorescent lighting, the university reinstalled the fluorescent lighting. She notes that institutional finances (or the lack thereof) or budget cuts, can, and often do, impact how writing centers are designed and redesigned. However, even with institutional financial restraints, this director finds ways to constantly create a more open space for more diverse occurrences. Yet, she does not only allow the space to be inclusive, she also desires her consultants to be diverse, racially or otherwise. Her attention to this concern, as well as her advertising practices across campus has led to some increase in the racially diverse consultants working in this specific WC. Implications of consultant critiques: Reading writing centers as racialized spaces While these WC directors put great care and thought into how their WCs were crafted and operated, as well as read, by current and potential inhabitants, how consultants read (critiqued) their spaces becomes an invaluable component in better understanding not only inclusive WC design practices, but how those practices may impact the very people they intend to serve. Using seven (7) consultant critiques of these WC spaces, we learned the ways (perceived socio-economic status) and means (iconography/materials for aesthetic purposes not functional purposes) through which consultants read WC spaces as raced and classed. When critiquing the WC space, most consultants drew on the various iconography dispersed throughout these WC sites. With the Endicott Community College WC, consultants, such as Aspasia, marked/read the black and white photographs of disjointed bodies and writing materials as appealing to Eurocentric ideas of modern art/photography. Particularly, responding consultants were drawn to the photograph depicting a black and white hand, critiquing its perceived symbolism. For responding consultants, like Christina and Mario, this picture catered 116 to White ideas of racial harmony or was, in some way, an attempt to show the Endicott Community College WC as a racially diverse space or a space that served racially diverse people. Accordingly, not only was this photograph read as catering to the White ideas of racial harmony, but also as reconstituting white benevolent practices where white consultants are, in some way, saving black and other clients of color from illiteracy and ushering them into White literacy practices, provided they meet certain regulatory standards. Clearly, this photograph became the site of both contention and critique in the responding consultants. Much like the Endicott Community College, the iconography in the Mount Claire State University WC was the site of critique for the responding consultant, Celeste. Alongside this iconography, Celeste was also drawn to the area rug located in the reception area of the WC. Regarding the iconography, she noted the poster of Medusa hanging in the media lab and marked it as a sign of inclusivity and feminism. Unable to get a follow up interview with Celeste, I wondered what knowledge she drew on to consider a poster of Medusa (rape victim, a victim and martyr of female vengeance, and, most infamously, a murderer) as both feminist and therefore inclusive. Does she work off the assumption that feminism is inherently inclusive and that POC (1) define feminism in the same ways as the dominant culture, (2) care about Greek/Roman mythologies and their symbolism, and (3) consider Medusa a feminist archetype, even if they did care? It appears Celeste drew on similar ideas of inclusivity when noting the Tie-Dye area rug located near the receptionist desk. For Celeste, the colors on this rug evoked feelings of harmony and inclusivity. It is possible that Celeste may have drawn on 1960s conceptions of free-loving, liberal white hippies (who often wore Tie-Dye shirts, were white and upper middle-class) to 117 make this connection between the Tie-Die rug and ideas of inclusivity. Essentially, the rug becomes a symbol/sign of liberal, hippie inclusivity. Finally, Brad and Amber were drawn to different iconography located in the Eastern Shore Community College W. Specifically, Brad noted how this WC appeared to mask its clinical feel and purpose. Brad mentioned, “haven’t you ever noticed when you walk in a doctor’s office, there’s just a bunch of random stuff on the wall, all intended to make you feel like you aren’t there? That’s what this reminds me of” (personal communication, June 17, 2017). The WC, much like a hospital, is a place meant to help clients. Since WCs were once akin to hospice care, Brad’s connection to writing centers and doctor’s offices is not far removed from original theories about whom a WC served and how it should function in service to those people. Amber focused on the LGBTQIA+ posters in the Eastern Shore Community College WC. She argues that, at first, it seems these posters denote their inclusion of diverse people, in part, I argued, because being queer has become synonymous with being inclusive (of all people). However, if the posters lack racially diverse people, it could convey a message of privileging white LGBTQIA+ community identity and “sets of taste as though they were universally shared, or should be.” (Warner, 1999, p.1). Although Warner related this idea to accepted sexual orientations and practices, I argue that a normalization of the LGBTQIA community can reconstitute a sexuality shame in those LGBTQIA+ people who do not look like the people depicted in the poster. Historically, Black gay, lesbian, and queer people are less open about their sexuality and their sexual practices. In my experiences as a black lesbian, I have hesitated to discuss my sexuality among white LGBTQIA+ people. Since “sexual shame is not just a fact of life,” but also “political” (p.3), the political positioning of black people as always already deviant, being 118 stigmatized as “deviants or criminals” creates/places a burdensome dual criminality and deviancy on black people. As Warner argues, we do not begin with “a level playing field. We live with sexual norms that survive from the Stone Age, including prohibitions against autoeroticism, sodomy, extramarital sex, and… birth control” (p. 5). My race, gender, and class similarly make the playing field more uneven consultant critiques of WC inhabitants: it’s not the people, it’s the space. When consultants shifted their attention from photographs of the empty WC to photos of the same writing centers with their various daily inhabitants, the view of the WC in terms of both whom it served, and its racial inclusivity was not altered. In fact, for most responding consultants, the photographs of the writing centers and their various inhabitants only confirmed their original critiques of the WC spaces. For consultants such as Aspasia, Christina, and Mario, showing photographs of the Endicott Community College, and its white consultants, either working at the front desk or consulting with clients of color, only reinforces certain ideas beneficial to White culture: its need/desire to save POC, undoubtedly, from themselves. Brad and Amber continued to perceive the Eastern Shore University WC as a racially inclusive space. However, they were jarred by what they perceived as a lack of faculty and consultant representation about whom they believed the Eastern Shore University WC served and employed. In follow-up interviews, Brad and Amber noted the picture of the black man (who they assumed to be a consultant [and he was]) sitting alone at the table confirmed their original assessment that the Eastern Shore University WC both employed and served a diverse population of people. Unlike consultant respondents about the photographs of the daily inhabitants of Endicott Community College and the Eastern Shore University WC, Celeste opinion of the Mount Claire State University WC was disrupted, if not changed altogether. 119 Celeste, having drawn on the Eurocentric iconography and décor, as a marker of racial inclusivity in the Mount Claire State University WC, was the most jarred after viewing pictures of this WC’s inhabitants. Like those who critiqued the Eastern Shore University WC, Celeste was disappointed in how the faculty and consultants pictured did not reflect the type of racial diversity she noted the WC space afforded. Her perceptions of Eurocentric iconography and décor, which she cited in her critique as a reason the Eastern Shore University WC was inclusive to diverse populations of people, may have led to this misperception. DESIGNING A WAY FORWARD: THE ADAPTABLE WRITING CENTER When finding that consultants perceived the space of the writing center as raced through the classed assumptions they made about the WC décor as well as its accoutrements and their relation to the WC inhabitants participants presumed to be operating in that space, I was surprised that class came into play. I believed one read a raced space through raced lenses. In other words, one sees a space filled with visibly white people, it is logical to assume one would equate that space as a White raced space. However, that same space, if inhabited with black people, one could also logically equate that space as a Black raced space. Although there are issues with mis-identifying passing POC with white culture when simply seeing raced space through visible race. What this moment does show is that spaces can be adaptable. Spaces, because people move in and out of them, can be always already racially adaptable. One common theme pervades these writing centers from the perspective of the WC directors: the need for writing centers to adapt to the needs of clients, faculty, staff, and consultants. Although this need is recognized, and these WC directors’ attempts to assess and meet these needs, change, as it is often said, change comes slowly. Change in an educational institution can neither be implemented quickly (during one semester), nor appropriately assessed 120 swiftly (during/throughout one year). And change in the WC can neither be implemented quickly, nor assessed swiftly either. However, though one must be patient with the slovenly pace of change in the academy, and, to some degree, the WC, some steps can be taken to advance any type of WC design change. There are very real limitations on writing centers and how much they can change aesthetically. These limitations are often beyond ideological positionings (though having Deans, Provosts’, and Presidents of institutions consider the writing center an invaluable resource for those attending and working in the institution is greatly beneficial to any WC director) and are often rooted in actual budgetary constraints and a writing center like Mount Saint Claire, which employs over 100 consultants has different budgetary constraints than Endicott Community College, which employs 7-10 consultants. However, directors must be honest about these constraints and how/why they are confined. I argue, when historically marginalized populations discern they are not accessing the same resources as those operating with the dominant racial identity and ideology, the tensions of disenfranchisement begin. Some of this disenfranchisement can be assuaged by making visible these institutional constraints. However, what must be realized is that to do the work of allyship, to do the work of social justice, one must realize that the human cost is not worth the power of that the racial, gendered, abelist, sexual orientation dominant position brings. Until that human cost becomes intolerable, allyship cannot reach its full potential. Listening is not enough and lends itself more to condescending pacification then actual liberation. Because we all operate in societal systems and systems operate in us, it does historically marginalized people (who understand these hierarchies) a disservice, indeed continues their systemic oppression and disenfranchisement when these systemic constraints are not rendered 121 visible to them. It is right to assume that each educational institution has limited resources and budgets for those resources to be dispersed; however, it is wrong to assume that this fact is already known—specifically to those who do not care to continue their careers in the academy— and it is an exercise in ignorance to assume that people will just understand why they are receiving less or less than adequate resources as opposed to someone or someone’s else if they are not told, in earnest, how these types of resources and who needs and can have access to them is defined. For directors designing or redesigning a WC space or spaces, more consultant and client input are needed. To gain this input, WC directors should design annual surveys regarding the type of iconography on display in their WCs. This iconography should not only reflect the population of clients the WC serves, but also the global society within which we all live, work, and engage. Similar to using surveys to assess the types of iconographies consultants and clients desire in the writing centers they inhabit, these surveys should also include critiques and suggestions about the types of furniture used, as well as the design and type of homely décor, i.e. area rugs, they should have. Accordingly, these surveys can serve as various means to obtain research opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate consultants. Some of these research questions stemming from these surveys could cover race, class, gender, sexuality, etc, as well as how consultants want their writing center designed and redesigned. We could begin to consider creating a university survey within which we ask clients to help writing center directors craft these spaces. WC tutors could gain research opportunities on how clients respond to the WC as Open House, asking questions such as, what does an Open House need that a home does not, and, conversely, what does a home need that an Open House does not? If the WC is a space of contact zones and cultural 122 collides, then there may not be a better metaphor and maybe (for now) no better representation of the writing center than as Open House. The Open House metaphor and construction may also aid various consultants, clients, staff, etc. in leaving traces of personal themselves in the writing center. As results showed, consultants, clients, and those operating in the space should have ways to leave their personal mark on the writing center. Participants responded well to the personalized ceiling tiles visitors, clients, and employees alike created. Giving people who visit and work in the writing center more of an opportunity to personalize the space will also help create a more inclusive space. Appealing to client’s personal aesthetic interests in conjunction with making a concerted effort to hire and retain a racially diverse staff assists in the recreation of the writing center as a more racially diverse space and a space more accepting of racially diverse people. Yet, I must make mention of the problems associated with having consultants leave their individual marks, as well as directly appealing to POC and historically marginalized bodies for employment possibilities in the WC—one problem is rooted in the U.S. cultural construct of individualism and the other in U.S. law. With regard to the U.S. cultural construct of individualism, one historically tied to the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps U.S. ideology,” the issue is that not every person in these United States is raised with or in a cultural construct that affords them individualism some or are raised/encultured into a cultural context that limits acts that are seen/perceived as individualistic. Various U.S. citizens and inhabitants, e.g many POC and poor people, are tied and rooted in cultures that demand interdependence and commitment to the community; a demand that asks that all that individuals do, they do for the community. As such, one way to craft leaving one’s mark on the writing center is to craft it as a space to leave the traces of people who have 123 traversed the writing center in years past—a type of visible historical memory of WC ancestors. This correlation and connection to past writing center inhabitants to present writing center inhabitants creates a visible discourse for future writing center inhabitants, a discourse that, in some ways, honors those who came before and are yet to come. Framing these visible individual traces/marks may be a way to get those who are rooted in diverse cultural ideologies not aligned with individualism to put their imprint on the WC as this type of imprinting is beneficial to the WC community in which they are a part. Although hiring and retaining a diverse staff, specifically a racially diverse staff, is a priority of the writing center directors featured in this study, legislation makes direct targeting or catering job calls to specific populations, even though those populations may be historically underserved, an illegal act as it violates the Affirmative Action, a byproduct of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. While Affirmative Action is a law implemented to retroactively fix the employment and therefore economic disenfranchisement of Black Americans, this law (our law), is used as a way to continue this disenfranchisement by inversing and broadening the language of Affirmative Action (which includes marginalized bodies such as white women) to where soliciting racially diverse people for employment becomes a violation of the law that was meant to rectify their economic and employment disenfranchisement in the U.S. Retaining racially diverse faculty and consultants should be a priority. Cabrera et al. (1999) posit that maintaining a diversified campus, positive peer interactions/support, and positive academic experiences” (p. 153) are all necessary for the retention of students of color. Furthermore, this moral support and validation is needed to, at times, an even greater degree for WOC who often feel “unsupported and invalidated in that they do not receive proper guidance or are unable to build a support network” (Aryan and Guzman, 2010, p. 71). While directors should 124 focus on personalization, increase hires of racially diverse employees, and appropriately supporting those racially diverse students and/or employees, care must be taken not to fetishize historically marginalized people, e.g. POC and those within the LGBTQIA+ community. This fetishizing collapses the LGBTQIA+ community signifier of inclusivity and reduces, collapses, and ignores the tensions within this vast community, as well as the difficulties Queer people of color must face. The open-ness of sexuality often promoted in the WC, particularly in a predominately White WC, can become an even more complex set of negotiations around race, gender, and sexuality for black people, and, I argue, most POC because in the hierarchies of heteronormativity, homosexuality or non-heterosexual behavior and its accompanying sexual practices are always already considered deviant behavior. As such, if echoing duCille that black women are the deviants of deviants, then black lesbians, are therefore, a layered or triple deviancy of black, woman, lesbian. It is this layer of deviancy and historical roots of positioning black people as always already sexually deviant, that one must the WC must take caution attempting to make certain sexualities visible. Therefore, using LGBTQIA+ racially diverse iconography, along with adding resources that are geared towards aiding LGBTQIA+ POC in navigating their different and complex world(s), should be included and visible to both clients and consultants inhabiting the WC space. Finally, while most consultant’s in this study’s opinions of the design of WC spaces appeared to outweigh the multiply diverse bodies operating daily in the space, visible diversity in the WC, specifically, having visibly diverse consultants, i.e. in race, gender, ability, etc., in accordance with visibly diverse iconography and décor in the WC will, I argue, allow writing centers, and others, to perform as more inclusive spaces for diverse people, whether they perform as home or not. 125 Since those who visit the writing center, on any given day, may not see the same racially diverse consultants as they would on other days, the writing center could also diversify its online presence. For example, should writing centers have a significant social media presence, i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc., showing the various diverse people who both work in and are served by the writing center helps disrupt misinformed ideas about the writing center only employing and being in service to white people, specifically white people at PWIs. At PWIs, Iconography becomes even more imperative. Taking surveys from consultants about the photos, drawings, etc. that make their houses feel like homes and then find ways to incorporate those items and images into the writing center may be one way to make visible the racial diversity within the writing center. Writing centers are situated in educational institutions and, for the most part, are run by those who in some way consider themselves educators. Part of the job of an educator is to educate students for the global society in which they will engage, not just the institution in which they receive their degrees or even the social constructs of the state in which U.S. institutions are situated. As such, writing center pedagogy must reflect this global education and, even more importantly, writing center staff and employees must attempt to reflect the global society in which we engage and operate in daily. Failure to reflect and cater to this global society does the students a disservice and unwittingly devalues the fundamental purpose of education: to prepare people to thoughtfully and critically engage with the world in which the live. Having a multiplicity of diversity in the WC also creates a multitude of research opportunities and possibilities to make actual change not only in writing center research, but also in WC pedagogy, specifically, as it relates to consulting linguistically different students. Much of WC pedagogy still asks that linguistically different students writing in linguistically different 126 ways change this linguistic difference into standard academic written discourse. However, to truly value linguistic difference is to render it visible and as a part of academic written discourse. To do this, writing center consultants can explain the various ways clients can use their language and linguistic difference to further support, clarify, and advance their main idea(s) and points about that/those ideas. These are not practices that go against academic written discourse, but, in fact, are the fundamental concepts of rhetoric and writing (composition): present a premise or premises, use language (rhetoric) to articulate the various point(s) one is using to advance the thesis, nuance these points explicitly, and come to a conclusion that is sound (or in some way complete), but still debatable/arguable—a way to change, generate, and advance knowledge in the field and the larger society. As such, writing center consultant preparatory courses should begin to teach consultants ways to talk to clients (1) about the message they are trying to convey, (2) how their linguistic diversity reads to them, e.g. “when you say this specific idea this way, it makes me think of this.” By stating what this linguistic diversity conveys to a reader of academic writing affords them the ability to better understand the message this client is attempting to convey and then assist them with incorporating that into their writing. To assist with this incorporation, the consultant could say, “now that I understand what you are trying to say, here are some ways to incorporate that into your writing and also make it explicit what you are saying.” This approach is not a silver bullet. Some linguistic diversity does not translate into U.S. academic discourse, e.g., metaphors/metaphorical language. What is important is that to truly allow clients agency over their writing is to discuss what they want their writing to do given the parameters/guidelines they have (using what you got to get what you need). Incorporating this approach to WC consultant pedagogy not only enriches the scholarship 127 and the overall WC field, but also further enriches clients by showing them the various ways they can communicate in written discourse to gain access to certain resources: schools, jobs, grants, etc. And onward I go: The potential costs of Womanism This shifting could make me a pariah in my own field of writing center studies—a pariah in a place I thought I made a home as a scholar, a researcher, theorist, pragmatist, and a Black body in the PWI. I am not surprised to feel the stain of rejection behind a curtain of inclusion, particularly when my intent as a scholar is to make the writing center more reality than mirage. However, I must admit the enormous burden of destroying White myths embedded within the White imagination. The fear a Black body has when critiquing White institutions is the fear of death, the fear of rape, the fear of cannibalism, the fear of erasure. The Black female body is most often the target of fear and resentment. duCille (1997) insists that “by virtue of our race and gender, black women are not only the ‘second sex”—the Other in postmodern parlance—but we are also the last race, the most oppressed, the most marginalized, the most deviant, the quintessential site of difference” (p. 37). Essentially, because I am Black, a woman, lesbian, disabled, and working class, I am the deviant of deviants; the Othered of the Othered. U.S. society is cultured to hate me. To despise me. To build its identity off me. And this explains why this society needs me. And it also needs me to critique it. Therefore, it is with that knowledge, and with my Black womanist lens, that I critique the writing center space and its design. If this critique of writing center space offends some sensibilities, it most certainly should: racism is offensive. And I find it offensive that institutions of Higher Education would still harbor, promote, and embed racist practices into both its writing center pedagogy and its writing 128 center design. These racist practices are often under the guise of White benevolence (Noblisse Oblige) because “we need nice things too”, and maybe we “just don’t know what we’re doing when we use Black language in academic writing.” I do want to pause to note that not all writing centers are created equal, and that even my push for a writing center that reflects the multiplicity of bodies who populate not only the writing center and college/university campus, but also the U.S. society is a utopian ideal. After all, writing center directors and tutors can have every intent of creating a multi-inclusive space, but, if people choose not to come into the writing center, that intent, and the labor it takes to make and design an multi-inclusive writing center space, may be for naught. However, if one does not succumb to fanaticism, or become an enthusiast, the intent to create a multi-inclusive space, when used as a guiding methodology, can be a foundational idea that fundamentally changes the ways scholars and researchers theorize, research, and design their writing center spaces. Not only does this intent to make the writing center a multi-inclusive space change how writing centers are designed, but it also affords scholars and researchers opportunities to theorize new pedagogies that welcome, instead of root out, other written discursive patterns that often mark writers as non-white, non-male, and non-upper middle-class. By accepting these marginalized discursive patterns, writing center consultants/tutors can discuss how various languages can enrich common Western Composition genres. These genres include, but are not limited to, the analysis, narrative, informative essay, rhetorical analysis, and so on. Writing center consultants/tutors can begin learning from and engaging with culturally diverse writers by exploring different ways to assist writers in incorporating their language into these common genres. Writing center researchers can also explore the various approaches these writers use to both form and write within the many written composition genres. 129 The bodies so often Othered by a writing center design, and a tutor pedagogy that often claims to value their language while simultaneously attempting to root it out of academic discourse, would begin to see their language and their bodies as a valuable part of WC pedagogy. Furthermore, and more importantly, they would begin to see their effect on the very space these students and tutors come to inhabit on a daily, weekly, or even a semester-by-semester basis. By acknowledging these Othered bodies, writing center researchers, directors, and consultants/tutors can both lift and climb with these oft Othered bodies, instead of standing and building theories upon their backs. Can we not have pictures that depict various races, cultures, genders, and so on? It is reasonable to start there though we must be conscious and thoughtful about the images we choose? Can a tutor training course not start with how we tutor across boundaries (be they racial, ethnic, religious, and so on)? What I suggest is not difficult. It simply must be done, and it is incumbent upon all WC researchers, directors, and tutors to get this job done. Writing centers are at an axis point of complexities. If racism, sexism, classism, etc. are embedded into our educational institutions, so they exist, and are embedded within, the dominant theories that undergird WC design, and they are thereby enacted, unintentionally, in the WC space. However, at this access point are those very bodies upon which their knowledges, cultures, class, and racial practices, etc. are either largely unknown are grossly misunderstood. It is these diverse bodies who stand at the middle of these axis s points. It is the standards of these diverse bodies which the dominant culture stands upon, and marks as Other to claim itself as the supreme standard barriers who can provide WC design practitioners, as well as directors wanting a more visibly diverse staff, with a standard of diversity and racial inclusivity for which the WC must adhere. 130 APPENDICES 131 Appendix A: Writing Center Photographs Eastern Shore University Writing Center photos (empty space pictured below): Eastern Shore University Writing Center photographs (with daily inhabitants pictured below): Mount Claire State University Writing Center (empty space pictured below): 132 Mount Claire State University Writing Center (with daily inhabitants pictured below): Endicott Community College Writing Center (empty space pictured below): Endicott Community College Writing Center (daily inhabitants pictured below): 133 Appendix B: Writing Center Directors Interview Questions 1. Ideally, how do you want your writing center space to function for those who work in and are serviced by those in the Writing Center (WC)? 2. From your perspective, does your writing center meet your ideals? 3. What about the WC design or its accompanying accoutrements create the atmosphere you seek? 4. What about the WC design or its accompanying accoutrements do not create the atmosphere you seek? 5. Does the opinion of those who work in or are serviced in the Writing Center play into how your WC in designed? Why or Why not? 134 Appendix C: Survey Questions 1. When looking at the photographs of the empty Writing Center space, what other bodies do you assume enter this space? Please be as specific as possible. 2. What raced bodies do you assume inhabitant this space? 3. What other characteristics do you assume about the bodies entering the space? Include descriptors ages, class positions, genders, religions, and other descriptive information you feel is relevant. 4. 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