This week I received another reminder that there is very little in this hyperconnected world of ours that doesn’t eventually figure in an encounter between writer and writing center consultant. The writing center is the kind of place where a consultation devoted to lamb kebab and the mechanics of writing ends up also being about the difficult, hazardous aspects of human sociality.

By now the internet rage cycle has moved on, but last week a great many people were looking at and talking about a powerpoint slide from a University of Houston Faculty Senate meeting. Aside from the remarkable fact that 1) something exciting and noteworthy happened at a faculty senate meeting, and 2) a powerpoint slide was that ‘something exciting,’ the presentation itself did make some remarkable recommendations. The question is whether these types of recommendations, and the heightened presence of guns on Texas campuses after August 1st, make any difference to writing centers.

As part of our monthly Consultant Spotlight series, today we sit down with David Vaughan DeVine, a graduating senior and long-time writing consultant at the University of Texas at Austin's University Writing Center, to talk about his experience as a writing center consultant, as a scholar, and as a colleague.