MSWCA 2025 

Inflection Point: Navigating Crisis and Uncertainty in Writing Centers 

The Mississippi Writing Centers Association (MSWCA) will hold its annual conference on March 22, 2025.  

The conference will be hosted by the Richard Wright Center for Writing, Rhetoric, and Research at Jackson State University, Jackson, MS. 

The program is now live! 

Additionally, the  conference location and parking map is here!

JSU has provided directions to their campus: See directions to JSU

Call for Proposals:

Alexandra Gunnells and Samantha Turner remind us that our histories as writing center scholars are complex and different, yet “such reflections powerfully impact the how and why of what we do, over time shaping and sustaining what we consider our disciplinary histories” (4).  But more often than we would like, writing center scholars, staff, and peer tutors are faced with uncertainties— uncertainties about labor and funding shortages, departmental demands and institutional changes, and political and technological shifts. Themes of past MSWCA conferences reveal moments of crisis writing center practitioners must encounter at their different institutions. For example, when JSU hosted the MSWCA conference in 2014, the keynote address was titled “Writing Matters in Unpredictable Times.” These uncertainties create moments of crises, intense difficulties, that consistently leave writing center scholars, staff, and peer tutors  scrambling to find ways to resolve them. 

While some of the problems with tutor funding, administrative agendas, faculty buy-in and more are problems many writing center practitioners want no part of, there are some problems or moments of crisis in which writing center scholars intentionally take part to become active agents of change. Writing center practitioners can become agents of change, whether they are working to implement WAC initiatives, helping to draft artificial intelligence policies, or proposing curriculum designs. Peer writing tutors are also agents of change. They provide new theories and approaches to old and new problems alike. They can also advocate for fair pay by collaborating with directors on funding proposals.

In 40+ years of writing center history, we have developed ways to approach these moments of crisis and turn them into opportunities for strengthening our pedagogy. This call seeks submissions that inform and challenge the way we think about moments of crisis– the intense difficulties– that impact our writing centers and their staffs.  

• How do directors and tutors respond to moments of crisis in the writing center?

• How do we navigate uncertain circumstances to find the best solutions for our clients (students)?

• How do we think about and prioritize our work as tutors and writing center directors when we are dealing with a perceived crisis? How might this be different from “crisis mode” thinking?

• When facing existential crises, how do writing center leaders find possibilities to take on activist efforts to ensure better writing centers and better academic environments?

In this conference, we invite you to reflect on how states of uncertainty and moments of crisis  impact “the how and why of what we do.” 

Types of Proposals: 

Panel Presentations (1 hour and 15 minutes) 

Interactive Workshops (1 hour and 15 minutes) 

Roundtable Discussions (1 hour and 15 minutes) 

Individual Presentations (20 minutes) 

Submission Guidelines: 

750 word limit - Panel proposals 

500 word limit - Collaborative/interactive proposals 

250 word limit - Individual and poster proposals 

Proposal Submission Deadline: February 22, 2025