About Us

Award-winning Writing Center alum Abigail tells you more about the Writing Center services and tutors.  

Writing Center History

The Writing Center, founded in 1976 by Bonnie Zelenak as the Writing Lab, has supported students at Mizzou for almost 50 years. In 1994, it was the second writing center in the country to establish an online presence for asynchronous feedback on student writing: the Online Writery. 

Now, the Writing Center supports anyone with an MU pawprint, including faculty, postdocs, and distanced-students, for free throughout their time at Mizzou. Services are available in-person at the Columbia campus, via Zoom, and through the Online Writery. Writers of all levels can expect detailed feedback and revision options focused on “Higher Order Concerns” and “Later Order Concerns” for any stage of the writing process, regardless of the modality used. 

The Writing Center employs a wonderful staff of between 50 and 100 tutors each semester. That staff is composed of undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate writers; all tutors receive formal training before they begin tutoring and attend regular training workshops throughout their employment.

The timeline below chronologically illustrates significant moments at the Writing Center over the last 50 years.

Writing Center Tutors

Undergraduate tutors have taken General Honors/English 2015HW: Theory and Practice of Writing Tutoring, a 15-week honors- and writing intensive-course that prepares them for writing center work through the study of writing center scholarship, observations of current tutors, and tutoring session “takeovers.” If you’re interested in taking the course, please contact the directors for more information about enrollment and wait lists. 

Writing Fellows are graduate students from across Mizzou’s campus who work primarily with students enrolled in Writing Intensive courses. In addition, they can also participate in our GRAdmin program, which offers Writing Fellows professional and administrative experiences in the Writing Center.

Graduate Writing Support tutors work as part of our Graduate Writing Support program, made possible in part by generous funding from the Graduate School, the College of Education and Human Development, and the Master of Public Health program. These tutors are current or post-graduate students that work primarily with graduate students who utilize the Writing Center.

Writing Center Advisory Board

In 2022, the Writing Center established an Advisory Board with faculty representing many of the schools, colleges, and departments from across campus. Advisory Board members act as liaisons between Writing Center administration and Mizzou’s campus community to enhance our services and best support student writers.

On the right side of this page, you’ll find even more information about our current staff as well as our past few annual reports. Please feel free to click around or come see us at one of our sites on campus!