The Writing Center Annual Report: 2010-2011

During the 2010-2011 academic year, The Writing Center, an Office for Student Success department, answered President Engstrom’s call for a “spirit of discourse” on the University of Montana campus. Writing Center staff engaged students in intellectual conversations, challenging students to develop as writers and thinkers who contribute to local and global conversations. Toward this end, The Writing Center (TWC) sustained its one-to-one tutoring services and implemented new initiatives aimed at improving student writing across the curriculum. These 2010-2011 academic year activities responded to and engendered student and faculty demand for TWC’s services as evidenced by TWC’s facilitation of 3,852 tutoring sessions with students who were writing in response to writing assignments from over 50 academic areas. TWC’s total 2010-2011 academic year contacts with students reached well over 9,362 instructional contacts. Appendix A includes samples of faculty and student testimonials regarding their Writing Center experiences during the 2010-2011 academic year

The Writing Center Annual Report: 2012-2013

As a University hub for campus conversations about writing, the Writing Center administers programs to help undergraduate and graduate students in all disciplines become more versatile and effective writers, readers, and thinkers. In one-to-one and small-group tutoring sessions and in whole-class workshops, tutors help students to recognize their strengths and weaknesses as communicators and to practice strategies appropriate to various writing contexts

The Writing Center Annual Report: 2009-2010

The 2009-2010 academic year marked continued growth and change in The Writing Center’s services. Persistent faculty and student desire for effective writing tutoring and instruction compelled Writing Center staff to find innovative ways to keep apace the growing demand for Writing Center services. Conducting 4,053 one-to-one consultations with undergraduate and graduate student writers, The Writing Center remained flexible enough to meet students’ needs for well-informed readers and for writing instruction throughout their academic tenures. Writing Center staff facilitated more consultations and presented more in-class workshops at the invitation of faculty than in any previous academic year, a fact that speaks both to the growing relevance of writing tutoring across disciplines and to student and faculty satisfaction with the services provided. Appendix A includes samples of faculty and student testimonials regarding their Writing Center experiences

The Writing Center Annual Report: 2014-2015

At the Writing Center, we take seriously UM’s Strategic Issues, especially as they relate to student retention. Our programming promotes achievement of key Partnering for Student Success objectives, allowing us to engage in tremendously satisfying work with students. In short, we support student retention by directly strengthening students’ ability to read, think, and write and by enhancing faculty members’ ability to support student writers. We are privileged to work with students, faculty, and staff who recognize the Writing Center as a valued partner in their learning, teaching, and work

The Writing Center\u27s Sidecar Pilot Report: 2011-2012

The Sidecar Project embeds small-group tutoring in writing courses across campus. Experienced tutors meet with faculty to learn about course assignments, instructor preferences, and discipline-specific writing conventions. Tutors then work with students in small groups during four or five class sessions

The Writing Center Annual Report: 2011-2012

During the 2011-2012 academic year, The Writing Center, an Office for Student Success department, implemented programming specifically to address the University of Montana’s identified Strategic Issues and objectives. In doing so, The Writing Center (TWC) marshaled its resources to support students, faculty, and staff in their efforts to become more independent, versatile, and effective writers across the curriculum. This programming responded not only to the University’s Strategic Plan but also to growing student and faculty demand for Writing Center services. Writing Center staff engaged students in intellectual conversations, challenging students to develop as writers and thinkers who contribute to local and global conversations. Staff also collaborated with faculty to positively impact student performance. An assessment cycle designed to track trends, strengths, and weaknesses in this programming allowed TWC to make informed decisions about how best to promote effective writing as a tool to communicate and learn at The University of Montana. Appendix A includes samples of faculty and student testimonials regarding their Writing Center experiences during the 2011-2012 academic year

The Writing Center Annual Report: 2013-2014

As a University hub for campus conversations about writing, the Writing Center administers programs to help undergraduate and graduate students in all disciplines become more versatile and effective writers, readers, and thinkers. In one-to-one and small-group tutoring sessions and in whole-class workshops, tutors help students to recognize their strengths and weaknesses as communicators and to practice strategies appropriate to various writing contexts

Expanding the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) TFCA: Experiences from Botswana

Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) have emerged in recent years to become an important means of governing conservation land across the national boundaries of contemporary states. Southern Africa’s TFCAs have developed as ‘new conservation’ spaces, which are considered to promote a more holistic approach to managing protected areas by effectively integrating conservation and development ideals. However, these initiatives require complex management structures that extend across and engage with a complex mosaic of land uses, while effectively trying to reconcile diverse ecological, social, and economic agendas. The Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) TFCA is the largest of these initiatives extending across the borders of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This research traces the expansion of the TFCA from its formation in 2003 to 2018, with a particular focus on its land integration and resource management processes in Botswana. To examine this expansion, this research utilizes the concept of ‘territory’ as a lens of land control which draws attention to the ways in which land within various spaces is valued, utilized and accessed. For this research, territory provides a useful perspective with which land and resource valuation, land-use conflict and resource rights within the TFCA’s boundaries can be critically engaged with. In order to better understand the territorial expansion processes of the TFCA, this research examines firstly, the objectives of the Botswana state in terms of the growth of the TFCA; secondly, the motives behind the expansion processes; thirdly, the ways in which land under various tenure regimes is involved within the expansion processes; and finally, the impacts of these processes on local communities within these areas. The methodology adopted in this research involves (a) document analysis primarily focused on Botswana’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for the KAZA to understand the planned political processes of expansion; (b) GIS mapping activities to identify the areas and types of land tenure that have been integrated into the TFCA; and (c) interviews with stakeholders and local communities to understand the expansion processes on the ground. From this territorial orientation, this research demonstrates how the Botswana state has placed a strong strategic focus on the development of a luxury tourism industry based on wildlife and non-consumptive resource uses. This focus aligns with the growth of the KAZA TFCA in the region, which aims to develop the region’s tourist potential by expanding its conservation estate. Within these processes, land and natural resources are increasingly being seen as a means of revenue and capital accumulation in the KAZA region. These revaluations of land and resources have translated into changing land dynamics in areas that have been integrated into the TFCA. For communities in these areas, this has resulted in increasing resource restrictions, land-use and human-wildlife conflict, as well as a disengagement from resource management activities. These processes lead to unintended consequences in that they pit local communities against conservation agendas in the area

The Writing Center: Fifteen Years of Transforming Writers at the University of Montana

This milestone [publication] invites a retrospective look at the impact and scope of our services. The many evolutions of the UM Writing Center—from a small “lab” for struggling writers in 2002 to a robust communication center for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff in 2017—have consistently embodied education at its best: communities of practice at the intersection of students, faculty, staff, and tutors