Deadlines: Usually in January and July
The International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) serves to strengthen the writing center community through all of its activities. The IWCA offers its Research Grant to encourage scholars to apply and advance existing theories and methods or create new knowledge. This grant supports quantitative, qualitative, theoretical, and applied projects associated with writing center research and application.
While travel funding is not the primary purpose of this grant, we have supported travel as part of specific research activities (e.g. traveling to specific sites, libraries or archives to conduct research). This fund is not intended to support conference travel only; instead the travel must be part of a larger research program stipulated in the grant request. (Travel Grants are available for the IWCA Annual Conference and the Summer Institute.)
Please note: While a graduate student can be part of a team who applies for a Research Grant, individual graduate students and teams of graduate students are not eligible for this award. They should seek support through the Ben Rafoth Graduate Research Grant or the IWCA Dissertation Grant.)
Award
Applicants may apply for up to $1000. NOTE: IWCA reserves the right to modify the amount.
Application
Complete application packets will contain the following items:
- Cover letter addressed to current chair of the Research Grants Committee; the letter should do the following:
- Request IWCA’s consideration of the application.
- Introduce the applicant and the projectInclude evidence of Institutional Research Board (IRB) or other ethics board approval. If you are not affiliated with an institution with such as process, please reach out to the Grants and Awards Chair for guidance.
- Specify how grant monies will be used (materials, in-process research travel, photocopying, postage, etc.).
- Project Summary: One to three (1-3) page summary of the proposed project, its research questions and goals, methods, schedule, current status, etc. Locate the project within relevant, extant literature.
- Include evidence of Institutional Review Board (IRB) or other ethics board approval. If you are not affiliated with an institutional with such a process, please email IWCA for guidance at iwcaofficer@gmail.com BEFORE submitting an application.
- Curriculum Vitae
Those receiving grants then agree that they will do the following:
- Acknowledge IWCA support in any presentation or publication of the resulting research findings
- Forward copies of resulting publications or presentations to iwcaofficer@gmail.com.
- Strongly consider submitting a manuscript based on the supported research to an IWCA publication: The Writing Center Journal or The Peer Review. Be willing to work with the editor(s) and reviewer(s) to revise the manuscript for possible publication
- File a progress report to the IWCA. This report is due within twelvemonths of receipt of grant monies. Upon completion of the project, submit a final project report to the IWCA Board, in care of the chair of the Research Grants committee. It should be sent to iwcaofficer@gmail.com
Process
Proposal deadlines for the Winter cycle are usually late January/early February and late June/early July for the Summer cycle. After each deadline, the chair of the Research Grants Committee will forward copies of the complete packet to the committee members for consideration, discussion, and vote. Applicants can expect notification 4-6 weeks from receipt of application materials.
Stipulations
The following stipulations adhere to supported projects: All applications must be made through the IWCA portal. Submissions should completed by deadline listed in the membership portal depending on grant cycle. For further information or questions, contact the Grants Committee via iwcaofficer@gmail.com.
Recipients
1999: Irene Clark, “Student-Tutor Perspectives on the Directive/Non-Directive Continuum”
2000: Beth Rapp Young, “The Relationship Between Individual Differences in Procrastination, Peer Feedback, and Student Writing Success”
Elizabeth Boquet, “A Study of the Rhode Island College Writing Center”
2001: Carol Chalk, “Gertrude Buck and the Writing Center”
Neal Lerner, “Searching for Robert Moore”
Bee H. Tan, “Formulating an Online Writing Lab Model for Tertiary ESL Students”
2002: Julie Eckerle, Karen Rowan, and Shevaun Watson, “From Graduate Student to Administrator: Practical Models for Mentorship and Professional Development in Writing Centers and Writing Programs”
2005: Pam Cobrin, “The Influence of Tutor Visions of Revised Student Work” Frankie Condon, “An Extracurriculum for Writing Centers”
Michele Eodice, “An Extracurriculum for Writing Centers”
Neal Lerner, “Investigating the Histories of The Writing Laboratory at University of Minnesota General College and the Writing Clinic at Dartmouth College”
Gerd Brauer, “Establishing a Transatlantic Discourse on Grade School Writing (and Reading Center) Pedagogy”
Paula Gillespie and Harvey Kail, “Peer Tutor Alumni Project”
Z. Z. Lehmberg, “The Best Job on Campus”
2006: Tammy Conard-Salvo, “Beyond Disabilities: Text to Speech Software in the Writing Center”
Diane Dowdey and Frances Crawford Fennessy, “Defining Success in the Writing Center: Developing a Thick Description”
Francis Fritz and Jacob Blumner, “Faculty Feedback Project”
Karen Keaton-Jackson, “Making Connections: Exploring Relationships for African American and Other Students of Color”
Sarah Nakamura, “International and US-educated ESL Students in the Writing Center”
Karen Rowan, “Writing Centers in Minority-Serving Institutions” Natalie Honein Shedhadi, “Teacher Perceptions, Writing Needs, and A Writing Center: A Case Study”
Harry Denny and Anne Ellen Geller, “Description of Variables Affecting Mid-Career Writing Center Professionals”
2007: Elizabeth H. Boquet and Betsy Bowen, “Cultivating High School Writing Centers: A Collaborative Research Study”
Dan Emory and Sundy Watanabe, “Starting a Satellite Writing Center at the University of Utah, American Indian Resource Center”
Michelle Kells, “Writing Across Cultures: Tutoring Ethnolinguistically Diverse Students”
Moira Ozias and Therese Thonus, “Starting a Scholarship for Minority Tutor Education”
Tallin Phillips, “Joining the Conversation”
2008: Rusty Carpenter and Terry Thaxton, “A Study of Literacy and Writing in ‘Writers on the Move’”
Jackie Grutsch McKinney, “A Peripheral Vision of Writing Centers”
2009: Pam Childers, “Finding a Model for a Secondary School Writing Fellows Program”
Kevin Dvorak and Aileen Valdes, “Using Spanish while Tutoring English: A Study of Writing Center Tutoring Sessions Involving Bilingual Tutors and Students”
2010: Kara Northway, “Investigating Student Assessment of the Effectiveness of Writing Center Consultation”
2011: Pam Bromley, Kara Northway, & Elina Schonberg, “When Do Writing Center Sessions Work? A Cross-Institutional Survey Assessing Student Satisfaction, Knowledge Transfer, and Identity”
Andrew Rihn, “Students Work”
2012: Dana Driscoll & Sherry Wynn Perdue, “RAD Research in the Writing Center: How Much, By Whom, and with What Methods?”
Christopher Ervin, “Ethnographic Study of the Coe Writing Center”
Roberta D. Kjesrud & Michelle Wallace, “Questioning Questions as a Pedagogical Tool in Writing Center Conferences”
Sam Van Horn, “What Are the Relationships Between Student Revision and Usage of a Discipline-Specific Writing Center?”
Dwedor Ford, “Creating Space: Building, Renewing, and Sustaining Writing Centers at HBCUs in North Carolina”
2013: Lucie Moussu, “Long-term Impact of Writing Centre Tutoring Sessions”
Claire Laer and Angela Clark-Oats, “Developing Best Practices for the Support of Multimodal and Visual Student Texts in Writing Centers: A Pilot Study”
2014: Lori Salem, John Nordlof, and Harry Denny, “Understanding the Needs and Expectations of Working Class College Students in Writing Centers”
2015: Dawn Fels, Clint Gardner, Maggie Herb, and Lila Naydan, for their research on the working conditions of non-tenure line, contingent writing center workers.
2016: Jo Mackiewicz for her forthcoming book Writing Talk Across Time
Travis Webster, “In the Age of Post-DOMA and Pulse: Tracing the Professional Lives of LGBTQ Writing Center Administrators.”
2017: Julia Bleakney and Dagmar Scharold, “The Guru Mentor vs Network-Based Mentoring: A Study of the Mentoring of Writing Center Professionals.”
2018: Michelle Miley: “Using Institutional Ethnography to Map Student Perceptions of Writing and Writing Centers.”
Noreen Lape: “Internationalizing the Writing Center: Developing a Multilingual Writing Center.”
Genie Giaimo, Christine Modey, Candace Hastings, and Joseph Cheatle for “Creating a Document Repository: What Session Notes, Intake Forms, and Other Documents Can Tell Us About the Work of Writing Centers.”
2019: Andrea Rosso Efthymiou, Hofstra University, “Tutors as Undergraduate Researchers: Measuring the Impact of the Extended Work of Writing Center Tutors”
Marilee Brooks-Gillies, Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, “Listening Across Experiences: A Cultural Rhetorics Approach to Understanding Power Dynamics within a University Writing Center”
Rebecca Day Babcock, Alicia Brazeau, Mike Haen, Jo Mackiewicz, Rebecca Hallman Martini, Christine Modey, and Randall W. Monty, “Writing Center Data Repository Project”
2020: Julia Bleakney, R. Mark Hall, Kelsey Hixon-Bowles, Sohui Lee, and Nathalie Singh-Corcoran, “IWCA Summer Institute Alumni Research Study, 2003-2019”
Amy Hodges, Maimoonah Al Khalil, Hala Daouk, Paula Habre, Inas Mahfouz, Sahar Mari, Mary Queen, “A Bilingual Research Database for Writing Centers in the MENA Region”
2021: Rachel Azima, Kelsey Hixson-Bowles, and Neil Simpkins, “Experiences of Leaders of Color in Writing Centers”
Elaine MacDougall and James Wright, “Baltimore Writing Centers Project”
2022: Corina Kaul with Nick Werse. “Writing Self-Efficacy and Writing Center Engagement: A Mixed Methods Study of Online Doctoral Students Through the Dissertation Writing Process”
2023: Leigh Ryan, Kathy Cain and Pam Childers,”Centered Hearts, Centered Minds: The Former Writing Center Directors Research Project.”
Elizabeth Miller, “A Mixed-Methods Study on the Effectiveness of a Typology as a Method for Organizing Peer-Led Graduate Writing Groups”
Joseph Cheatle, “Organization Theory and Writing Centers”