Adele Holoch

"For me, the process of writing can be easy and fluid in one moment and incredibly arduous in the next. As a Writing Center tutor, I enjoy learning about students' writing processes and working together to make their experiences as productive and rewarding as possible. I'm a PhD student in the English department, with interests in postcolonial literature and humor. I enjoy reading and writing, being outside, and spending time with my husband, our tennis ball-happy dog, and our two crazy cats."

Jacob Horn

"With every student I tutor, I always look to see what my experience can give them as well as what their writing can teach me--and I have learned a lot from my students. This has helped my writing for papers in the English Ph.D. program, which has ranged in focus from ethics and literature to popular culture and form analysis. Whenever I am not writing papers or reading for class, I like to read science-fiction for fun and especially enjoy comic books, though I am also an avid gamer and enjoy playing adventure and role-playing games."

Megan Knight

Rhetoric Faculty

"I think my primary goal as a tutor in the WC is to help students develop a sense of ownership of and control over their composition work. Ultimately, I'd like to make myself unnecessary as a tutor; if I can help students learn to look critically at each writing task they're presented with, to ask themselves hard questions, and to develop effective revision strategies, then they'll end up needing my assistance less and will have become more independent learners. I'm an essayist and poet, as well as a teacher. I travel whenever I get the chance. I enjoy biking and yoga, and I'm a novice rock-climber."

Olga Kulikova

"When working with a group of students, every teacher tends to give assessment by comparing them with each other. I often feel that it is not quite fair. I believe that we should compare the current results of the students' work with the achievements they made before. Writing Center is the right place for that. Besides, communicating with students one on one lets me enjoy diversity of people who come to my session and every student's unique personality. I am a teacher of English and Russian, and a second-year MA student in the Department of Education. In my free time I enjoy reading, listening to music, and walking. I like being out in nature and sharing what I see through photographs. I love animals and miss my huge naughty Russian cat."

Annie Parker Liss

"I enjoy tutoring because of the opportunities inherent in sharing and discussing ideas in a one-on-one context. I have found that my own writing becomes more focused and persuasive when I take the time to discuss its content and form with another writer. I hope to provide my students with a similarly positive writing experience. As a Ph.D. student in the History Department, I am currently doing pre-dissertation research. The working title for my dissertation is 'Alternative Americanisms: Late Nineteenth Century Perspectives on American National Identity.' In my spare time, I enjoy watching movies, reading, and hanging out with my husband and four cats."

Jen McGovern

"Working in the Writing Center gives me the opportunity to meet a diverse group of students who share their writing--as well as their struggles and successes in academic life--with me. I maintain the Writing Center's web site and I am also a commenting mentor for the Writing Fellows Program. I am a Ph.D. candidate in the English Dept., working on my dissertation on the republication and revision of women's Indian captivity narratives. (Revising your writing is always important!) In my spare time, I like to read fantasy novels, watch Top Chef and Grey's Anatomy because I can't cook gourmet meals or perform brain surgery, and hang out with my three cats, who like to play and sleep as much as I do."

Dennis Moore

Rhetoric Faculty

"One reason I enjoy the Writing Center is that the students teach me so much—about the subjects they study, the places they come from, the ideas that excite them. In return, I try to help them share some of my fascination with how language works, how people use language, and how language helps make us who we are. When not reading, I spend most of my free time cooking, listening to music, and watching movies."

Cinda Coggins Mosher

Rhetoric Faculty

"I appreciate the fact that the Writing Center allows me the privilege of on-on-one instruction with students from all over the university--and all over the world. I earned my Ph.D. from the English Department in 2001 and am now a Lecturer in Rhetoric. I enjoy living on a small farm with my husband and our four sons, running, and playing soccer."

Emma Rainey

"The Writing Center provides a supportive community for writers--I can’t resist it! As an undergraduate, I used the email tutoring service and, without question, the help that I received made me the collegiate scholar that I became. I am currently enrolled in the Nonfiction Writing Program, though I have spent most of my life as a dancer, choreographer, and served as artistic director of two ballet companies. I also attended the RISD and the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston. My life now includes being a single mom with four daughters and we’re all great fans of reading, baking biscotti, going to New York and seeing theatre, dancing and watching movies. Our favorite place in the whole world is in Northern California--The Trinity Alps--where we camp and hike and swim and raft on the Stuart Fork River every summer."

Galen Reddin

"Although any philosophy should embrace challenges and collegial friendships, tutoring is informed by our pasts and we should bring our pasts to our practices in ways that enhance the Writing Center's Mission. I'm in the Social Foundations of Education (Ph.D.) Program, investigating early learning related experiences of academics from working class backgrounds. I seek therapy through participation in two local bands, watching stupid movies, and pretending that my cats care about what I say to them."

Carol Severino

Writing Center Director

"My favorite part of tutoring is getting to know the students and their areas of interest. I love it when students are enthusiastic about their writing topics and teach me about them. As a writing center director, my goals are to reach more student and community populations with our services, or at least with the message about the value of planning and revision in the writing process. I like to keep up with my twin sons, now 25 (!), learn new languages, play the drums, swim and walk by the lake with my dog, and in the summer, cook what I harvest from my garden."

Sara Sullivan

"I really value the cooperative spirit that the Writing Center fosters between the tutors and students. I'm a Ph.D. student in the Film Studies Department. I study U.S. film, Hollywood, critical cultural theory, and documentary film. I have a cat named Freddie, a nephew named Nate, and a fiancé named Josh. Those three plus the Ph.D. program and the Writing Center keep me pretty busy."

Mary Trachsel

Rhetoric Faculty

"Tutoring in the Writing Center gives me a chance to meet all kinds of students and discover how they think and what their education means to them. Learning about what excites and motivates or frustrates and confuses students helps me to be a better classroom teacher because it helps me know my audience. I enjoy the opportunity I have in the Writing Center to know students as individuals. In my free time I like to read, travel, swim, write, and spend time with my family and animals."

Sam Van Horne

"I believe I can be an effective tutor both when I allow the student to guide the direction of the session and when I serve as an audience for the student's writing, not as the person with 'answers.'" Sam Van Horne is a Ph.D. student in Language, Literacy & Culture. His research interests include computer supported collaborative learning and writing center pedagogy. Before Sam came to the university, he taught composition and literature at Kirkwood Community College. His hobbies include fishing, traveling, and running.

Stephen West