Volume 23, Number 2-3, Summer-Fall 2006

Life on the Fringe: The Writing Centre as a Liminal Space

Theresa Hyland

Huron University College

thyland@huron.uwo.ca 

I believe firmly in the value of the position of the Writing Centre (WC) as a liminal space—a space “in between” the academic world of professors, standards and marks and the world of students who are struggling and cooperating with each other in learning how to toe the academic line with their writing. When, occasionally, I have learned through our Writing Listserv, that some WCs have been threatened with cutbacks or closure, I have nodded in sage agreement that some administrators just don’t understand what a valuable service we perform. Until a few weeks ago, however, I never assumed that my WCs academic liminality would become physical liminality and how that would affect my view of this position within academia.

I am Director of a WC in a small Liberal Arts College with a total population of just over 1,000 students. I employ four student peer tutors and five professional writing tutors and together, we offer about 30 hours of writing instruction appointments per week along with occasional customized writing workshops. Last year the WC filled 496 appointments and saw another 196 students in customized workshops across a range of programmes: Philosophy, Political Science, Interdisciplinary Studies, International and Comparative Studies, English, and Chinese Literature.

It seems to me obvious, then, that the function we perform is a valuable one. A number of students come to the WC repeatedly over the course of the academic year. We know that students’ “aha” moments in the WC have been translated into well articulated insights when those students come back to us proudly proclaiming how well they have done in their submitted essays. The value of our service to the college is also reflected in the space we are allowed to use for the WC and the resources that have been funded by the college. When we ask the Dean to hire more tutors, she usually complies with the request. When we needed a dedicated room for the WC, we were given a large airy room with picture windows overlooking the university common area. It contains couches and two long tables at which we hold our writing appointments, a bookshelf full of handbooks, two computers and about 40 different handouts that we give to the students as needed. We have been funded to publish our own writing handbook and have numerous copies of that on hand at the Centre.

Yet, there is a fly in the ointment. The WC has been asked to share the space we use with other departments at the college when they wish to use it as an access area to a large function room next door. This is usually okay since functions take place on the weekend, and we are there from Monday to Friday. However, two weeks ago, on Monday morning, I arrived at the WC to find my tutor sitting in the midst of the leavings from a function that had occurred on Saturday afternoon and hadn’t yet been cleaned up. The tables we use for our appointments were covered in linen table clothes. There were used cups, saucers, and plates all over the place (on the floor and on sofas, as well as on the tables). There were plates of two-day old cakes, pitchers of soured milk, and half-full coffee carafes sharing the table with the written script that the student and tutor were working on. The smell was horrendous, and of course, there was nowhere to sit and write amid the mess. I was particularly concerned because people had entered the locked space where I had quite openly (and incorrectly) stored student records and performance sheets. I complained about the lack of warning about the use of the space, and the mess to the College Administrator, and was immediately admonished by my Principal. The gist of her rebuke was directed at the fact that I had permanently “co-opted” the space for the Writing Centre by not clearing it for use by other departments over the weekend, and that I had therefore violated the terms of our agreement for use of that space. It was her position that I should not store ANYTHING in that space, and I had no right to ask for prior notice of alternate uses for the space because it wasn’t mine to claim. After a bit of negotiation, a lockable cabinet was purchased, and we are allowed to store all of our books and papers in it when the space is not functioning as a Writing Centre.

A liminal space can be both a physical and mental space where change takes place. For many cultures, the liminal space is an area outside of the common space where candidates go to mark the rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. Time spent in that space may be marked by fear, frustration, and confusion as candidates undergo tests to prove their readiness to accept the responsibilities of adulthood. Vygotsky uses the metaphor of the liminal space to explore how people learn. He coined the term “Zone of Proximal Development” to describe that mental space between what a person has learned and what that person needs to learn in order to complete a particular task. He argued that a person can best bridge this zone through conversations with a mentor. To call the WC a liminal academic space is appropriate, I tell my tutors, because from this position (neither inside nor outside academia), we push the student writers we see to take risks with their writing, to explore their own assumptions which guide their choice of topics, and to question their position in the universe and within a particular course of study. We challenge them to gather evidence to support their opinions, no matter how unorthodox. We encourage them to confront the contradictions and frustrations that the process of writing to learn can entail. The first rule in writing, we tell them, is that there are no rules! From this position of freedom we can help them without grading or judging them. We have the best job in the world, I declare!

The key question, then, is this: is this physical liminality necessary as a statement of the function of the WC, or is it simply marginalization by another name? Perhaps the WC cannot enjoy the benefits of being liminal to the college’s academic functions without being liminal physically too. We tell the students that we build obsolescence into our sessions because our ultimate goal is for students to learn how to write for themselves. If our space is permanent like a classroom, don’t we become just another set of academic teachers? So it could be that the impermanence of the WC’s physical location is its saving grace—it’s why the students continue to come to us and use our services. When a student walks through those doors and asks, “Is this the Writing Centre?” perhaps the best answer we can give them is, “It is if you want it to be.” On the other hand, liminality is not meant to be a permanent state. Children eventually become adults, and the Zone of Proximal Development is bridged when new understanding occurs. In both cases, the candidates know that the uncomfortable state will pass. Perhaps the permanence of the physical impermanence of our WC will lead to its eventual demise.