The ECWCA Board is now looking for hosts for the 2013 East Central Writing Center Association Conference. Traditionally, the ECWCA Conference is held over two consecutive days‚ typically a Friday and Saturday‚ during March or early April. The conference attracts about 200-300 writing center tutors and administrators from the region. The board works closely with the conference hosts throughout the entire process. Most hosts are able to fund the conference with seed money from the board and from conference registrations; hosts do not need to fund the conference from their own coffers. Schools that are in the same city or nearby can also apply to be co-hosts to split the responsibilities.

If you are even the slightest bit curious or just would like more information about hosting, please contact the current president Jackie Grutsch McKinney (jrmckinney@bsu.edu) who can provide you with details, encouragement, the application, and very helpful conference planning guide.

Comments from Past ECWCA Hosts:

“Hosting ECWCA was a fantastic professional development opportunity for both me and my tutors. We worked together as a team to shape the call for proposals, develop the program, and plan activities. My tutors were especially excited to not only show off their campus but to welcome other tutors. I feel as if I’ve gotten to know the membership in an intimate way.” –Tammy Conard-Salvo, Host, 2009 ECWCA Conference, Purdue University

“Hosting the ECWCA conference was essential to the local campus community seeing and understanding writing centers as a field, appreciating the possibilities that the local writing center could afford them. I have no doubt that the WCD who followed me into that position started from a much more stable place than I did because of the conference. For the Writing Center staff, it was a wonderful opportunity to meet and hear the leaders in the field whose work they had been reading in training. Personally, the conference gave me opportunities to build strong working relationships with colleagues from other institutions, relationships that are enabling significant scholarship and research even now, more than three years later.” –Bill Macauley, Co-Host, 2006 ECWCA Conference, Mount Union College

“I would say that the biggest perk of having the conference at Marietta was the opportunity to expose my tutors to professional development in the writing center community. They all had the ability to participate in the conference and attend sessions, and it enabled them to view their work in the writing center as something larger than a work-study position — at the end of the conference they really felt like a part of an academic community.” –Tim Catalano, Host, 2003 ECWCA Conference, Marietta College

“For me, the benefits of hosting the ECWCA conference at Kent-Stark were direct and profound. As a relatively new writing center director, in my second year at Stark, it was an opportunity to form professional relationships with a number of KSU deans, academic departments, fellow faculty members, and staff members, not only on my campus but across the entire eight-campus system. Beyond my university, the conference offered an opportunity to work closely with the Executive Board of ECWCA and to network with fellow writing center directors throughout the seven-state ECWCA region. Hosting this conference is an invaluable form of professional development. It will greatly increase the visibility and impact of both you and your writing center.” –Jay Sloan, Host, 2002 ECWCA Conference, Kent State University-Stark Campus

“After attending ECWCA for so many years, hosting the conference felt like an opportunity to give back to the organization. It also brought a lot of professional recognition to our Writing Center at Lansing Community College, both from outside the college, and perhaps more importantly, from within. I would encourage other community colleges to host this conference.” –Jill Reglin, Host, 2000 ECWCA Conference, Lansing Community College