By Caitlin Cornell, Ph.D., Michigan State University and Maria Laura Zalazar, Ph.D. Student, Georgetown University

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.69732/VZGY4837

Introduction

The Spanish Writing Center (SWC) in the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University began as a collaboration between the Romance and Classical Studies department (RCS) and the Center for Language Teaching Advancement (CeLTA) to support undergraduate writers of Spanish at a particular stage in their world language writing development. Its mission: “The Spanish Writing Center’s goal is to assist undergraduate students who are taking Spanish courses with their writing and composition assignments. We focus on providing a welcoming environment for students to ask questions, improve their communication skills, as well as to take the time to review their writing in terms of coherence, cohesion, and other aspects that are important for a particular writing assignment.”

During its first five years, the SWC was administered by CeLTA. Later, due to institutional challenges, the SWC was shifted over to the MSU Writing Center (a shift that we describe in more detail in later sections of this article). From 2020-2025, CeLTA’s Assistant Director, Caitlin Cornell (first author), administered SWC operations, while the department’s collaborative support for SWC operations came in the form of a dedicated graduate assistant each year. Both units contributed to the SWC’s operating budget, each covering approximately half of the payroll for undergraduate writing mentors. SWC remained a shared initiative in this way for its first five and a half years. 

Our goals in writing this article are to shed light on the formation and operation of the SWC: to elucidate the SWC’s process and 5-year life before moving on to a different unit and provide a blueprint for language departments at other institutions who have contemplated creating a writing center support system for their students.

Another goal of this process piece is to highlight the critical role of graduate assistants’ contributions to the SWC. During the first five years of operation, graduate assistants ran the operations, shaping the identity of the SWC, and making it what it is. In turn, experience with SWC operations and graduate assistants’ close interfacing with the SWC supervisor offered a tangible mentorship opportunity for graduate students in MSU’s Romance and Classical Studies programs.The SWC graduate assistants for 2020-2026 who wished to be mentioned in this article are: Maria Laura Zalazar (2020-2021) (second author), Lau Romero (2021-2022), and Kailey Henderson (2022-2023).

In the rest of this article, we will use the following terms to refer to SWC stakeholders: student visitors will be referred to as “clients” (except in rare cases of positioning them as students vis-à-vis their instructors), the personnel helping clients with their writing one on one will be referred to as “undergraduate writing mentors,” the graduate students working for the center will be referred to as “graduate assistant [name]” or “SWC Operations GA,” and the university personnel serving as the official HR supervisor of the SWC Operations GA will be referred to as the “SWC Supervisor.”

Laying the Foundation

The department had identified a very specific need: writing support for students in SPN 320: Cultural Readings and Composition. Faculty were noticing students struggling with the writing process in the writing assignments of this course in particular. Together, the chair of the RCS department and the director of CeLTA established the center to serve specifically students in the SPN 320 courses, and they assigned a Graduate Assistant funded by RCS and the Assistant Director of CeLTA as its organizational infrastructure. Caitlin, CeLTA’s Assistant Director, would manage the SWC, serving as the supervisor by offering direction and support, and the RCS graduate assistant would be charged with implementing daily SWC operations. The first SWC Operations Graduate Assistant Maria Laura was brought on board to research Spanish Writing Center paradigms that might work in the Michigan State University context; the SWC owes to Maria Laura its early identity and foundation.

One of our first tasks in building the foundation of the center was to clearly define roles. As CeLTA’s Assistant Director, Caitlin would manage the center (lead, supervise, approve, and support), and the assigned graduate assistant would run daily operations including most of the interfacing with the undergraduate writing mentors. Caitlin would meet with the graduate assistant weekly at minimum (at least in their first semester working for the SWC), as well as onboard and train the graduate assistant at the very beginning of the fall semester each year.

During the summer of 2020, much of the foundational work involved researching existing Spanish Writing Centers that could inform our local context. Michigan State University serves over 40,000 undergraduate students. In the academic year 2025-2026, roughly 2200 undergraduates are enrolled in Spanish language courses at MSU. There are 9 sections of SPN 320 annually: four in the fall, four in the spring, and one in the summer. Although each section is capped at 26 students, enrollment typically ranges from approximately seven students in the summer section to 26 students during the regular academic year. Another important part of the foundational work involved meeting with faculty members who taught SPN 320 to learn more about the aspects of writing with which students struggled most and to establish clear policies for addressing their needs. These meetings also helped us build collaborative relationships with faculty and clarify the role of the SWC in supporting their courses. The meetings also provided us an opportunity to encourage faculty members to promote the SWC and its services to their students, which was especially important during the SWC’s first year. 

Our early research also focused on identifying institutionally available software that could support the SWC’s day-to-day operations, including tools for appointment scheduling, document sharing and storage, video meetings, and surveys. Over the course of that summer and early fall, we built the SWC website and scheduling system, interviewed and hired our first undergraduate writing consultants, established initial policies, and began serving clients. 

Setting Policies 

Much of the work of the SWC, largely for CeLTA’s Assistant Director but always with input from the graduate assistant, was policy related. That first summer of 2020, we set our first iteration of policies. We revisited our policies yearly, and also as-needed (which was frequently because of our newness). 

An early policy consideration was setting clear and explicit expectations for stakeholders, which included receiving input from SPN 320 instructors. Early meetings were held to clearly establish our respective roles while making sure we could meet both instructors’ and clients’ expectations regarding the services we provided. After those meetings, we added information to our website giving an overview of roles and responsibilities, as well as expectations for different stakeholder groups. For example, these expectations were outlined on the original SWC landing page on the CeLTA website (Appendix A).

We were also diligent about choosing terminology. Caitlin wanted to honor the graduate assistants’ thorough and autonomous work (this role was far from grunt work), with a specific title. So, rather than describing the role as merely “graduate assistant” we made a subtle but symbolic choice to give the role a proper title: SWC Operations Graduate Assistant.” Similarly, to emphasize our values with respect to what writing process support should look like, we named our undergraduate employees “writing mentors” instead of “tutors.” We felt that the lexical shift would authentically reflect our perspective of writing mentors as helpers who offered guidance and support, not raw editing, which fell outside the scope of the SWC’s mission. 

One of our first priorities was establishing clear policies and procedures for writing consultations. This process included determining what a typical session between a writing mentor and client should look like. To promote consistency across consultations, mentors were trained to run sessions according to the following general outline:

• Building rapport
• Sharing the client’s electronic document
• Establishing goals by reviewing the assignment instructions and rubrics together as well as understanding the client’s goals for the session
• Reading the draft aloud or silently
• Sharing observations and suggestions regarding overall structure, coherence, and cohesiveness. Grammatical errors could be pointed out through indirect feedback if egregious, but should not be the focus of the session
• Engaging clients in their writing by asking questions about style and intention
• Sharing additional resources posted on the SWC website
• Preparing a work plan for the client (toward the end of the session)
• Closing the session, inviting the client to come again
• Completing the Visit Summary form and sending it to the client  

One of the key policies we developed was session documentation through the Visit Summary form. Sent directly to clients after each consultation, the form summarized the main issues and provided concrete next steps for continuing the revision process. 

Clients could choose to share the form with their instructors as evidence of their engagement with and progress on a draft. Because the form was provided to clients rather than sent directly to instructors, this process preserved client agency and maintained an appropriate separation between the SWC’s mentoring role and instructors’ evaluative responsibilities. 

We also decided early on what hiring and training would look like for writing mentors, which is described in dedicated sections below.

Establishing Infrastructure

An early step for the supervisor and graduate assistants was to set up an email address, a website, and various logistical tools. We settled on using those tools best supported within our Michigan State University ecosystem, namely Microsoft Office tools: cloud storage in OneDrive, Teams for communication between SWC personnel, and a Bookings account to be used for appointment scheduling. The Bookings platform allowed us to track total appointments per user (e.g., to cap at 8 sessions, to make sure mentors’ time could be shared among many clients rather than to just a few per semester), and to monitor no-shows (a couple of years into SWC development we adapted the no-show policy such that paid mentors for their time if they incurred a client no-show up to 2-hours before the scheduled session).

The appointment duration offerings changed a little over time, but we mostly settled on 30-minute appointments, 45-minute appointments, and 1-hour appointments. We created policy documentation to explain which length of meeting would suit which type of assignment or help needed, to help clients gauge their needs before booking their appointments: “The center offers three types of virtual sessions: 30 minutes for shorter assignments (>1 page), 45 minutes for intermediate length or if the client is unsure of which type to pick (1-2 pages), and 1 hour for 3+ pages and/or more complex writing.” Our decision making was outlined explicitly in the operations manual (a training and institutional knowledge document that we describe in the “graduate assistants” section below).

Because of the timing of SWC’s creation in the early stages of the pandemic, we decided early on that the SWC’s modality for client support would be fully remote. We revisited that decision frequently to ensure it remained the modality of preference for clients and mentors. For example, we deliberately asked about modality preferences in regular satisfaction surveys as well as the focus group research study we conducted (described in more detail in the evaluation section below). Because we found just enough interest in in-person engagement in our center evaluation, we pursued establishing some in-person sessions on a pilot basis in 2022-2023. Graduate assistant Kailey was instrumental in arranging the in-person sessions at the library. When we reached out to the MSU Writing Center for advice on arranging for appointments in an additional modality, MSU Writing Center personnel offered that we could map our sessions onto their existing infrastructure and hold sessions at the MSU library in their reserved spaces at designated times. The pilot was successful in that some clients did take advantage of in-person sessions and we cultivated a symbiotic working relationship with the MSU Writing Center. Ultimately, in-person library sessions were not widely used by SWC clients and we discontinued in-person sessions in favor of returning to exclusively remote operation. 

Mentoring Graduate Assistants

Graduate assistants’ duties included responding to SWC email inquiries, interviewing undergraduate writing mentors, making changes to the SWC website, managing the bookings platform, maintaining platforms and infrastructure, compiling summative data (in the form of semester and annual reports, described more in the evaluation section below). One of our graduate assistants was instrumental in refining organizational procedures and updating documentation. In the first two years, the SWC Operations Graduate Assistant also shared some hours hosting consultations with SWC clients just like the undergraduate writing mentors. After the second year, it was decided that the SWC Operations Graduate Assistant should only be tasked with center operations and not writing mentoring, first because operations tasks were already a considerable workload. Also, some instructors and clients were showing preference for the mentor sessions provided by the graduate assistant, a native speaker of Spanish, even though the undergraduate writing mentors were advanced Spanish speakers who also provided skilled guidance and robust feedback. 

Training the graduate assistants was a monumental task, particularly with so many systems to maintain and having to repeat the process yearly. To build institutional knowledge and help Caitlin offer consistent training without too heavy a lift each fall semester right as the semester was getting started (graduate assistants should not work outside of their contract hours, and thus were not available for training during the summer), Caitlin and graduate assistant Lau co-constructed a training manual for the graduate assistants. Lau was the first major architect who brought the vital graduate assistant voice to the manual, and they captured the SWC Operations GA experience expertly. The training manual included information related to all SWC operations in the purview of the graduate assistant (Appendix B). 

Hiring Undergraduate Writing Mentors

The hiring and training of undergraduate writing mentors, like so much of our center operations, grew and evolved over time. The first year, undergraduate writing mentors were hired by invitation only. SPN 320 instructors were asked to share the contact information of potential candidates, specifically former 320 students who (a) had taken the course (b) excelled in it, and (c) were officially declared Spanish majors or minors. After the graduate assistant contacted them by email, several expressed interest in working as writing mentors, and interviews were scheduled.

Before each interview, the graduate assistant shared several documents with the candidates. These materials included information about what the role entailed, what writing mentors would and would not do during meetings with clients, and two sample pieces of client writing. Candidates were asked to read the samples carefully and identify areas for improvement without marking directly on the documents. During the interview, the graduate assistant reviewed the role-related documents and answered any questions the candidates had. The graduate assistant then role-played as a client while the candidate acted as the writing mentor, allowing both parties to simulate what a meeting with a client might look like. On average, three undergraduate writing mentors were hired each academic year. Each mentor would work according to their own availability which ranged from 5-15 hours in a given week, and were able to choose their own schedules and work remotely.

Training Undergraduate Writing Mentors

Undergraduate writing mentors were required to have taken SPN 320 themselves, not only as a way to mark proficiency among mentors, but also to ensure background knowledge about the course and its assignments and goals. Candidates who met those requirements completed an interview before being hired as mentors. The SWC Operations GA then trained newly hired mentors through a series of sessions based on a training manual developed specifically for the SWC. Training addressed the following areas:

1. SWC systems and administrative procedures (e.g., time tracking and payroll)
2. Professionalism, communication channels, and mentor responsibilities
3. SWC policies, including like the no-show policy for both mentors and clients
4. How to run sessions, making emphasis with particular emphasis on how to address grammatical and lexical errors.
5. Completing the Visit Summary form
6. Preparing for observations
7. Understanding mentor evaluation 

Initial training was supplemented by sessions held every two weeks during the first months of employment, as well as regular check-ins with the GA.

Building Relationships 

Our outreach and communication with MSU stakeholders consisted of visiting classes, joining meetings of the SPN 320 instructors, creating and distributing flyers and other messaging through department listservs and posting hardcopy posters around campus. Occasionally, our approach also included special events and announcements on social media. Graduate assistant Maria Laura held an event with the Spanish Club in 2021, and graduate assistant Kailey organized a pizza party in our physical space for clients to meet and mingle with us as well as the undergraduate writing mentors.

Clear messaging was a constant concern and something we were very deliberate and responsive about. One persistent element was the very exclusive “only SPN 320” nature of the SWC; clients and faculty alike would often unintentionally expand SWC’s limited scope of support, which meant that we had prepared language ready to respond to persistent requests and accidental bookings by students in classes other than SPN 320. When that happened we just sent reminders that the SWC was developed specifically to support writers in 320, and we made sure to emphasize that in visits to SPN 320 classes when publicizing the centers in new semesters.

Evaluating Center Efficacy

The SWC engaged in evaluation practices to ensure it was serving clients’ needs, to strategically plan for the future, and to inform and reinforce its budgetary needs. In order to assess our current state and future plans, we asked questions about our usage and practices by gathering stakeholder data. The SWC’s internal, formative assessment was conducted via satisfaction surveys developed in Qualtrics and emailed to clients and SPN 320 faculty. Clients would receive surveys after every appointment as well as at the end of each semester. Faculty received surveys at the end of each semester. Response rates were generally low, but also consistently trended toward positive feedback.

We engaged in a single research study during the CeLTA-administered life of the SWC. We wanted to focus on our primary, most direct audience: the client experience at the SWC. Monique Yoder, a graduate student in MSU’s Second Language Studies program and employed as a graduate assistant by CeLTA in a different capacity, led a focus group study on client satisfaction. Major takeaways from the focus group study were:

1. Clients believed that SWC support would be helpful to contexts beyond just SPN 320.
2. Clients found the SWC a valuable, motivating resource to supplement SPN courses.​
3. Clients would like to see SWC sessions offered to students in other SPN courses.​
4. Clients believed students have to experience a session to see how good SWC is (Faculty recommendation was hugely impactful in encouraging and sometimes requiring clients scheduling sessions).​
5. The main page of the SWC website could be redesigned to guide clients to Bookings more effectively.
6. The online modality and interactions were convenient, efficient, and effective.​
7. If sessions were to take place in-person, then the Main Library would be an effective location.​

 Based on the findings of that study, we kept the online modality but decided to explore a pilot of in-person sessions based on some initial student interest that appeared in clients’ responses. 

The SWC’s summative evaluation was also internal, including semester and annual reports serving primarily as periodic updates to CeLTA’s director and RCS’s chair but also as a strategic planning tool. Reports were prepared mostly by the graduate assistants with some input and final polishing by Caitlin, and generally included information like important changes from one semester or year to the next (e.g., major policy changes), a list of currently employed undergraduate writing mentors, the number of applications for undergraduate mentors, appointment data from the Microsoft Bookings platform (total and monthly appointment breakdowns, no shows, etc.), student and instructor feedback highlights, and recommendations for leadership with regards to future planning.

We also compiled a 5-year report spanning the life of the center from fall 2020 through fall 2025, which provided a snapshot overview of highlights from that era of SWC operations. The 5-year report explicitly listed the administrative structure, named all 5 graduate assistants who led SWC operations, gave a complete list of every undergraduate mentor who had worked for the SWC, collated appointment data for all 5 years, provided a financial snapshot of how much each unit contributed to undergraduate writing mentor payroll, reflected on major milestones and achievements, summarized evaluation and our research study, and, importantly, ended with a synopsis of reflection and goal-setting for 2026 and beyond especially in light of major institutional change as described in the section below.

Facing Institutional Change

The SWC was founded in the summer of 2020, before universities had felt the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, CeLTA was a language center considerably (but not totally) focused on service-oriented internal support (e.g., maintaining language lab spaces, handling equipment rentals, and hosting in-person professional learning as well as conversation hours in its main space). Over the course of the pandemic, CeLTA’s core identity and scope metamorphosed in ways that eventually made its administration of the SWC unsustainable. Key among the factors that necessitated change within CeLTA were: (a) at the very beginning of the pandemic, CeLTA turned over a large portion of its discretionary budget to the college to mitigate budgetary concerns resulting from the pandemic; (b) additionally, in reaction to the radical modality shift of the acute phases of the pandemic to exclusively remote engagement for a period of years, CeLTA’s mission and scope progressively and nimbly adapted toward a more shared focus between internal support and remote support of audiences outside the institution. 

CeLTA successfully pivoted by cultivating a research portfolio on a national scale. Unfortunately, CeLTA was not immune to the profound moment of change facing so many institutions in higher education in 2025: CeLTA lost its Title VI funding due to widespread reductions in federal funding that year. Thus, the Assistant Director’s effort was needed in CeLTA’s all-hands-on-deck response to funding loss. Additionally, in spring 2025, as a part of college level budget cuts, CeLTA lost the part of its operational budget that had been allocated to cover student employees, thereby ending CeLTA’s ability to contribute to paying half of the payroll for SWC undergraduate writing mentors.

By the summer of 2025, it had become increasingly clear that CeLTA could not remain the steward of the SWC. However, it was also abundantly clear that the SWC was still needed; clients were still making good use of the SWC and appointments were reportedly helping them with their writing. CeLTA and RCS approached the MSU Writing Center, given its more robust existing infrastructure and considerable experience with writing center operations generally, about taking on SWC operations. In Fall 2025, CeLTA worked closely with the MSU Writing Center to transition operations and train the current RCS graduate assistant to switch over to MSU Writing Center systems and procedures. 

SWC operations were fully administered by the MSU Writing Center beginning in January 2026. Both CeLTA and RCS were very grateful that the MSU Writing Center, better positioned as a more sustainable long term partner, agreed to partner with RCS to continue the work of the SWC. 

Conclusion

The establishment of the SWC at MSU illustrates how a language-specific writing center can develop through sustained collaboration, both financial and operational, as well as supportive leadership and intentional policy development. Over the first five and a half years, the SWC adapted our practices while remaining committed to supporting our clients by means of thoughtful feedback provided by our writing mentors. By documenting the SWC creation, organizational structure and operational decisions, we hope this process piece offers practical and useful insights for language departments seeking to establish or strengthen writing support for their students. Although each institution and context is different, the success and challenges presented here may help inform the development of writing support services in languages other than English. 

Our history also shows the importance of consistent leadership and graduate assistants’ involvement in shaping the SWC’s identity and sustaining its operations. As the SWC transitioned to the MSU Writing Center management in Spring 2026, its guiding policies, shared mentors and clients expectations and core operational practices remain in place, showing how thoughtful design can help long-term sustainability even after major organizational restructuring. 

Appendix A: Excerpt on Shared Expectations from SWC home page

Overview

What writing mentors will do:

• Help you in the process of brainstorming ideas, preparing a draft, revising, and editing compositions.
• Provide one-on-one help and opportunities to ask questions.
• Help you develop skills to identify grammar and punctuation mistakes and improve your overall writing skills.
• Provide you with handouts and reference works on academic writing. 

What writing mentors will not do:

• Proofread your assignment. 
• Comment on grading or suggest the grade a paper might receive. (They can help clients interpret and respond to professors’ comments.)

*Students who are not enrolled in SPN 320, please see the FAQ tab.

Shared Expectations

The SWC’s primary focus is on our students, and therefore we aim to welcome them as many times as feasible. Students can attend a maximum of 8 appointments per month (this total of 8 sessions is regardless of the length of the appointments and the writing mentor who leads the appointments). Students are responsible for attending their booked sessions or canceling them at least 24 hours in advance. See the FAQ tab on our website for information about how to cancel and reschedule appointments. 

Clients: What to expect?

We will not write the assignment for the student. Additionally, we are unable to guarantee any type of grade. While the Spanish Writing Mentors will provide feedback during the appointment, it is up to the student to decide what changes/feedback they utilize in their assignment. This also includes asking pertinent questions to their respective instructors prior to the submission of any assignment. 

Please remember to cancel your appointment if you cannot attend. This is a free service that can be booked at least 24 hours in advance. If you need to reschedule/cancel your appointment, please do so as soon as possible to allow others to use that time slot. See the FAQ tab and the Student Handbook on our website for information about how to cancel and reschedule appointments. The deadline to cancel and/or reschedule your booking is six hours before the scheduled appointment time. Failing to do so through Bookings and/or through an email to your mentor, and/or not showing up to three appointments in a row will result in a 2-week penalization.

If shared expectations are not met by student visitors, the Spanish Writing Center staff will contact the student to discuss options for future visits.

The Spanish Writing Center abides by MSU’s general Academic Integrity guidelines. If Spanish Writing Mentors notice any sign of plagiarism during a session, they will notify the student immediately. 

The SWC writing mentors are not responsible for identifying or flagging language that may have been produced with the help of AI. Spanish students, you must make sure you’re only using AI responsibly and in accordance with your course policies. 

Instructors: What to expect?

The SWC does not report on student progress nor attendance directly to instructors due to its ethical implications. Under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), reports maintained internally by writing centers are considered education records, and thus require special handling (i.e., students’ consent). Therefore, we provide student clients with a visit summary that briefly describes what was discussed during the session. The student can then send the visit summary to their instructors should they wish to share that they visited the SWC. 

Appendix B: Topics in our training manual for graduate assistants

• “Quick links” for easy access to important platforms
• Legend to orient new graduate assistants to common descriptors like “writing mentors” (tutors) v. “student visitors” (visitors to the SWC)
• Contextual introduction to the center (not unlike the introduction in this article)
• Summary of personnel roles and scope
• References to institutional human resources information for graduate student employees
• “Get started” section serving as a map to orientation in the early days of the fall semester
• Timeline indicating the academic year life cycle of SWC operations
• Separate overviews of technical information related to each of the SWC platforms including how to gain access and customize (e.g., SWC website, shared email account, Microsoft Bookings account)
• Email templates covering common communication scenarios with clients and faculty
• Overview of undergraduate mentor hiring and training information (with links to additional internal resources like our observation protocol and sample student essays)
• Messaging and outreach for clients and faculty
• Evaluation: survey maintenance and semester and yearly reports
• Non-regular activities like special events and research studies
• To do list of graduate assistants’ outgoing “exit tasks” as they archived and revised information in preparation for their replacement for the next academic year.