Mission of the UIC Writing Center

Our Mission

The Writing Center works together with students on writing and engages them as valued members of the UIC community. We welcome students who represent the varieties of English used nationally and globally and strive to counter the damage done by educational practices that maintain white linguistic supremacy.

  • Community Writing is learned best in environments that foster community.

  • Inclusion We strive to create reciprocal learning spaces for individuals of all identities and linguistic backgrounds.

  • Collaboration Tutoring is tailored to each individual and both tutor and student facilitate the tutoring conversation.

Our Practice

Tutoring is tailored to each individual and both tutor and student facilitate the tutoring conversation.

The Writing Center invests in tutoring that is conducted by peers. Without judgment, tutors talk to fellow students about strengths as well as opportunities for improvement. Tutors take interest in the content of writing and create opportunities for fellow students to make choices about their writing. Writing is learned best in an environment that fosters community.

  • Without judgment Tutors talk to fellow students about strengths as well as opportunities for improvement.

  • Take interest Tutors take interest in the content of writing.

  • Make choices Tutors create opportunities for fellow students to make choices about their writing.

Our Ongoing Learning and Education

Integral to our mission is offering a training program for tutors that is meaningful for their academic, professional, and personal development. Our training course (ENGL 282) is open to all students who are willing to learn from each session and respect and support all students who use the Writing Center.

We seek to innovate by conducting research on writing development, creating evidence-based tutoring practices, and learning from the vitality that each new cohort of UIC students brings to our understanding of literacy and its relationship to students’ goals and dreams.

The Writing Center works with faculty and administration to make tutoring welcoming, inclusive, and equitable. The Writing Center seeks to embody UIC’s mission “to transform lives and serve society by educating, creating knowledge, and putting knowledge to work on a large scale and with excellence.”

  • We strive to foster inclusive, research-driven tutoring that supports student development and UIC’s mission to educate and serve with excellence.

UIC Writing Center Land & Water Acknowledgement

The UIC Writing Center strives to create reciprocal learning spaces for individuals of all identities and linguistic backgrounds, including Indigenous peoples. We welcome students who represent the varieties of English used nationally and globally and strive to counter the damage done by educational practices that maintain white linguistic supremacy.

We are committed to supporting the Indigenous community in the following ways:

  • Providing our tutors with training on reciprocal learning practices
  • Educating ourselves about the impact of settler colonialism on English language practices and education
  • Providing our tutors with training on writing and responding to land and water acknowledgments
  • Being available to Indigenous organizations on campus to collaborate on events and learning opportunities

The Writing Center inhabits spaces built on the traditional homelands of the peoples of the Council of Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Bodéwadmi, as well as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, Fox, Kickapoo, and Illinois nations. Before settlement, this was a space of thriving communities that established a prosperous trade network. Although the United States attempted to exploit the Chicago treaties of 1821 and 1833 to effect dispossession and forced removal of these sovereign nations, today, the city of Chicago is home to one of the largest and most vibrant urban communities of Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island, with more than 65,000 Indigenous residents representing 175 different Nations.

As part of a higher education institution, we share a responsibility to understand the relationship between settler colonialism and education. The University of Illinois, chartered in 1867 in Champaign-Urbana, has benefitted from the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862 that used Indigenous territory to build public universities. Furthermore, we remember that historical legacies of settler-colonial language and literacy education in school systems breed contemporary settler-colonialism in modern writing and academia, and we actively work to reverse those structures. Our goal is to create a sense of belonging for Indigenous students at our center by challenging settler-colonial language structures and implementing equitable tutoring practices. We also aim to support the robust Indigenous community at UIC, including groups such as the Native American Support Program and the Indigenous Graduate Student Association, whose work in community building and activism have strengthened the UIC community as a whole.

Join us in learning more about the 500 years of settler-colonialism that have taken place in this country. Many of us have much to learn about Indigenous people, their knowledge, and their ways of being. We must take action to make our communities more just for Indigenous peoples.

Below are some resources to learn more about how we can support the Indigenous community at UIC:

For resources about writing and rhetoric related to Indigenous peoples, see below:

  • Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples by Gregory Younging, 2018
  • Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson, 2008
  • CounterStories from the Writing Center, edited by Frankie Condon and Wonderful Faison, 2022
  • Survivance, Sovereignty, and Story: Teaching American Indian Rhetorics, edited by Lisa King et al., 2015
  • We All Go Back to the Land: The Who, Why, and How of Land Acknowledgements by Suzanne Keeptwo, 2021

Learn more about the Indigenous peoples of Chicago here:

This Land & Water acknowledgement was initiated by the Writing Center tutor Ella Rappel after attending workshops at the 2023 Conference on College Composition and Communication about support for Native American communities in higher education writing programs.