NMSU Writing Center Diversity and Inclusivity Statement
Overview
As a writing center within a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), we affirm our dedication to fostering an environment that reflects, respects, and amplifies the diversity of our community. Our student population embodies a rich intersection of cultures, identities, and experiences from the United States, Mexico, and around the globe. This vibrant diversity enriches the fabric of our institution and we are devoted to creating a space where students from all backgrounds feel welcomed and empowered to express themselves. We strive to foster inclusivity by actively engaging in practices which prioritize marginalized perspectives and encourage discussions that confront discrimination and bias.
In the face of increased opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusivity efforts globally, our writing center’s Diversity and Inclusion Statement affirms our commitment to fostering an inclusive, accessible, and welcoming space for our clients and tutors. Taking cues from leading voices in contemporary writing center scholarship and our own experiences working in a writing center situated within an HSI, this statement is reflective of our efforts to create an equitable, inclusive space for our clients and tutors and our culturally reflexive approach in carefully balancing a commitment to challenging the linguistic hegemony of Standard American English (SAE) and helping students achieve their goals as they navigate institutions that continue to perpetuate linguistic injustice and systemic oppression.
We achieve this by:
Upholding a commitment to linguistic justice: At our writing center, we recognize that language is inherently connected to identity, culture, and power. Our commitment to linguistic justice means we support the diverse linguistic backgrounds and needs of our students, tutors, and community members, embracing all varieties of English and other languages our clients speak. We understand that every individual’s language practices reflect their unique histories and lived experiences, and we reject the idea that there is one “correct” or “standard” way to communicate. Through tutor training, program development, and critical conversations with our clients, we advocate for multilingualism and continually work to ensure that our tutoring practices do not impose rigid language standards but instead prioritize the clarity, intent, and accessibility of the voices of our students. Our goal is to help students make intentional linguistic choices that align with their rhetorical goals while also acknowledging the systemic biases that exist in academic and professional settings.
Maintaining an inclusive space: The writing center is where students can express themselves, explore their thoughts, and engage with writing in meaningful ways. For this reason, we believe in creating an atmosphere that ensures clients from diverse literacy backgrounds feel valued, respected, and empowered. We employ tutors from diverse nationalities and cultural backgrounds, as well as those with diverse abilities. Our team brings multiple perspectives and experiences, enriching the tutoring process and enabling the center to better assist students from different cultural, linguistic, and academic backgrounds. Inclusivity is not just about creating a space where students can write—it's about creating a space where students can be themselves and effectively harness their potential to succeed along their academic journey. To that end, we are also working to expand our outreach and establish connections with other student resources across our campus, including the Aggie Cupboard.
Acknowledging positionality: The writing center is a space on campus that carries a lot of implicit weight. Our writing center coexists alongside larger institutional/academic traditions that often pressure stakeholders to uphold potentially oppressive standards. These expectations place graduate student tutors in a precarious position. As an anti-oppressive space, the writing center acknowledges and aims to counter these potential power imbalances between tutors and our clients by attending to our interactions with care and consideration, and by shifting the balance of knowledge-creating power to provide credence to the lived experiences students carry (Potts and Brown, 2015). To that end, our staff avoids taking directive approaches to tutoring sessions and encourages clients to lean on their own expertise to foster a truly collaborative meaning-making environment.
Practicing introspection and allyship: In our writing center, we understand introspection as an ongoing, recursive process that reflexively examines the experiences and cultural contexts that shape our identities as writers, laboring to deconstruct our implicit preconceptions and biases surrounding writing and identity. Introspection includes seeing and respecting our limits and the limitations of the writing center as a resource. Simultaneously, introspection also involves interrogating the ways certain tutoring practices may (even inadvertently) replicate racist norms of writing and acknowledging the role of writing centers in academic ecologies that have historically upheld oppressive standards.
Recognizing this history, we actively work to implement a praxis of reciprocal learning and non-hierarchical peer support that valorizes the situated literacies and knowledges of our clients, especially those whose communicative traditions have historically been marginalized in academia, including Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic communities. We achieve this through community outreach events, like our bi-annual writing center retreats, rigorous tutor training, and monthly professional development events that keep our tutors up-to-date on contemporary best practices and encourage them to uphold their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our writing center.
And connecting our clients to useful resources, including:
Aggie Health & Wellness Center
- The Aggie Health & Wellness Center’s patient portal allows you to learn more about (and request) healthcare and counseling services.
- The Office of Health Promotion offers resources for and information about alcohol and substance abuse, violence prevention, self-care, and sexual and mental health.
Office of Institutional Equity
- The Office of Institutional Equity’s website contains reporting forms, information about accommodations, and Title IX resources.
- Allows you to connect with American Indian, LGBT+, Black, and Latin American Programs and crisis, financial aid, and scholarship services.
- Allows you to apply for course, housing, and other accommodations. Contains useful information on procedures and applying for accommodations.
