Become a Writing Tutor
Do you love the idea of helping your fellow students achieve confidence in their writing? Consider applying to join our amazing team of tutors! When you work at the Writing Center, you become part of a supportive team that fosters your personal and professional growth.
Tutor Application Form
Click here to fill out our tutor application form.
Is the Writing Center right for you?
Do you have a passion for helping students’ writing? Do you want to help develop confidence in their writing skills? Are you interested in working with a group of encouraging and passionate colleagues that is dedicated to improving the writing of fellow students? If so, then the Writing Center just might be the place for you.
Don’t be discouraged if you are not an English major. The Writing Center hires students from all majors: Anthropology, Communications Studies, Community Health, History, Psychology, and more. Since writing is important in all disciplines and students from every major on campus utilize our services, our team is intentionally comprised of writing tutors from a variety of fields.
How to Apply
Step 1: Fill out the online application.
Please read through the entire application before completing it, as you cannot save and return later to finish it. In addition to the application form, you will need to create and submit a digital introduction. This is a short video (60 seconds or less) to informally introduce yourself to the Writing Center Staff. Be as creative and fun with this as you like. Most importantly, just be yourself! Post the video to YouTube and paste the link into the online application form. Here are a couple of examples from past applicants to spark your creativity.
Step 2: Interviews.
Applications are accepted year round, but at this time, applicants will hear back from the Writing Center in Winter Term at the earliest. The process for being hired by the Writing Center is extremely competitive. Annually, 4-8 interns are hired from a pool of 25+ applicants. Hiring typically occurs once each year; after the interviews are completed, invitations to join our team are sent out, and once accepted, training orientation will be determined.
If you have any questions, you can call the Writing Center at 503.838.8286 or email us at writingcenter@wou.edu.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do WOU students love to work at the Writing Center?
Our writing consultants find their work to be professionally and personally rewarding because their ultimate objective is to help student-writers succeed. Our staff is granted the opportunity to witness students develop self-efficacy and confidence in their writing abilities, and consultants go home each day knowing they made a difference. Additionally, as part of the Writing Center, our consultants have the chance to belong to a friendly, thoughtful, and engaging campus community. The Writing Center fosters an encouraging and supportive environment where the staff truly becomes like a family to the consultants. Work hours are flexible, the people are fabulous, and the work is meaningful. What’s not to love?
Who is the Writing Center looking to hire?
We look for individuals who want to learn and assist others in learning; are professional, punctual, considerate; and can interact well with a variety of people and English proficiency levels. Basically, if you are eager to be a part of a community who learns together, enjoys one another, and serves our fellow Western Oregon University students with excellence and care, then the Writing Center is a great place for you to apply.
What will happen in the internship course?
The internship course is a tutor’s opportunity to learn all about the craft of writing through the art of being a skillful tutor. This class teaches the ins and outs of a tutoring session, it helps tutors understand writing from a student’s point of view, and ultimately teaches them how to put all of this knowledge together in a meaningful way that enables students to grow as writers. The internship course does more than simply teach grammar and rules; the course also shows tutors how to make writing, in all its facets, accessible and enjoyable for our students. In this classroom setting, tutors also make those initial connections with each other and form bonds that carry over to the Writing Center environment.
What does Writing Center employment do to prepare students for their future careers?
The Writing Center is a stimulating and rewarding work environment: consultants receive outstanding training; they improve their own reading, writing, and responding skills as they work with students from a variety of disciplines and diverse backgrounds; they gain valuable work experience, cross-cultural communication skills, and cross-disciplinary writing skills that are applicable wherever they may decide to go – and they go just about everywhere.
Here is just a sampling of what our superstar consultants have gone on to do:
- Earning a Ph.D in Ancient Philosophy or Psychology.
- Attending the University of Glasgow in Scotland and now teaching in Portland.
- Winning a Fulbright scholarship and teaching English in Germany.
- Teaching Language Arts in local high schools.
- Working as an attorney in the area.
- Teaching college writing classes at WOU.
- Establishing a writing center in a Portland high school.
- Serving as a rehabilitation counselor.
- Working full-time as professional staff members here in the Writing Center and being integral parts of our team.
