Between the Lines (BtL) is a weekly newsletter published on weeks 2-9 of each quarter. It is intended to keep all members of the Writing Center informed on deadlines and upcoming events. Each week,
The Mentoring Program connects each new tutor with a returning tutor to be their official mentor throughout their first year of employment. Mentors introduce their new tutor mentees to the Writing Center—our core practices, beliefs, and values, and our everyday workings. The Mentoring Program fosters a work environment based on our core values of collaboration, diversity, reflection, respect, revision, and transparency through building peer-to-peer connections and networks. The Mentoring Programs aims to support personal, professional, and intrapersonal growth of all program participants.
📜 Overview
The Mentoring Program is coordinated by the professional development team, including the 
Professional Development Student Manager (PDSM): Mentoring & Onboarding, the other PDSMs, and Writing Center Associate Director Erin Herrmann. Through the Mentoring Program, new tutors become familiar and comfortable with both the Writing Center’s expectations for working with writers and the Writing Center’s diverse and complex operations. Mentors guide mentees through initial onboarding and tutor training and support mentees throughout the year with developing and refining tutoring strategies, reflecting on growth, setting SMART goals, and fulfilling the quarterly PD check-in process.
Professional Development Student Manager (PDSM): Mentoring & Onboarding, the other PDSMs, and Writing Center Associate Director Erin Herrmann. Through the Mentoring Program, new tutors become familiar and comfortable with both the Writing Center’s expectations for working with writers and the Writing Center’s diverse and complex operations. Mentors guide mentees through initial onboarding and tutor training and support mentees throughout the year with developing and refining tutoring strategies, reflecting on growth, setting SMART goals, and fulfilling the quarterly PD check-in process.Mentee-mentor relationships are fostered through periodic check-ins and guidance in addition to reviewing the information covered in WRD 395/582. All program check-ins take place during the regularly scheduled hours of the mentee’s shifts, and mentors and mentees are scheduled in WCOnline to have time to meet.
The program also seeks to provide support for returning tutors serving as mentors through mentor training and additional support when necessary.
📆 Weekly BtL Placeholder
Every Writing Center tutor is blocked off for 30 minutes each week to read Between the Lines, the Writing Center newsletter. This is your individual time to stay up to date with what’s happening in the Writing Center and to work on your SMART goal and quarterly ePortfolio.
Tutors should use this time to
- Read the latest issue of the newsletter posted in Slack in #news
- Complete interactive prompts as stated in the newsletter
- Complete specific tasks related to your quarterly professional development requirements as stated in the newsletter
Mentors and mentees can also use this time to check-in with one another, either in Slack or in person. In addition, mentors and mentees can review agendas for upcoming mentoring check-ins as linked in the newsletter.
🎈 Interact Question
Every Writing Center tutor is blocked off for 30 minutes each week to read Between the Lines, the Writing Center newsletter. This is your individual time to stay up to date with what’s happening in the Writing Center and to work on your SMART goal and quarterly ePortfolio.
Tutors should use this time to
- Read the latest issue of the newsletter posted in Slack in #news
- Complete interactive prompts as stated in the newsletter
- Complete specific tasks related to your quarterly professional development requirements as stated in the newsletter
Mentors and mentees can also use this time to check-in with one another, either in Slack or in person. In addition, mentors and mentees can review agendas for upcoming mentoring check-ins as linked in the newsletter.
🤷 Why a Newsletter?
Our program philosophy—written and informed by present and past leaders in the Mentoring Program—articulates our vision and beliefs about mentoring in the Writing Center and the practices and attitudes that inform the program.
🏡 At the Writing Center
Mentoring embodies the Writing Center’s mission, values, beliefs and practices. Like all our programs, the mentoring program is grounded in our core values: collaboration, respect, diversity, revision, reflection, and transparency. Mentoring centers on the collaboration between two peers, the mentor and mentee, reflecting on and revising their work and practices in the Writing Center. These reflections aim to make our practices, procedures, and culture transparent to new tutors. These relationships build on respect, diversity, and collaboration throughout the process.
In this way, the mentoring program seeks to not only reflect our core values and practices, but enact and ingrain them in our work.
✨ Mentoring Principles
- Create an inclusive, supportive, and challenging environment.
- Bring your own authentic, signature presence.
- Be bold and clear and follow through on your commitments.
- Use a systems perspective to recognize how your role fits within the program and the Writing Center and to support mentees as they learn their role within that context.
➕ Other Uses
Mentors and mentees are encouraged to use the Mentoring Check-in placeholder, when necessary, to block off time for additional in-person or online meetings with mentees.