By Nikki Membiela – Peer Tutor

Since its opening in 2010, the Daytona State College Writing Center’s mission has been “to help students, staff, and faculty achieve their communication-related goals by providing the educational support and resources they need to continually build upon their abilities in all genres and stages of communication.” In short, we’re here to help you feel more empowered as a writer. Empowerment in writing can look different on every person. Whether you’ve come to us for a quick glance for errors in your paper or because you want to feel more confident in your writing as a whole, we are committed to helping YOU be the best writer you can be. We aim to do this in a number of ways; primarily by providing resources, workshops, and one on one tutoring sessions.

A growing number of students and staff have taken advantage of our offerings, and the results speak for themselves. Just in the fall ’22 to spring ’23 semesters we’ve seen nearly a 70% increase in the use of our services! Not only does it bring us joy to know that you’re trusting us to help you on your educational journey, but we’re ecstatic that your hard work is paying off.

According to Dr. Elizabeth Barnes, Chair of Academic Support here at Daytona State College, students who use the Writing Center receive better grades in their introductory English courses than those who do not. Data from 2019 shows that 85% of students in Introduction to Composition (ENC1101) or Writing with Research (ENC1102) courses that used the Writing Center saw success in those classes as opposed to 76% in students who chose not to use our services. Additionally, students who come to the Writing Center even just once are 14% more likely to receive a passing grade on the assignment they work with us on. The success that you’ve continued to show in turn helps us to be more successful, too.

Although you may have individually overwhelmed our system with your love for us, we are able to tell you that as a collective you have made 1,080 sessions and counting. We’re excited to see these numbers grow because to us, they’re more than just numbers. The numbers are you! Our students, who we see becoming more confident in writing every day. It’s the hope of everyone at the Writing Center that we see these numbers grow, not just in quantity but in quality. The more we see you, the more confident we feel that you are receiving a quality education. After all, that’s what we’re here for; not to help you write better papers, but to help you become better writers!

Thank you for letting us grow with you. Seeing your success doesn’t just help us statistically – it helps us (your tutors) be the best versions of ourselves we could be. Every time that you come to see us, we become better teachers and better mentors. We hope that we can continue this relationship and help each other grow for years to come.

Now that we’ve given you your props for improving both us and yourselves, let’s get into some more numbers. During the spring ’23 semester we have seen more than 600 unique faces in our workshops, and more than 380 uses of our resources for a while. That’s not all, either; from last semester to this one, our numbers have drastically increased. Our Writing Specialists have conducted more than quadruple the amount of workshops they facilitated last semester – up to 94 from 21 in the fall. Even more drastic are the number of students that have rotated through the Attic. Last fall, the Attic hosted 37 students, and this spring, we opened the door for 1,115 of you. That’s right: the Attic’s usage has increased thirty-fold.