College writers often wish for a sympathetic
reader who can offer feedback on a draft or assist
during the invention or revision process. Established
in 1982, the Brown University’s Writing Fellows
Program was the first to formally pair small cohorts of
students with a writing tutor to receive individual
assistance for the duration of a course. According to
the university website, today the Writing Fellows
Program is a student-driven initiative in its 32nd year,
in which students “work in a spirit of collegiality,
helping to extend intellectual discourse beyond the
classroom.” Inspired by the success of Writing Fellows
Programs that have emerged across the country, the
Disciplinary Writing Consultant (DWC) Program at
the University of Central Florida (UCF) was designed
to offer individual support to student writers without
mandating participation. Diverging from the Brown
model, only one DWC was embedded in a course of
approximately 50 students and offered voluntary writing
assistance both in class and in writing center
consultations. The goal was to bring the writing center
into the classroom to encourage ongoing
collaborations between students, instructor and the
DWC. Building and maintaining such complex
partnerships in higher education is a challenge.
Condon and Rutz insist that “successful WAC requires
a complex partnership among faculty, administrators,
writing centers, [and] faculty development programs—
an infrastructure that may well support general
education or first year seminar goals” (359). This
assertion outlines one of the driving questions at this
major research university: How can a network of
partnerships between faculty, administrators, and
writing consultants benefit students and support their
learning? Specifically, how can this work be done
effectively at the second largest public university in the
country?University Writing Cente
