Writing Center Director Leads Workshop at National Watson Conference

Dr. Joy Bracewell, director of the GCSU Writing Center, co-facilitated an invited workshop at the Thomas R. Watson Conference on Rhetoric and Composition, held November 5–7 at the University of Louisville. Watson is one of the longest-running national conferences in the field.

The workshop, “Making Our Work Visible: Writing Center Administrators as Campus Leaders,” grew out of the co-edited book of the same title. Dr. Bracewell’s part of the session was called “The ‘Soft’ Work of Leadership Is the Work of Leadership: Emotional Labor, Burnout, and What We Can and Can’t Control.” In it, participants from colleges across the country looked at the emotional labor involved in leading writing centers. They discussed why that work often goes unrecognized and left with practical strategies for sustaining themselves and the staff they support.