The University Writing Center has received the Southeastern Writing Center Association’s Christine Cozzens Research Grant and Initiative Program Award for a project that will bring together writing center professionals from universities across Florida.
Led by Amy Cicchino, Ph.D., director of the UCF Writing Center and associate professor in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric, the project, “Developing Disciplinary Genre Awareness through Cross-Center Collaboration,” includes writing centers at UCF, Florida A&M University, New College of Florida, Nova Southeastern University and the University of South Florida.
Through the grant, each participating center will develop a guide focused on writing within a particular academic discipline. The guides will help writing tutors better understand the conventions and expectations of different fields and eventually will be shared with the broader Southeastern Writing Center Association community.
“Writing has a unique ability to bring people together; we see that impact every day in our center. This grant is an opportunity to expand that sense of connection beyond UCF by bringing together writing centers and tutors across Florida. We’re thrilled to use writing as a way to share ideas about disciplinary writing, and we’re proud to have the UCF University Writing Center recognized for its work in the southwest region,” Cicchino said.
The project will also provide opportunities for tutors and writing center professionals across the participating universities to connect and share their work. A virtual event planned for spring will bring tutors together to discuss the disciplinary guides and their experiences developing them.
“After creating these disciplinary writing guides, tutors from all five centers will meet each other and share their expertise on writing in the disciplines. This collaboration will give our tutors and writing center administrators a valuable opportunity to exchange ideas, reflect on our practices, and discover new approaches that we can bring back to UCF,” Cicchino said.
Once completed, the guides will also support writing consultations at UCF and be made available to UCF writers through the University Writing Center’s website.
“By learning from tutors and writing centers across Florida, our tutors will gain new strategies for helping UCF writers. UCF writers will benefit from tutors who are better equipped to support them as writers, but we’ll also make all of these guides available to UCF writers,” Cicchino said.
Learn more about the Southeastern Writing Center Association’s Christine Cozzens Research Grant and Initiative Program at https://southeasternwritingcenter.wildapricot.org/ccrgi.
Book a session with the UCF University Writing Center at https://cah.ucf.edu/uwc/.