Miami University’s Howe Center for Writing Excellence

In general, Miami University’s writing centers (yes, plural) don’t seem drastically different from Wittenberg’s writing center on the fundamental level. The mission of Miami University’s Howe Center for Writing Excellence, the main branch of their writing center system, is “to assure that Miami fully prepares all of its graduates to excel in the writing they will do after college in their careers, roles as community and civic leaders, and personal lives.” The Center’s goals are:

• To foster a culture of writing in which students welcome the writing instruction they receive in their courses, seek additional opportunities to write outside of class, and strive continuously to improve their writing skills.
• To help faculty increase the amount and quality of writing instruction and practice that students receive throughout their studies at Miami.
• To help faculty tap writing’s tremendous potential for assisting students in mastering the content and thinking processes their courses are designed to teach.
• To assure that all students—from the most accomplished to the most needful—have ample help outside of their classes as they strive to improve their writing.

Appointments may be scheduled online or in person, and walk-ins are “provided whenever a consultant is available,” although “[the] appointment book is often full.” The consultants are a mix of undergraduate and graduate students who take a 3-credit course to prepare for their work.

However, Miami University’s writing center program does differ from Wittenberg’s in several ways:

1. Size and structure—there are many writing centers at Miami University. The Howe Center for Writing Excellence seems to be the main branch of the system, and the others are either satellite sites for students at Miami’s regional campuses or specialized centers for writing in certain disciplines (there is one for the business school, for example). With around 15,000 undergraduate students, Miami University definitely benefits from having multiple writing centers.
2. Session/Consultation length—the Howe Center for Writing Excellence offers 45-minute consultations. In the overview of a typical consultation, I noticed that students are “asked to complete a brief evaluation” at the end, but I am not sure if this is included in the 45-minute period.
3. Offers “Quick Questions” service—this is a fairly new operation at the Howe Center that provides 10-minute long quick consultations for students with “specific questions about writing.” The goal of the service was to “[eliminate] the need for writers to try and find an opening in the schedule” by offering “quick and efficient” consultations for writers while encouraging them “to take advantage of the open accessibility of consultants.”
4. Lists private, paid editing services—I am not sure if these services are offered by the writing centers at Miami or if it’s listed on the website as an outside resource, but I got the sense of it being the latter. Anyway, there is a note of caution at the top of the page that emphasizes the need for both graduate and undergraduate students to use these services for assignments only if it is allowed by the professor and does not violate the academic integrity guidelines of the University.

Aside from these differences, I noticed a few other interesting traits of the Howe Center. First, the Center is only three years old, yet they’ve had more than 10,000 consultations since their opening. Second, students are allowed to come in to the writing centers to work on their assignments on their own “[a]s long as there’s an open table or chair.” 

After reading through the Howe Center’s website, I felt as if Miami’s writing center program is in some ways a large public university version of ours. I didn’t find anything drastically different (although the paid editing service was surprising), but it was interesting to see how a writing center with similar values to ours is managed at a large university. If I remember correctly, there is some sort of writing center conference for advisors/consultants at Miami in the fall that we may be able to attend, which I think will be a great chance for us to learn from another strong writing center program.