Summary:
Dr. Jessica Winck earned her PhD in the English department at UofL in 2016. As a GTA, she served as the Assistant Director of the Writing Center from 2013-2014. In this interview, Dr. Winck reflects on her time at UofL, particularly her mentorship of MA writing consultants and the layout of the former writing center space on the upper floor of Ekstrom Library. She describes best practices she learned during her time as an AD, noting how her role helped reinforce the value of being an “interested reader” and drawing attention to writers’ strengths. She highlights the importance of encouraging writers’ ownership over their work, and how this can be facilitated by simple decisions like table layout and body language. Dr. Winck also discusses how she draws upon strategies from Dr. Bronwyn Williams in her current role as the Writing Center Director at the University of Maine-Augusta. She also recalls how a spirit of hospitality dictates her interactions with visiting writers and helps navigate the tension between supporting stated concerns and drawing attention to higher order issues. Finally, she reflects on supplemental tasks she undertook while at UofL, such as maintaining the writing center blog and updating handouts, before closing with a commendation of Dr. Williams’s insistence on respecting everyone who entered the writing center.
