Finding Harmony in Disharmony: Engineering and English Studies

A consultant walks into the University ofAlabama–HuntsvilleWriting Center, sets her books on the desk in the back, and finds an unoccupied computer station to check her schedule for the day. She clicks on the name of her first client and glances down at the summary section of the dialogue box: “I need help with my ISE paper,” the student has written. Hmm, an engineering student, she thinks with a little apprehension, as she prepares herself for a challenge. A group of engineering students then floods in, accompanying the one who actually made the appointment. They explain the project on which they are writing—a type of project she has never written before, a type of project with which she has no previous experience. She wonders if she will give appropriate advice or if she will be able to think of anything to say at all. She wonders if she will even be able to understand the intricate, jargon-laden draft. Then she takes a deep breath, knowing that these students are looking to her for help, and starts asking questions. This is a hypothetical example of how a writing center consultant might feel about working with a student from an unfamiliar discipline. Although consultants work with students from a wide range of disciplines every day, informal talk among consultants and formal discussions at monthly staff meetings frequently reveal a common insecurity about working with students in unfamiliar disciplines. However, since writing centers rely on building successful relationships with students, consultants must understand how to initiate effective interaction with all students, even those with subjects outside their comfort zone. Because UAH has a large engineering college and because many of our writing center consultants are English majors, we decided to focus on the relationship between these two disciplines.Although various articles discuss the writing center’s significance in merging the gap between the engineering and English departments, very little research exists on the interpersonal relationship that develops between writing center consultants and engineering students, and even less on the strategies used by consultants within these relationships. Therefore, we decided to conduct research to explore the similarities and differences in consulting strategies when working with engineering and English students. Although we expected consultants to communicate more effectively with students from English classes than with engineering students, we found the opposite. While the consultants we observed exhibit the supportive behaviors central to writing center pedagogy, their familiarity with English papers lets them be controlling and assertive with English students. Conversely, their lack of familiarity with engineering forces them to remain engaged in an open and equal dialogue with those students. By relying on questions, the consultant in our opening scenario does exactly what consultants should do with any student.While we do not suggest that lack of knowledge or expertise itself produces effective consultants, our counterintuitive discovery does remind us that emphasizing supportive consulting strategies during consultant training is crucial; moreover, in light of this conclusion, we may need to train subject-area “experts” differently than “non-experts.”