As I mentioned in my previous post (Writing Center of "Yes"), over the past couple of years the Writing Center @ PSU has undergone many changes--from directorship to location to mission. This full-scale reinvention of ourselves and our
mission has also given us the chance to reinvent the WC artifacts at the heart of
our day-to-day interaction with the academic community. According to Peter Carino, "The rhetoric that directors produce tells much about how centers, individually and communally, have constructed themselves in the academy" (94). With this in mind, we craft each artifact, in any medium and for any purpose, so that each one contributes to constructing and reinforcing our identity. As a result, our WC mission and identity are consciously manifested through even the simplest documents that we use every day. One example of a simple document that we're currently in the process of rethinking is our student intake form. The intake form we use now is doing something for us, but we're wondering if it could possibly be doing something different and better for us.
