The Catholic University of America

Faculty Resources

The Writing Center has a number of resources available to faculty at CUA. This page provides a basic outline, but but please don't hesitate to e-mail Brooks Lampe, the Writing Center Coordinator, with any questions you have about Writing Center services at cua-writingcenter@cua.edu. We look forward to working with you in every way we can.

For Your Students

We hope you will put information about the Writing Center on your syllabus. In fact, it is one of the best ways to introduce us to your students and make it easier for them to use our services. For a borrowable syllabus statement about the center and its work, click here.

You should also know that the staff of the Writing Center actively support the work of all teachers within the Catholic University community. While the Writing Center does focus its work on the individual student and must maintain confidentiality about what happens in a consultation, we do encourage students to communicate with their instructors about their work with us. We can also provide confirmation of whether a student has kept an appointment. Just ask us in your referral or require your students to give you an Appointment Confirmation Form after their required (or extra credit) appointments. We also ask that you assign a deadline by which the appointment must be kept if you are requiring or offering extra credit for Writing Center services.

Instructions for Referring Students Online

  1. Log on to http://english.cua.edu/wc
  2. Use your CUA Login and Password (as you would to access your email or the network).
  3. Click on "Make Referral" (upper left).
  4. If student is not in the Writing Center list on top, add him or her from the PeopleSoft list below. (Note: Graduate students are listed separately after undergraduates.)
  5. Once you have added student to the WC list on top, select student from this list and click "Submit Referral".
  6. A form will come up. In general, the more thoughtfully and thoroughly you fill this out, the better, as our consultant will use this information in the session with your student.
  7. To finish, the student must now schedule the appointment by logging in, going to the "Welcome Page / View Referrals" and scheduling a session.

Please note that students can also refer themselves; directions are given on this site and in the Writing Center brochure.

Note about Dissertators and Thesis Writers: The Writing Center can offer your advanced graduate students help with the written products of a thesis or dissertation, but we can also refer you to excellent resources to help your students through this complex, independent research. We have books on hand in the Center you can borrow and a number of web resources vetted by our coordinator to recommend. Please contact us directly for this kind of help.

For Your Teaching

If you want to incorporate more writing into your classes, the Writing Center offers two kinds of help: 1) a lending library of books on the teaching of writing and managing writing tasks and 2) borrowable lesson plans to help your students through all the stages of the writing process.

To borrow books, please drop by the Writing Center during regular operating hours and sign out the volume you want to read. For a full list or advice on useful titles, contact our coordinator.

For lesson plans and advice, please also email the Writing Center's coordinator at cua-writingcenter@cua.edu. She will be happy to send you samples, advise on your own lesson plans, or discuss the possibility of seminars for your students taught by Writing Center staff.

For Your Writing

The Writing Center is available for all writers in the CUA community--and that includes faculty. While faculty are certainly very experienced writers, writing tasks for unusual audiences or in unfamiliar genres can make any writer uncertain. The extra pair of eyes--and unbiased reader--offered found in the writing center model can help faculty work through those moments in their writing lives.

If you would like writing advice on a project, the best course of action is to contact the Writing Center coordinator by e-mail (cua-writingcenter@cua.edu) to ensure that you find the best, most specialized reader we can provide for you. Our staff members have varied backgrounds and expertise, and our coordinator can match you up with someone who can provide the help you need to make your writing the best that it can be.