Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 23, No. 1 (2025)

Writing Support Services to Mitigate Inequities: An Open Conversation

Andrea Hernandez Holm
University of Arizona
azholm4@gmail.com

Karen Barto
University of Arizona
bartokaren@proton.me

Jennifer Glass
University of Arizona
zheniaglass@gmail.com

Abstract

Racial and linguistic biases and aggressions continue to impact underrepresented students in higher education. As university writing center specialists in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, we witness their effect on students’ writing experiences. Consequently, our efforts to support students must aim to strengthen students’ skills in academic writing and facilitate a sense of belonging as they navigate the institution. In this article, we engage in conversation to explore how we, as individual specialists with multidisciplinary training and as a Humanities program, support underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students whose writing practices are impacted by inequities stemming from racialized experiences, language discrimination, and resultant imposter phenomenon. We will discuss how, in 2025, the program was identified for termination, and consider the gap in service that our absence may create.

Keywords:  underrepresented, academic writing, writing support, higher education, inequities, writing centers

Introduction

In 2016, a group of organized undergraduate and graduate students at our institution released a 19-page letter from students to administrators addressing concerns related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (The students of the Adalberto & Ana Guerrero Center et al.). Representing students who align with the African American, Native American, Latinx, LGBTQ+, and Women’s student resource centers, the letter identified issues that create inequities and negatively impact learning experiences. These included underfunding and staff reductions in the student centers; lack of diversity among faculty and administrators; lack of student resources; and a general climate of underrepresentation or exclusion for diverse populations. The letter pointed to the impact absence of institutional support has on academic and personal well-being among underrepresented students. Although our university is a land-grant, Hispanic Serving (HSI), and American Indian and Alaska Native-Serving institution with a commitment to inclusive excellence, inequities for underrepresented students continue (Jandu). As a writing support program (writing center), we engage undergraduate and graduate students at our institution and frequently hear about the various experiences they have on campus. We have learned from many about the forms of linguistic, racial, and cultural discrimination they encounter. We have also witnessed how these experiences can reveal themselves in the writing process. We took the 2016 letter as a call to action for our center and an opportunity to begin the ongoing process of deep reflection on our purpose and how we implement it. 

Unlike most writing centers, ours is independent of both student services and the English department. It is a small unit staffed by career writing specialists with multidisciplinary expertise. Like other centers, we promote belonging and inclusivity through our programs and approaches to our work with scholarly writers in all academic disciplines. Our hope is that with our support, participants in our services are better able to make informed choices within their writing practices, from mastery of conventions to development of effective and sustainable processes to growth of authentic voice. 

We understand that student writers’ identities are complex, and writers are, first and foremost, individuals. Kimberle Crenshaw’s (Crenshaw, Crenshaw et.al) work on intersectionality reminds us that identities are shaped by multiple and diverse forces and experiences. In this paper, the term underrepresented is used to describe historically marginalized writers whose voices have been devalued or dismissed due to any aspect of their perceived membership within a particular national, racial, ethnic, linguistic, ability, or gender-based group, including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC); students with disabilities; women; multilingual; international; and queer-identifying students. We include international students in recognition of the challenges shared by domestic and international BIPOC, those from low-income backgrounds, those with disabilities, and others underrepresented in academia, regardless of their nationalities (Jones 935). At our center, we work closely to understand a writer’s individual needs and ensure no assumptions are made based on identity markers such as race, ethnicity, gender, ability, or language. Listening with compassion and intentionally creating spaces allows writers to feel valued and encouraged to discuss both their experiences and writing openly and without fear of judgment. Yet, to make writing centers inclusive spaces, we have to do more than acknowledge that writing practices in higher education were created by and for specific learners, namely white, upper-class males, while other “non-traditional” or underrepresented learners have been excluded. 

We acknowledge that inequity is currently embedded in norms surrounding academic language, writing, and writing support, and these norms are often linked to racial, ethnic, gender, and ability-related biases. Systemic patterns can make students feel their language isn’t “academic enough” or “good enough” for academic writing. Linguists such as Duranti and Irvine posit that language always carries social meaning, including the idea of “standard” used to normalize the variety of the powerful. Other varieties are often treated as less intelligent, less sophisticated, and even incapable of expressing complex ideas (Scarcella 9). However, Muñoz-Muñoz points out an important paradox: while many believe in the “correctness” and importance of standards, they are often explicitly undefined; thus, people rely on implicit understandings, which usually uphold current systems of power and privilege. So, “non-standard” language, such as everyday vocabulary, is stigmatized when used by BIPOC, writers from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and multilingual writers, sending a clear message that these writers don’t belong in academia, and if they want to try, they need to change their writing style (Hartse and Kubota). 

Students who feel unwelcome in academia may not trust their writing knowledge and skills or feel confident that their perspectives and voices are appropriate in the academic context (Negrete-Lopez et. al). They are hesitant to write and share, are convinced that they are “bad writers,” and commonly experience writer’s block. Studies find that aggressions against underrepresented students on college campuses persist (Harwood et al.; Aggarwal and Çiftçi), and encounters with racism and xenophobia are common. Underrepresented students in higher education may experience implicit bias, race-based discrimination, violence on campus, and a lack of institutional support for culture and identity. Additionally, inequities related to accessibility, race-based harassment, and health disparities have been amplified by COVID-19 (Lederer et al.). All of these micro- and macro-aggressions can deeply impact self-esteem (Nadal et. al), writing, and general academic achievement (Keels et al., Forster 5-6, Wilson and Cutri 64-65). 

Often the primary source of writing support for students on campuses, writing centers can play a significant role for students and their perceptions of themselves as writers. Consequently, writing specialists have to develop not only to better meet the needs of the writers they serve but also to meet their needs more responsibly (García; McKinney; Greenfield and Rowan), with awareness of and attention to the myriad of issues comprising individual and institutional academic identities. While they function within a larger system perpetuating problems students encounter, centers can engage a socio-linguistically-informed and social justice-oriented multidisciplinary approach to challenge inequities and encourage student confidence and agency. 

We argue that our diverse personal and professional experiences and pedagogical foundations, including Funds of Knowledge (FoK) (Moll et al.), sociolinguistics-informed pedagogy, and translanguaging, strengthen our abilities to address issues and challenges writers encounter. FoK asserts that students enter school with their own resources of understanding and skills gained from their life experiences: home, work, and so on. This knowledge can and should be used to access new content. Simultaneously, this approach encourages educators to recognize students’ knowledges as learning tools and contributes to inclusive academic environments. FoK and frameworks such as translanguaging that view multilingualism as an asset can counter the perception that some educational, social, cultural, or linguistic experiences are insignificant in or even mismatched to higher education. We argue that writing specialists must value writers’ FoK; embrace diverse linguistic and cultural knowledge about writing as resources rather than deficits; frame writing support as collaboration rather than remediation, and encourage students to do the same. 

In this article, we posit that a multidisciplinary approach can contribute to making writing centers inclusive and capable of serving as locus for advocacy to support students fighting inequities in higher education that challenge their writing processes. We share our experience here with the goal of offering other writing centers, whether staffed by undergraduate students or professionals with decades of experience, some ideas for reflection that writing specialists might be able to incorporate into their practice. As the impending closure of our writing center approaches, we are even more keenly aware of the need to speak about how writing professionals must recognize and help students navigate the challenges they face.

This article is structured as a conversation, reflective of our efforts to decolonize the writing center through critical consciousness (Louie). Structure is a rhetorical method, and we have chosen to implement it here as a decolonial tool. Tlostanova explains that a decolonial method destabilizes and defamiliarizes the researcher and reader from U.S./Western norms. In our case, the structure of conversation disrupts the traditional linear organization of a scholarly paper by combining elements and voices (i.e., introduction, conversation, anecdotal evidence) to explore an issue that is itself complex with multiple components.

Focusing on students: Our learning through conversation

Andrea: Admittedly, the student call for action in 2016 initiated some significant changes on campus. The university increased staff in the student centers, including on-site mental health counselors and financial aid advisors. It also joined the state-wide movement to offer tuition relief to Native American students. However, racially motivated violence and discrimination against Black, LatinX, Native, Asian American, and Asian students have become more apparent. For example, since 2016, there have been several physical and verbal assaults against Black students in public spaces on campus (Egan). In 2019, university leadership made stereotyped remarks during a meeting with Native American students (Leingang). It was a stunning moment that called attention to the persistence of racism at the highest levels and reflected experiences that Higher Education scholar Amanda Tachine (Diné) calls systemic monsters of white supremacy (Tachine). Also in 2019, three Latinx students protesting the presence of Border Patrol officers were arrested (Prendergast). Several undergraduate and graduate students I was working with discussed the wide-ranging impact of each of these incidents on their mental health, sense of safety and well-being, and academics. As they participated in protests, helped organize legal representation, and mentored affected students, their own writing processes were interrupted and, in some cases, derailed for weeks and even months. As Tachine explains, the burden of responding to and combating these experiences falls heavily on students. 

In the wake of these incidents, COVID-19 further disrupted the lives and studies of the writers we serve, especially writers who identify as BIPOC. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Tai et al.), BIPOC individuals and communities experienced higher rates of infection, death, and long COVID at the height of the pandemic. I had one student who lost several family members, including her mom. She soon contracted the virus as well. There was no way she could focus on her writing during that time, or for several weeks following. 

Working with these students in tutoring sessions, I knew that I had to shift the focus to fit their needs, even if that took us away from reviewing documents or discussing writing. I had to give them space to talk about their experiences when that’s what they wanted. I had to be prepared to offer realistic suggestions for time management and organization, but also on helpful resources for health and wellness, requesting timeline extensions, and securing other types of support. 

While several students were negatively affected in the immediacy of the outbreak, many BIPOC students I work with continue to experience the impacts years later. This has motivated changes at the center to support students’ well-being. We opted to extend and keep our online services, which have continued to support accessibility for students who returned to their home cities, states, and countries due to the pandemic, and those who may not be able to attend in-person sessions for health reasons. We’ve also developed programs to address mindfulness and ways to help students relieve stress and anxiety.

Jen: During the height of COVID-19, several of our graduate students from East Asia told me they were staying in their apartments as much as possible because they were frightened of being blamed for the pandemic. Sadly, these experiences reminded me of recent scholarship on the discrimination and anxiety faced by Asian Canadians, Asian Americans, and international students from Asia (Koo et al.; Cantugal and Tungohan). Many of our students from China, South Korea, and Japan were unable to travel to see their families for years due to tight travel restrictions in their home countries, even when family members fell seriously ill. As I met with these students, often online, I acknowledged the isolation, stress, and fear they were feeling and encouraged them to be patient with themselves when their writing process had slowed or even stopped.

Karen: Due to my background in second language acquisition, I am especially sensitized to the experiences of international students, who are underrepresented in U.S. university settings. Because English monolingualism is the default here, multilingual students are often categorized according to their language background and told their English, including their writing, is inferior to academic expectations (Newman). At our own HSI, language awareness is not at the forefront, allowing the idea that multilingualism is a deficit rather than an asset (Muñoz-Muñoz) to persist. Official enrollment data indicates student populations by race, but no data about language backgrounds is offered (“Enrollment”), and no university-wide support for bilingual students exists, even speakers of Spanish and English. 

One week, I met with two doctoral students, both concerned about their performance because English is not their first language. One student spent her first doctoral semester tied in knots over it—she had always been made to feel deficient rather than valued as a Spanish and English bilingual, including at two HSIs. The other student had been sitting on multiple dissertation chapters for months, terrified of submitting something that might have “mistakes” to her advisor. However, her writing was even more polished than published work I have seen. Her chapters were ready, but her degree progress was significantly slowed due to these confidence issues. This student’s advisor was supportive, but these lessons have been learned and reinforced over years in U.S. higher education. They are difficult to undo.

Jen: It’s true that many of our students have internalized negative stereotypes surrounding non-native speakers and their writing, and even some of our more confident students are sometimes underestimated by faculty. Recently, a student from Asia, whom I’ll call Will, shared that he was told by a supervising faculty member that he should use Google Translate to read her email messages since, clearly, his English was too limited to understand the content. Will has ample experience teaching in the English language and has consistently received positive feedback from students. Understandably, he felt that this comment was racist and xenophobic. Will filed a formal complaint with his department and was told that he would no longer have to work with the faculty member in question, but I have no idea whether the faculty member faced any consequences. In this situation, Will acted courageously and assertively, but there are likely many other students who remain silent. When Will shared this experience with me, I told him that I agreed with his response to the situation and shared my frustration with faculty members who engage in micro-aggressions like this one.

Andrea: For many students, these types of experiences also contribute to the development of imposter phenomenon, widely known as imposter syndrome, because they perceive their abilities, experiences, or interests to be inadequate or unwelcome in the institution (Chrousos and Mentis). In academia, imposter phenomenon is experienced most often by students, staff, and faculty from traditionally underrepresented communities (Parkman; Edwards; Lockett). They are likely to believe they are underprepared for the rigors of academia, including understanding the institution; finding resources and effectively using them; finding or building community; and balancing home, work, and classes. 

The responsibility for imposter phenomenon is generally placed on the shoulders of the supposed imposters. In other words, the individual is expected to “catch up” and, ultimately, assimilate to the institution. This sentiment persists despite the growing awareness that imposter phenomenon—and its causes—impact individual achievement (Edwards 30) and threaten equity within the institution (Chrousos and Mentis; Breeze). It ignores systemic barriers or inequities (Breeze 196; Naylor and Mifsud) that may make students, and others, feel like imposters, unwelcome, and out of place, because no space has been made for them, their knowledge, or their experiences. 

Jen: I find that some writers have trouble recognizing their own FoK whether it’s due to imposter phenomenon, other sources of underconfidence, or both. During the first meeting of each graduate writing group I facilitate, I ask group members to identify at least one strength and one area in which they can improve. I have learned, however, that without being “forced” to name at least one strength, many writers skip this question entirely or claim not to have any strengths at all. I now preface my question with a statement like, “I am going to require you to name at least one strength, even if you feel like it’s a small one.” It may make students uncomfortable to acknowledge even modest strengths, but it’s an important part of our role in mentoring and forging relationships with writers: building them up while providing them with tools to improve.

Andrea: Building relationships also promotes inclusivity because it honors more than just individual skills and strengths. Students’ writing practices are informed by family, community, and cultural and social traditions around literacy, writing, and production and reproduction of knowledge. Some may be in alignment with U.S./Western-based educational practices while others may not. In academia, multiple positionalities intersect every day, and our perspectives about writing are part of that, but we don’t talk about it enough. I want to think about how our university’s position as an institution in the Borderlands moves with—or against—student writing experiences. 

One of the most significant things we’ve done is introduce the concept of positionality into our relationships with students. The first time we did this was in our Academic Writing in the Borderlands program. We asked them to take a few minutes to account for things like how their past education, work, or personal experiences connect or don’t connect to the research they’re doing now. Students shared later that it was a revealing exercise because they’d never thought about choices or experiences that bring them to their research and writing processes. That opened the door to ask them to consider deeper questions about their citation practices, methodologies, and any communities that benefit—or don’t—from their work, including the university, participants, and academia. This kind of thoughtfulness may never make it into an assignment directly, but it helps the writer think about the relationships shaping their writing and can empower a better sense of belonging. 

Jen: Reflecting on our positionalities as specialists and as a program has been valuable for us, too. It’s difficult, for sure, but we need to question what we do and how we do it, as well as why. It’s important for us to also question where norms and expectations of good academic writing come from, including long-held biases that privilege white, affluent, male ways of knowing and writing (Gonzalez and Pappolla; J. Wilson; Lunsford and Ouzgane). That said, I sometimes find it challenging to resist my own traditional (and postcolonial) training in academic writing, which has emphasized “fixing” errors and adhering to a narrow set of expectations regarding what counts as academic voice. Yet the longer I work with writers, the farther I move away from these prescriptive ideas. I urge my students to think about their writing process, their emphasis, and as Andrea highlights, their positionality, rather than whether each comma is in the proper place or whether a given word is “too informal” for academic writing.

I’m also actively trying to listen more and speak for students less, even when students themselves seem eager for me to fix their writing. Although we may never succeed 100% in achieving our goals, in our one-on-one and group interactions with writers, we’re all trying to prioritize writers’ agency and voices and to problematize exclusive and inequitable norms and practices rooted in cultural hegemony and prejudice.

Karen: An important part of problematizing inequitable norms and practices is pointing them out. Many of our students have, not surprisingly, internalized beliefs about what makes a good writer that they often don’t question; they just worry they won’t measure up. I also share my experience as a multilingual writer and draw from the concepts and practices of translanguaging (Li). This theoretical approach sees multilingualism as a strength and encourages multilingual people to use the full breadth of their linguistic repertoires. In a writing support context, translanguaging serves as a basis for encouraging students to recognize the value of their language(s) so they may challenge those insisting that nonstandard language is “inappropriate” for academic writing. Translanguaging can remind students that multilingualism is valuable and can promote expression with all of our linguistic knowledge. For example, when a student wants feedback, I give a brief description of what I understand, including information about sociolinguistic register and traditional academic expectations as well as affirming that there are many valid ways of expression. Often, they seem more comfortable making choices about usage, style, and structure after realizing their writing is already understandable, conveying the core meaning they intended. Acknowledging sociolinguistic and historical influences on academic writing and students’ own FoK can help them increase confidence in the effective use of their repertoires. 

Andrea: We know how difficult it may be to separate the writing of a paper from the things happening in life. Untangling them from one another but still acknowledging that they are related can be really eye-opening for some. I hope it makes students feel more empowered. Maybe they can both focus on the writing process and see themselves as part of a larger academic story that includes complex histories, opposing narratives, and diverse approaches. At the very least, maybe they don’t feel as alone because we’re making time and space to talk about these things. 

Writing, academic, and moral support are frequent topics in both my individual and group tutoring. Many of the groups I’ve worked with started under our program for Women of Color students, and one of the motivating factors for students joining was the desire for community. Several participants have formed professional relationships that extend beyond their writing time, and they co-present at conferences and even publish together. One group published an article titled “Smile Now, Cry Later: Navigating Structures of Inequality in Academia Through Resistance, Resilience, and Humor in Our Women of Color Writing Group.” They discuss how their writing group serves to help them better navigate their graduate experiences as women of color and mitigate feelings of not-belonging in the academy (Negrete-Lopez et al.).

Jen: It’s such a rewarding experience to witness writing group members building community and confidence, and one of the key ways in which group members support one another is by being the first point of contact between writer and audience. Often, writers are anxious about how the audience will perceive their work, wondering whether readers will find their texts clear, “formal enough,” and written “correctly,” but in both our groups and one-on-one sessions, we adopt a non-judgmental, non-evaluative approach. For example, group members summarize the main ideas in each other’s work and ask questions for expansion or clarification. The goal is not to praise nor criticize the writing but rather to honor the writer’s voice while still helping them to effectively communicate the content to others. 

In supporting writers with communicating with one or more audiences, I sometimes draw on my background in teaching rhetoric to Advanced Placement-level high school students. When writers seek feedback on language use, for example, I usually ask whether the audience already knows a term or whether they might benefit from a definition or example. Alternatively, I might share my understanding of the connotation of a given phrase and ask whether it reflects the values of the writer and/or audience. I can suggest phrasing depending on intent, but I encourage writers to think of wording as a rhetorical choice, not a question of right and wrong.

Similarly, when writers ask whether they are organizing a paper the “right” way, I often ask about their understanding of audience expectations and their own goals. In their opinion, how are the clearest and most persuasive texts in their field organized? What guidelines, if any, have their professors, reviewers, or other readers shared? Do they as writers want to meet or challenge their audience’s expectations, and what are the costs and benefits of each possible decision? After reflecting on these questions, a writer may choose to re-organize a sentence, paragraph, or entire manuscript to better resonate with one or more audiences or more importantly, to reflect their own intentions. With these questions, I’m inviting the writer to draw upon their personal knowledge and experiences as well as content knowledge, hoping to illustrate that they do have FoK to support their thinking and writing processes. Many students haven’t been invited to participate in writing this way, so it can be somewhat disarming at first, but it eventually empowers them as they realize their own skills. This is crucial for students, especially those who may feel excluded from the institution. 

Karen: I treat audience too, but recognizing the harmful impact of some language ideologies, I ask students to consider audience critically. I often recommend even ignoring it while drafting. To optimize our flow of ideas, we should be free to read, think, and draft in whatever combination of languages or styles best allows us to develop and express our thoughts. Later, we can choose to modify our writing to match audience expectations. I seek to ground the students’ ideas as the most important aspect of their writing, almost decoupling them from the language and rhetorical patterns expected by specific audiences in academic writing, which become a mere (albeit time-consuming) afterthought. I want students to know that their way of thinking and expressing themselves is valid, regardless of what they have been told by others. Knowing conflict may arise between audience expectations and author voice, we discuss students’ options, like learning to write in different registers or challenging professors who say their chosen voice isn’t academic enough. 

Overall, I introduce linguistic ideologies to help students recognize the unfairness of the judgments they receive, rather than to reinforce those judgments. Still, the inherent conflict between teaching about these ideologies and the systems of power they represent while also teaching how to adhere to them troubles me. I want to validate our students’ experiences and serve their needs, but our attempts lead naturally to certain questions. Are we as writing specialists colonizers, perpetuating standards by teaching them explicitly to those who want to learn them? It would be worse not to respect the students’ own goals and understanding of their needs, wouldn’t it? 

Andrea: The question of colonial/decolonial practices and academia is huge—awkward and uncomfortable. The conversation has been unfolding in Writing Center Studies for some time (Grimm; Greenfield and Rowan; García; Condon; Lockett; McKinney; and J. Wilson). Audre Lorde says, “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change” (Lorde 95). As a part of a university that continues to perpetuate inequities, we are, in a sense, within “the master’s house.” Nevertheless, we can teach students “the master’s” academic conventions and also teach them about the legacies of violence that have informed them. I hope that, ultimately, we’re preparing students to better understand the choices they’re making in their writing processes. 

Perhaps our efforts as a center are most closely described by what Louie describes as raising critical consciousness. We intentionally heighten our consciousness about the issues that underrepresented students are encountering across our campus and animate our intentions toward equity and inclusion in ways that validate students’ experiences, help them to amplify their voices and needs, acknowledge their agency, and encourage systemic change where we can. 

Karen: Sitting with and reflecting on these questions, we keep listening, keep engaging in conversations with our students about their challenges, and try to support them (in the best way we can) on their academic paths.

Conclusion

We’ve watched closely as institutions across the nation have experienced significant financial and political issues that impact their missions and values. In 2025, we began to see decisions that will likely have a negative impact on student experiences at our university. These included the dismissal of several writing instructors (Smith, C.), the consolidation of student cultural centers and dismissal of staff members in those units (Sannappanavar), and the closure of two language-related support centers and dismissal of those staff members, including our writing center (Dingman; Sannappanavar, “U of A”). The influence of President Trump’s Executive Orders banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (Schwartz) have stymied the advances called for by the 2016 letter at our institution and are poised to mark a significant reduction in the support for all students. Further actions and policies have reduced funding on our campus, forcing units to restructure in order to accommodate smaller budgets. Unfortunately, many student services—like ours—have been sacrificed.

In the last academic year, our small staff of four provided approximately 1,000 hours of writing support to undergraduate and graduate students. These students come from diverse personal, political, ethnic, national, educational, and academic backgrounds, but each student received the same expert support to help develop their skills in academic writing and build their confidence in their abilities to succeed in higher education. One of our aims has been to normalize writing support for all writers—to help both students and professors understand that writing is a dynamic skill that we are continually learning and growing—and to institute writing support as a fundamental resource not only for academic success but often for personal growth and achievement. That support has to include instruction and guidance through the mastery of writing conventions as well as mentorship through issues that impact writing experiences.

It is discouraging to know that underrepresented students are likely to be disproportionately affected by our writing center’s closure. We have received communication from campus partners, current students, and alumni/ae highlighting the potential negative impact on these students, specifically. We can only hope that supportive, inclusive practices will become even more prevalent in writing centers and that the institutions that house them fight to continue to be able to serve all students.

While we have a sense of the obstacles underrepresented students may experience in higher education, our work at our center has given us insight into how those obstacles directly impact students’ writing on our campus. Even as we continue to expand the ways we think about writing and writing support and aim to provide more inclusive services, we can agree that writing centers have a lot of work to do. We offer the following recommendations: 

First, continue to understand and address inequities that impact student writing. Being critical thinkers about our jobs and acknowledging our concerns about biases, gatekeeping, and assumptions makes us better providers because we are listening, thinking about the life of the writing below the surface, and being less likely to jump into corrective mode with students. This was a challenge for us as a small unit with no hiring power in the current financial crisis at our university. Therefore, we prioritized professional development. Besides external opportunities, we integrated internal training into our regular staff meetings: each staff member researched a topic and presented a professional development session. Topics were generated directly from our contact with students so we could learn more about issues they brought to our attention, such as imposter phenomenon, anxiety, neurodivergent thinking, and discrimination. Similarly, we continue to learn from and engage with existing scholarship that addresses ways to decolonize our practices and meet the needs of all students, taking into account race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, language background, and more (Smith; Burrows; Coenen et al.; Melzer; Salazar et al.; Rinaldi; Greene). 

Second, recognize that representation in writing centers matters (Grimm Garcia; Baca et al.; Putney and Poythress). Develop partnerships with campus and community programs that support underrepresented students, such as Native American, African American, Latinx, Asian American, LGTBQ+, Women, and Disability student resource centers. State and federal policies may be forcing significant changes and even closure to such programs, as on our campus, but this makes forging partnerships and support systems all the more important. Equally, strengthen relationships with external communities, including school districts, tribal nations, and the public library system. This is especially relevant for land-grant institutions, like ours, which are charged with the responsibility of uplifting educational opportunities for local communities. Partnerships also increase collaborative work toward institutional change by increasing staff, faculty, and administrators’ awareness of underrepresented students’ experiences and needs in writing. 

Third, acknowledge that COVID-19 continues to impact both students and the ability to serve them. The last few years have required consistent adaptation to meet students where they’re at and support them to move forward. This includes both online and hybrid instruction and recognition of the impact the virus has on health and well-being. College campuses are not immune to the ongoing impact of the virus or rapidly changing public policies around vaccinations and protective measures.

Finally, respond to who and where students are in order to develop productive and helpful relationships (Garcia). Race and racism must be addressed (Lockett)—as must homophobia and gender discrimination—especially as efforts targeting diversity on campuses increase. In our context, we advocated for connection to the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands through our Academic Writing in the Borderlands programs for students and instructors, and we considered how this place shapes the work that we do; the issues our students encounter; and the knowledge our institution produces every day. 

The forces changing writing support in higher education are numerous. Institutions are scrambling to adjust to loss of federal, state, and private funding and to accommodate new policies at every level. Additionally, artificial intelligence has spurred a rapidly shifting landscape and upended long-held standards about academic writing for students, faculty, and support providers. These issues don’t suggest that there is a diminishing need or want for writing support, but just the opposite. In our experiences, writers and instructors of writers are eager for additional guidance and assistance navigating changes—good and bad—as well as the uncertainties that come with any shift. And, writing specialists continue to be those who are asking important questions about the impact of budget reductions on student success, the biases created by AI language models, and the erasure of DEI measures that place students at risk. In truth, the need for and purpose of writing specialists continues to evolve. 

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