As the end of the semester approaches, appointments at the U Writing Center in the Marriott Library are filling up fast, and walk-ins are frequent.
However, just up the road, the Spencer Fox Eccles business building’s writing center location had nearly no appointments — only four of the available 24 slots were used as of press time. When the library’s writing center opened in 2003, it was similarly empty.
According to The Daily Utah Chronicle archives, ASUU gave the center a year of funding when it first opened. At the time, the U was the only college in Utah to not have a writing service for students, but the program needed to demonstrate demand. Only 800 appointments were filled its first semester, amounting “to tutors helping students with their writing approximately 70 hours per week.”
Furthermore, students complained about the center’s “stringent set of rules,” which they argued made it more difficult to use the resource. Hours of operation and the number of appointments a student could fill a day were limited. If you missed three appointments, you would be barred from making more. In addition, some students were worried about their work being criticized or didn’t think their writing needed the center’s guidance. Some students, when they went to the center and subsequently failed the assignment, blamed the tutor and not their work.
Beyond working with students, ASUU only gave the writing center $25,000 in funding — not enough to provide an adequate wage for tutors and faculty, as well as maintain operational costs. Back then, the center was located in a corner of the third floor of the library. Away from its now-prominent location above the west entrance, few students knew it even existed.
In March of 2004, it was unsure whether or not funding would continue. However student feedback for the program ensured it would. In a 2005 Chrony interview, one student said: “If it wasn’t for the writing center, I would be flunking two of my classes. The tutors there have a way of talking to me better than my teacher.”
By 2008, nearly 2,000 students were being tutored each year — a jump from the 800 a semester when it first opened. In 2009, the center relocated to its current location, where it continues to help students throughout the school year.
@SeymourSkimmer