History

Writing Center History

The SSU Writing Center was born in 1997, when the University hired Dr. Scott Miller as Director. Together with the Center's first graduate-student Assistant Director, Dean Klotz, Scott immediately set to work developing this new service for the SSU community. When the two set out, they worked in a borrowed office and had neither staff nor a facility. The first SSU Writing Center went under construction in September 1997 in the old Salazar Library, where it resided for the first three years of its existence. In Summer 2000, the Center moved to a front-and-center facility on the second floor of the glorious new Schulz Information Center. And then in 2003, the Center moved to a facility built specially for us on the first floor of Schulz, where we're now an active part of the Library's Information Commons.

Services began in Fall term 1997, when we took over the tutoring support for English 99, the University's pre-freshman composition course (a service we continue to offer). In Spring 1998, we inaugurated our foundational service: free one-on-one tutoring and writing consulting to any and all who come through the door. Then, in Fall 1998, we developed a special one-on-one service for students enrolled in English 101--the English 99T program. Through these three options, the Center has served over 10,000 students through tutoring services.

In 2018, the Writing Center combined forces with the Tutorial Program and Supplemental Instruction, to form the Learning & Academic Resource Center, or LARC. Our space on the first floor of the library underwent significant renovation under the guidance of the current Director, Loriann Negri, and Cora Orme, then Tutorial Program & Supplemental Instruction Coordinator. Today, it is a welcoming space with plenty of tables, couches, and computers for SSU students!

   The Center a few years ago   

   

  ​ Our Center today!