Riley,+Terrance.++The+Unpromising+Future+of+Writing+Centers

Riley, Terrance. “The Unpromising Future of Writing Centers.” In Barnett. 139-152.

Riley suggests that in our very acts to gain legitimacy for WCs, we work to destabilize what they have mostly come to stand for within writing center scholarship (and at most institutions) which is a place that goes against ‘schooling as usual’ in place of a collaborative model that privileges the students’ knowledge, etc. He gives three examples: American Literature, Literary Theory, and Composition, that historically have worked to change disciplines ‘from within’ and after only a few decades or generations have become calcified in their own disciplinary identity that no one is trying to change things anymore. Suddenly the innovation is gone and people are simply trying to reproduce what is already accepted as knowledge within the new discipline. The more we try to legitimize ourselves, the more we create a “future of writing centers [that] is exactly in the mainstream of the university” (150).

$$$ Quotes:

“… the least promising future we can imagine for ourselves and our writing centers is the very one we long for; that our pursuit of success and stability, as conventionally measured, may be our undoing” (139).

“… the subsequent stages of the evolution of academic respectability follow a predictable pattern as well: high idealism and frustration with institutional inertia result in the attempt to reform and renew the parent discipline from within, an attempt which gradually but surely gives way to a series of compromises in which the original package of revolutionary energy is tapped off into academic business as usual” (140).

“The conclusions I hope will materialize are that the power that accompanies a rise in professional status is partly illusory; that both power and status are purchased at great price; and that if those of us devoted to the writing center concept follow the example of other groups, seeking stability in professionalization, we will jeopardize the values that make our work meaningful” (140).

“The record establishes a consistent formula: professional success is proportional to the degree to which a discipline can overcome its mixed descent and claim a purity of purpose, while creating an environment in which its members can measure themselves according to criteria internal to the discipline” (147).

“A ‘professional’ today is one who can repeat the form and substance of the field, and usually one who promises to do so” (148).