2025 IWCA Collaborative@ CCCCs: Writing Centers as Harbors or Ports: Spaces of Remix, Conflict, Collaboration, Resistance, and Play

Date: April 9, 2025
Time: 8:30 am – 5:30 pm
Check-in: 8:00 am
Location: Southern Management Corporation (SMC) Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
Proposals due: February 1, 2025
Proposal acceptance notification: February 10, 2025
Co-Chairs: Isabell May and James Wright
Co-Chairs Contact: imay@umaryland.edu ; james.wright@umaryland.edu

Call for Proposals

This year, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) and thus the Collaborative are meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, one of the nation’s oldest port cities. The CCCC’s conference theme invites us to think about writing as a remixing and blending of emergent multimodal and multiliterate practices akin to those that typify major harbor or port cities where conditions of transnational and translingual communication have led to constant collaboration, exchange, deliberation, and transformation.

Long before white European settlers invaded this region and founded the Port of Baltimore in 1706, the area served as the homelands of Iroquoian-speaking and Algonquian-speaking communities, including the Piscataway and Susquehannock nations, who for millennia sustained trade routes and relations across Turtle Island. These multilingual and pluricultural networks brought “a diverse host of American Indian folks from other nations [who] have passed through or lived [in Baltimore] at different times—and still do,” according to the Guide to Indigenous Baltimore. The City endures as a crossroads for international trade and commerce, while also reflecting a complex and often violent history of enslavement, ongoing racial injustice, and militarization.

Ports or harbors like Baltimore’s invite us to reflect on these spaces as sites of collaboration and creative remixing, as well as places that contend with historical and contemporary struggles for equality, justice, resistance, and abolition. Writing centers, too, can be seen as harbors or ports of transit, or displacement, where spectrums of opportunity and transformation emerge from dissonance, contradiction, and conflict. They are spaces where writers from across disciplines and discourses push against norms, standards, and structures that might not serve them well anymore, or spaces where they encounter norms, standards, and structures that marginalize and exclude. Like harbors, writing centers operate beyond mere points of entry and exit as always emerging palimpsests of location and geopolitical flux where ideas, like cargo, are unloaded, examined, and redistributed. In this neoliberal context, some writers might feel safe and secure; however, many others experience our practices, policies, and spaces as participating in the epistemic injustice, surveillance, and linguistic racism of a globalizing, English-dominant academy.

Many scholars have argued that writing centers have the opportunity to move toward greater equity and justice. We can guide and support writers even as they work to create, organize, and express knowledge through seemingly intractable and worsening social problems, such as climate catastrophe, state surveillance and anti-immigration enforcement, worldwide diplomatic failures, and global armed conflict and genocide. These conditions require crucial practices like conflict resolution, wellness, activism, and peace-making through the blending and remixing of diverse contributions. Sometimes, such encounters might end in satisfactory outcomes for those involved; sometimes, they might not. Often they lead to serious and potentially long-term professional and life consequences. Though messy and risky, these interactions show that writing centers nevertheless inhabit the potential for growth, innovation, and transformation through the blending and remixing of diverse contributions as well as the reminder that conflict, tension, and grievances are integral parts of exchange and transformation.

We welcome proposals from writing center administrators, faculty, instructors, consultants/tutors, or writing program administrators (WPAs) who work with writing centers, including graduate and undergraduate students as well as those working in settings outside of higher education, such as K-12 or community-based writing centers.

Proposals need to engage with the complexities of writing center work within the harbor or port of power, conflict, and possibility, where our histories, perceptions, assumptions, and dreams constantly shift, mix, and conflict through collaboration, resistance, and play. We particularly invite proposals that engage with transnational conversations about writing centers. The following questions can serve as guidelines for proposals:

  • How can writing centers serve as harbors for writers navigating challenging or unfamiliar writing processes? Can writing centers ever be “safe harbors”, and for whom?
  • In what ways can writing centers embrace remixing as a pedagogical strategy to support creativity and innovation in writing in K-12, higher education, and/or community settings?
  • What lessons around conflict resolution, wellness, activism, and peace-making can writing centers learn from the Collaborative and transformative dynamics of harbor cities like Baltimore?
  • What role does conflict play in the Collaborative writing process, and how can writing centers help writers navigate and grow through it?
  • How can writing centers balance the tension between supporting writers’ individual voices and helping them meet institutional or disciplinary standards? How is this complicated by the complex dynamics surrounding different social identities of writers, consultants, and/or intended audiences?
  • What strategies can writing centers, particularly in the context of directly supporting, mentoring, or educating writing consultants/tutors/staff, adopt to encourage play and experimentation in writing as a way to foster growth and discovery?
  • Within the context of collaboration, conflict, and/or remixing, what activism and/or collaborations are possible within and across institutions? What conflicts might arise from that, and how can they be addressed?
  • In what ways can writing centers act as spaces of resistance, challenging norms, standards, and structures?
  • How can the metaphor of a port or harbor help writing centers reimagine their approach to facilitating connections between diverse writers, ideas, and writing contexts?
  • What does it mean for writing centers to be sites of transformation, and how can they better support writers through moments of change, both personal and academic?

Session Formats

Note that more traditional “panel presentations” are not a feature of the IWCA Collaborative this year. The following session types highlight opportunities for collaboration, conversation, and co-authorship. All session types will be 75 minutes, with the exception of the pre-recorded asynchronous sessions. Conference organizers will share an updated IWCA Access Guide by March 1 on the Collaborative’s website, so Presenters/Facilitators can plan accessible sessions.

Roundtables (75 minutes)

Facilitators lead discussion of a specific issue, scenario, question, or problem. This format might include short remarks from facilitators, but most of the time is devoted to active and substantive engagement/collaboration with attendees prompted by guiding questions. At the end of the session, facilitators will help participants summarize and reflect on their takeaways from the discussion and think about how they will translate these takeaways into action.

Workshops (75 minutes)

Facilitators lead participants in a hands-on, experiential activity to teach tangible skills or strategies for data-collection, analysis, or problem-solving related to the Collaborative’s theme. Workshop proposals will include a rationale for how the activity can apply to a variety of writing center contexts, will involve active engagement, and will incorporate an opportunity for participants to reflect on the potential for specific future application.

Lab Time/Research Discussion Groups (75 minutes)

A lab time session is an opportunity to move your own research forward by either collecting data from participants or by using participants’ feedback to hone data collection instruments. You could use lab time to create and receive feedback on survey or interview questions, data collection, data analysis, etc. In your proposal, please describe what you want to do and how many and what kind of participants you need (ex: undergraduate tutors, writing center administrators, etc.). If seeking participants among attendees, facilitators will need to have institutional IRB approval as well as Informed Consent documentation for them.

Collaborative writing (75 minutes)

In this type of session, facilitators guide participants in a group writing activity intended to produce a co-authored document or set of materials to share. For example, you might collaborate on a multi-writing center position statement or a strategic plan for a cluster of writing centers (ex: coalitional goals for writing centers located in a specific city). You could also facilitate the production of separate but parallel pieces of writing (ex: participants revise or craft statements for their centers and then share for feedback). Proposals for Collaborative writing sessions will include plans for continuing or sharing the work with the larger writing center community after the conference.

Pre-Recorded Asynchronous Session (10 minutes)

In a pre-recorded audiovisual session, presenters can explore any topic that relates to the Collaborative’s theme. See the next section on “Asynchronous Participation” for more details on this session format.

Other

If you have a suggestion for a different session format, please feel free to propose. Please indicate the time frame you would need for your proposed session if it would take up less than 75 minutes and why). Please be aware that the schedule cannot accommodate sessions longer than 75 minutes.

Asynchronous Participation

The program chairs at UMB regret not being able to offer synchronous sessions and hybrid sessions due to limitations in space, technology, and staffing to support more extensive virtual participation. However, since not everyone interested in participating in the Collaborative might be able to travel to Baltimore in April 2025, we want to offer additional ways of access and participation:

Live Posting

We encourage participants to share insights and highlights from sessions on social media using the conference hashtag #IWCACollab25 to amplify the conversations happening at the Collaborative. Live posting is a great way to engage with colleagues, extend the reach of discussions, and document the dynamic exchange of ideas., Prior to the Collaborative, we will contact session facilitators about their consent to have attendees live post (or even live stream) their sessions or parts of their sessions. Not consenting to live-posting or live-streaming will also be an option. We will also ask session facilitators to indicate preferred social media platforms. Information about each session’s live-posting guidelines will be included in the program as well as on displays in the rooms, including the social media handles of facilitators. We also ask that all attendees follow guidelines to ensure ethical, respectful, and professional posting. These guidelines will be posted on the event’s website by March 1, 2025.

Pre-recorded asynchronous sessions

This year, we are experimenting with offering a hybrid option for remote attendees. We will accept audiovisual contributions from asynchronous participants, up to 10 minutes long, that will be available to both in-person and asynchronous participants a week prior to the Collaborative as well as during the Collaborative and for a short time afterward. In-person attendees will also have the option to make aspects of their in-person sessions available to remote attendees, to foster conversation and exchange between in-person and asynchronous attendees.

Submitted recordings will need to be captioned and include a link to a transcript that can be downloaded. More detailed directions will be available in the accessibility guide available on March 1, 2025. Please indicate in your proposal submission form if you need assistance with any accessibility features. Recordings must be uploaded by March 28, to leave sufficient time to be reviewed in terms of accessibility and to give asynchronous participants as well as in-person attendees a week before the Collaborative to view pre-recorded sessions. We will also have a room to view pre-recorded sessions during the Collaborative. Viewers will be able to leave comments to the presenters of pre-recorded sessions, allowing for interaction with each other online. Asynchronous participants will be charged a reduced registration fee.

After our review of session proposals, we will determine if we have a sufficient number of submissions for pre-recorded asynchronous sessions and will notify those who submitted proposals for this format as well as add communication about this option on the website.

Submission Deadline

Proposals (100-word summary, 300-word abstract, and a 100-word rationale for format) are due by February 1, 2025. To submit an proposal, log onto the IWCA Membership page at iwcamembers.org. Participants will receive notification by February 10, 2025. Those selected to facilitate or present will need to let the program chairs know if they accept by February 21, 2025. Questions may be directed to IWCA Collaborative chairs Isabell May (imay@umaryland.edu) and James Wright (james.wright@umaryland.edu); please add “IWCA Collab” to your subject line. Undergraduate and graduate students are welcome to connect with the conference chairs to discuss ideas, travel, and general questions.

Criteria for Evaluation

Proposals will be evaluated by at least two reviewers using the following criteria:

  • Active participant engagement in keeping with theme
  • Relevance to the field
  • Clear outcomes & appropriate for 75 minutes (or for 10 minute data dash/work-in-progress sessions)
  • Rationale for session format

Land Acknowledgment

The International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) acknowledges Indigenous People past, present, and future as the rightful and traditional protectors and caretakers of their native lands in what is known today by some as Baltimore, Maryland. We further acknowledge Indigenous People as the rightful and traditional protectors and caretakers of their native local watershed, which forms the Chesapeake Bay, whose name originates with an Algonquian word, Chesepiooc, indicating a village “at a big river.” We also recognize our participation in the historical, ongoing, and violent legacy of land and water theft initiated by white, colonialist settlers who first invaded the Chesapeake region in the 17th century.

Specifically, the 2025 IWCA Collaborative is being held on the ancestral lands of Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannock peoples and Algonquian-speaking peoples of the Cedarville Band of the Piscataway Conoy, the Piscataway Indian Nation, and the Piscataway Conoy Tribe, all of whom shared this area through their relations and whose descendants are thriving and resisting settler occupation along with Native People and Communities who have and continue to live, work, and shape the history of contemporary Baltimore, including those of the Lumbee Tribe and Cherokee Nation.

We acknowledge our complicity in the historical, deliberate, and ongoing attempts by setters and their systems of oppression to appropriate these and other Indigenous cultures, ignore or break treaties with sovereign Native Nations, and perpetrate and obfuscate racist and violent acts of political, social, economic, and ecological white supremacy. We further acknowledge the fundamental role that these colonialist acts have and continue to play in the historical and contemporary disenfranchisement, surveillance, and harm of Black Americans.

Recognizing these intertwining injustices, this land and water acknowledgment serves as an opening to contemplate the continuing resistance to colonial indoctrination through various Indigenous and Black movements for identity, freedom, and self-determination. We commit our sites of learning to end anti-Black racism, modern colonialism, and white supremacy and to creating equitable relations that honor sacred Indigenous water rights and heal communities and the land. We further advocate for ecological, relational, social, and political restoration and healing through the return of Native and Indigenous lands and waters to their sovereign, rightful stewards.

Author Note

One of the program chairs at UMB (Isabell May) used ChatGPT to create an initial narrative about the theme of writing centers and harbors. The other program chair at UMB (James Wright) provided feedback, which led to a major revision and expansion of the text. The revised text was then used in ChatGPT to generate questions to guide proposal creation. The questions in turn were revised by one of the program chairs (Isabell May) with input from the other program chair (James Wright). One of the program chairs (Isabell May) revised the first complete draft of the Call for Papers (CfP) based on feedback by the IWCA Executive Board. The CfP underwent another revision, carried out by one of the program chairs (Isabell May) after some email feedback and a conversation with members of the IWCA Executive Board. Language was also borrowed from the CCCC’s conference theme and was adopted in the Collaborative’s theme.

Lastly, the CfP from the most recent IWCA Collaborative @CCCC in Spokane, Washington, served as a model for this CfP, and some phrases were adapted.