Faculty and Staff FAQs & Policies

The Rose Warner Writing & Critical Thinking Center offers free writing support available for your entire career at St. Scholastica. Writing consultants are available to help you at any stage of your writing process, on any writing task — including course-based assignments, application materials, and graduate research — in a student-friendly and writer-friendly atmosphere where you can receive confidential, collaborative feedback. Our consultants will ask great questions and provide feedback and considerations for revision but will never discuss grades with or edit/write for you. 

You can visit us in Tower Hall 2121 or online on the CSS Writing Center website (or find us by typing "Writing Center" into the my.css search box) to schedule an appointment or submit a draft for feedback.

We ask instructors to clearly state their policies regarding use of AI in multiple places if possible on syllabi and/or assignment instructions. We want to support ethical, critical use of AI whenever possible, and we will follow your lead!

Students wishing to use generative AI in Writing Center sessions, or seek help from the center on revising AI-generated texts, are responsible for understanding whether and in what contexts the use of generative AI is permitted in their courses, assignments, research, and writing processes. As per the CSS Academic Honesty Policy, instructors have “discretion in determining the degree to which generative AI may be used in the completion of an assignment or other coursework.” Thus, Writing Center consultants will follow any and all instructor guidance and make clear to students that “unauthorized use of generative artificial intelligence, even with appropriate citation, may violate the Academic Honesty Policy.” When in doubt about instructor policies regarding AI, consultants will err on the side of caution and suggest the student contact the instructor for more guidance.

Note, our consultants are not responsible for knowing how to use or manipulate any specific piece of AI software, nor are they able to fact check all AI-generated responses. In other words: our focus is on student learning and writing processes, rather than on software troubleshooting or cross-checking.

The purpose of the Writing Center is to help students develop as writers by learning about language and rhetoric, practicing a variety of writing strategies, and discussing their writing in a safe space – not to police their choices once they leave the Center. Because writing centers occupy a privileged yet fragile space in the College that depends on student trust, our staff will not report student use of AI text generators for potential disciplinary action. As with potential plagiarism, we seek to teach, not punish. In all our sessions, the proverbial pen belongs in the hands of the writer, and while we can and will help students understand the possible ramifications of their choices, we cannot make those choices for them. 

Please contact Writing Center Director Emily Woster (ewoster@css.edu) with any questions or concerns you might have regarding the role of AI in your writing-related instruction.

CSS Writing Consultants will not provide feedback to students on any take-home exam without written permission from their instructors. If you would like to grant or deny permission to review any take-home exams for your classes, please email us and/or note your preference clearly on your syllabi or exam(s).

Writing issues are often apparent in the first few writing assignments of the semester. In keeping with evidence-based best practices of Writing Center philosophy and design, we do not obligate students to come for a writing consultation session; for the students who do use our services, we maintain confidentiality of what a student addresses in their session and whether or not a student attends a session. 

The function of this referral form is primarily to open lines of communication for establishing a collaborative relationship providing specialized student support.

Faculty Referral Form