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The idea of a writing center at the State University of Iowa was born in 1934 when English Professor Carrie Ellen Stanley (see photo), or Miss Stanley, as she was called, taught Introduction to Literature in the basement of Jessup Hall. Miss Stanley, for whom Stanley Residence Hall was later named, met individually with her students to help them with their writing. Soon, students who had problems with writing were placed in Miss Stanley's class so that they could receive this one-on-one instruction. In 1945, when the English Department developed Communication Skills, the reading, writing, and speaking program that was the forerunner of today’s Rhetoric Department, Miss Stanley stopped teaching literature and started directing a Writing Lab, or Laboratory, where as Miss Stanley said, students labored to become better writers. At the same time, Communication Skills created the Reading and Speaking Labs.

During Miss Stanley's tenure as Writing Lab director, the Lab was viewed as remedial, a place to send troubled or problem writers, especially those who had failed the placement or exit exams. Teachers worked with these students on a particular structure called the attitude paragraph (a topic sentence that expressed an attitude and then supporting sentences that presented examples) that would enable them to pass the exam.

Carrie Ellen Stanley	Cleo Martin

Miss Stanley retired in 1954 and was followed by a number of Communication Skills professors who took turns as Writing Lab director. An especially well-known professor, who directed the lab from 1963-65, was Cleo Martin (see photo), who, along with Lou Kelly (see below), created the Professional Development Program, a learning and sharing forum for new rhetoric teachers which is still going strong today. In fact, the Rhetoric resource room, where rhetoric teachers gather to locate materials and discuss teaching strategies and curricula, is called the Cleo Martin Room. Cleo, as she was called, was a firm believer in encouraging, affirmative responses to writing–responding to what writers are saying, not to the way they are saying it. In the 1950s, the Communication Skills Program became the Rhetoric Program, which then became the Rhetoric Department in 1988.

This 1961 photo (above) shows the building that used to house the University of Iowa Writing Center until it was destroyed by fire in 1970 (below).

The director whose name is synonymous with the University of Iowa Writing Lab is Lou Kelly (see photo below) who had worked two years as a lab teacher for Miss Stanley in the 40s. Kelly started directing the Lab in 1965, when Cleo Martin decided to pursue her doctorate, until she retired in 1989. From 1963 to 1968, Communication Skills and the Labs were located in Old Armory Temporary (see photo), famous for its thin, corn-husk walls, naked light bulbs, clanking radiators and excessive heat. In fact it was so hot in the summer, that Kelly demanded that the Lab be moved to 110 English and Philosophy Building (EPB), which was used during the year as a study hall. When the Armory burned during student protests in 1968 (see photo–a reaction to "the attitude paragraph"?), the two enormous Old Armory rooms that were the Writing Lab amazingly did not burn. When Communication Skills moved to EPB, Kelly made sure she secured room 110 for Writing Lab all year where it still is today.

Kelly developed Rhetoric 10:09, a credit-bearing individualized writing and reading course designed to prepare students for 10:01. When so many students were signed up to take 10:09 individually that it strained the teaching staff, in 1986, Kelly designed an equivalent classroom course, Rhetoric 10:89, especially for inexperienced writers with lower ACT scores. The course required lab hours in addition to classroom hours. Often underprepared athletes took this course before 10:01, and if they didn’t work hard, Kelly made sure ex-football and basketball coaches Hayden Fry and Tom Davis knew about it. To counter the rigidity of the "attitude paragraph," Kelly created a pedagogy based on "invitations," writing assignments that took advantage of the strength of writers' voices and experiences and were read as acts of communication from one human being to another rather than as demonstrations of verbal proficiency.

In 1986, the Writing Lab stopped offering 10:89 in response to extremely low enrollments due to changes in University admissions and National Collegiate Athletic Association standards, and the belief that students would do as well with less stigmatization in Rhetoric 10:01 with optional, rather than mandatory, Writing Lab hours. A few students a year who need to prepare for 10:01 still take 10:09. In 1999, we changed our name from Writing Lab to Writing Center because to some teachers, especially those in the national writing center community, "lab" sounded too clinical and too much like a medical model of diagnosis and treatment of illness. Our new name, Writing Center, erases any remaining remedial connotations and expresses the idea that writing can be a problem for everyone (Writing researcher Linda Flower said that writing is a problem-solving process). The Writing Center is now the locus for collaboratively solving problems inherent in writing, thinking, and revising.

For Lou Kelly's keynote address at the 2001 Midwest Writing Center Association Conference, September 14-15, Iowa City, IA, click here.

For more on UI Writing Center history, see: