Writing centres have often been marginalised because they function outside of the mainstream curriculum and do not offer credit-bearing courses. The temporary nature of employment within writing centres, and funding that is often sourced externally (Clarence 2019; Dison & Kadenge 2023; Ginting & Barella 2022), further contribute to writing centres not being sufficiently integrated in university planning and structures. In this case, the chosen university has unstable institutional funding to appoint permanent coordinators or offer extensive tutor training and relies merely on part-time writing consultants with limited training opportunities. Another factor that impacts the marginalisation of writing centres is their relationships with academic staff. Historically, the role of academic staff has been the teaching of disciplinary knowledge. However, because of the diverse student body that enters this university, lecturers find that poor academic writing levels significantly impact teaching and learning. It is important to acknowledge that these challenges are experienced differently by students: first-generation students frequently feel excluded while navigating unknown academic cultures, while continuing-generation students may view the same experiences based on their families’ previous exposure to university. Content lecturers typically do not have the training, nor the time, to teach academic writing conventions, and therefore often make use of writing centres to support their students’ writing. The extent to which content lecturers partner with writing centres can impact students’ perception of the writing centre, and students are often hesitant to visit writing centres which are marginalised within university communities, specifically because of the deficit view attached to many of these centres – that only weak students visit these centres. This leads to a cycle of further marginalisation of writing centres, ultimately threatening their existence. Against this backdrop, this article argues that the marginalised position of writing centres poses a challenge for the sustainability of these centres within universities.

In South Africa, the engagement between academic staff and writing centre practitioners has often been dictated by necessity (Collett & Dison 2019) with limited interaction except in exceptional cases where both parties were eager to collaborate. However, a wealth of opportunity for collaboration exists. Archer (2010), for example, indicates the important role content lecturers play when writing centre consultants teach students approaches to academic writing including the use of voice and other conventions such as referencing. Teaching and learning of such aspects of writing are simply more effective if they are embedded within disciplinary contexts and curricula (Archer 2010; Moxley & Archer 2019).

When the teaching of these aspects is restricted to the domain of writing centre consultants, without collaboration with content lecturers or reinforcement of writing centre learning in students’ content classes, students tend to distrust writing centre consultants, as these are seen as peers with less power than their content lecturers (Rodriguez 2020). While peer consultants have the affordance of providing a more supportive environment, since they are fellow students who are more easily approachable, without collaboration between the writing centre and content lecturers, a power dynamic can be created where students claim that they were ‘misled’ by writing consultants who contradict comments from lecturers (Rambiritch & Carstens 2022; Rodriguez 2020). Thus, instead of a synergistic relationship between academics and writing centres, conflict can arise that might marginalise writing centre support even further (Appleby-Ostroff 2017; Rodriguez 2020).

Another point of potential conflict that can arise between academic staff and writing centres is different views of how good academic writing is developed. Archer and Parker (2016), for example, found that content lecturers were often far more rigid compared to consultants when assessing the writing skills of students, mainly because lecturers tend to focus on lower-order issues such as grammar instead of higher-order writing abilities and heavily penalise students for poor grammar usage (Archer & Parker 2016). Writing centres, however, have long resisted being ‘fix-it shops’ (Drennan 2017; North 1984) for grammar editing. Increased collaboration between writing centres and academics could help towards dialogue around what constitutes good writing and could mediate mutual expectations.

Rodriguez (2020:2) describes autonomy as the degree to which a ‘student experiences self-determined independence, separate from outside influence’. He believes that the most common way to achieve agency and autonomy is through collaborative, peer-directed learning methods that students will seldom encounter within traditional classroom settings (Rodriguez 2020). This non-hierarchical approach is evident in the literature on writing centre pedagogy, in that peers consider how students want to learn, in contrast to lecturers who might be out of touch with the needs and realities of students (Rodriguez 2020). Although peer engagements can replicate indirect forms of positionality, the imbalance of power in lecturer and student relationships means that lecturers’ comments and decisions might influence aspects such as students’ grades and progression. Accordingly, the scholarship on writing centres from the 1980s onward largely promoted a noninterventionist ideology ‘cautioning tutors about imposing their own ideas on a student’s text’ (Clark 2001:33; Moore 2023). However, all writing consultants are not equally able to use methods that encourage student autonomy and this can cause tensions between the student, the lecturer and the writing centre consultant.

To address the challenge of some writing centres remaining undemocratic spaces, Rodriguez (2020:3) introduced a ‘minimalist’ approach which outlines the role of writing centre consultants as ‘making the student do all the work’. However, this creates an inconsistency, as some consultants restrict autonomy by providing unrestrained direction while the minimalist approach of other consultants undermines support by removing guidance, thus shifting the complete burden of learning to the student. Although the minimalist approach enhances student autonomy and problem-solving confidence, directive tutoring has been demonstrated to improve fast task performance and decrease errors (Carstens & Rambiritch 2021). Some writing centre interactions successfully encourage autonomy by using non-directing language, integrating student views to ensure students feel valued and motivated, and recognising students’ expressions of disagreeable emotion (Patall & Zambrano 2019).

This democratic approach is also supported by South African writing centre experts such as Erasmus (2021) and Nichols (2020), who believe that students want to be noticed and heard by choosing their own languages and own words to construct their ideas and meaning and take ownership of it. However, they argue that our present writing centre culture does not promote independent and creative thinking, and very often isolates students and limits their creativity (Erasmus 2021; Nichols 2020). Undemocratic writing centre spaces, as argued by Rambiritch and Drennan (2023), mainly result from a directive approach taken by some consultants during consultations, who still adopt a ‘teacherly’ role instead of a peer-tutoring approach. Clarence (2019) likewise shows that writing centre consultants struggle to produce playful and creative consultations where students can practise their agency and voice as writers without too quickly arriving at a firm decision that meets both disciplinary and academic standards.

Within writing centre spaces, it is therefore important to emphasise to all stakeholders that consultants are collaborators, not assessors, to prevent students from depending solely on their feedback for grading and to help students take ownership of their own work. An unequal relationship could pose a challenge for the sustainability of the writing centre because writing centre consultants could be held accountable for students receiving bad grades. This could result in writing centres further marginalising themselves.

A qualitative research approach was employed to evaluate the commitment of lecturers and students to work towards the sustainability of a South African writing centre. This article focuses on the first two stakeholders, namely students and lecturers. Focus group interviews were used for students and lecturers to obtain what Babbie (2021) describes as a rich understanding of social phenomena.

The total of 20 lecturers and 48 students were selected for this study through purposive sampling, which means selecting participants in specific settings or roles matching specific criteria (Etikan, Musa & Alkassim 2016). The selected participants were chosen as they would be able to offer access to specific experiences (Henning, Van Rensburg & Smit 2004); in this case, participants who had interacted with the writing centre were essential to understand the motivations behind these interactions. Four focus group interviews consisted of five lecturers per group, and 48 students were divided into eight focus groups, comprising six participants per group. Both students and lecturers were all from diverse faculties including Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology, Health and Environmental Sciences, Humanities, and Management Sciences, with several departments within each. The size of the focus group is supported by Basnet (2018), who proposes that the group size should range between four and ten participants, as managing interviews with larger groups can become challenging.

The criterion for selecting student participants was that they had to have been undergraduate students who had physically visited the writing centre before the COVID-19 pandemic. Lecturers included in the study were permanent lecturers who had previously collaborated on discipline-specific writing tasks. All of the focus group interviews were conducted in person; interviews took approximately 60 min., and were audio recorded for later transcription.

The audio recorded data were transcribed into a written document. This was read in combination with the raw notes taken during the data collection processed. Patterns started to emerge as far as themes were concerned and were highlighted in the field notes, as recommended by Smith, Flowers and Larkin (2009). Subsequently, data were analysed through thematic analysis, by means of an inductive and descriptive process (Shaw 2010). Thematic analysis presented an open and theoretically adaptable way of analysing qualitative data (Braun & Clarke 2006).

This study forms part of a broader research project for a doctoral study. Ethical clearance was received from the University of the Witwatersrand and the Institutional Planning and Quality Enhancement at the university where the study was conducted. The ethical clearance number is H21/09/12. The author confirms that the content has not been previously published or disseminated and complies with ethical standards for original publication. Participants were given detailed information about the purpose of the study, and they were made aware of their right to withdraw from the study at any given time without consequences. Anonymity of participants was ensured throughout the data analysis process. A numbering system was used both during the focus group interviews and during data analysis to protect the identity of the participants. Verbatim quotes were used during the analysis and reporting stages. Before the official analysis started, the transcribed document was sent by email to all the participants, giving them a chance to make any amendments or clarifications; no amendments were requested due to this.

The importance of actively creating an awareness of a service such as the writing centre, which is often seen as peripheral to the university, emerged from the viewpoints of both students and lecturers. Feedback from students specifically indicates the role of lecturers in sensitising students to the value of the writing centre. Several students indicated that they would not have known about the writing centre had it not been for their lecturers, as indicated by the quotations below:

The data show that several of the students’ lecturers demonstrated high levels of commitment towards the sustainability of the writing centre by actively making their students aware of these services during classes. Another student indicated that ‘My lecturer puts the writing centre information in her study guides’ (Student 7, focus group 2, Faculty of Management Sciences), indicating how lecturers can structurally integrate links to the writing centre through course documentation, and that in contrast to anecdotal accounts from lecturers, some students do in fact read this documentation. This evidence of lecturer agency in creating awareness of the writing centre is supported by best practices reported on in the literature.

Skead and Twalo (2011), for example, indicate how the University of Fort Hare requires lecturers to include information about their writing centre in all learning guides and assignment information. Similarly, Dison and Kadenge (2023) indicate that it is impossible to think that students would ‘show up’ at the writing centre without a referral from their lecturers, highlighting the cultural constraint at the institution.

Student 9 (focus group 2, Faculty of Management Sciences) pointed out that ‘I went, and I was happy’ highlights the influence that lecturers hold not merely as advisors, but also as agents who can actively contribute to student engagement with support services. In addition, this student’s further reflection that ‘students are still trying to find their identity in new environments, so lecturers need to encourage first years’ further emphasises the critical role of lecturers in guiding students through transitional phases at university. This sentiment is echoed by Lecturer 8 (focus group 2, Faculty of Management Sciences), who shows great awareness of the information overload faced by students as they embark on university studies.

The quotations above provide examples of lecturers as agents who act deliberately to influence students’ awareness and behaviours with regard to the writing centre. In social realist terms, this resonates with what Archer (2000) refers to as an ‘active agent’ – someone who can exercise some control over their own life. These lecturers as active agents therefore act synergistically with the writing centre (Appleby-Ostroff 2017; Rodriguez 2020) to ultimately ensure the sustainability of this resource that, through this collaboration, works towards students’ academic writing self-efficacy.

Some lecturers take another approach in terms of active agency. Lecturer 6 (focus group 2, Faculty of Management Sciences), for example, indicates that ‘I must ambush my students. They think they will have class, then the writing centre people show up’. Although exercising dominance over students could be a strategic move to support student writing through such a collaboration with the writing centre, this type of support could result in what Archer (2000) refers to as a ‘constraining contradiction’. While the lecturer’s aims are to help students improve their own writing, by taking away their autonomy, students might instead form a negative perception of the writing centre, which might threaten its sustainability within the university. Thus, instead of a synergistic relationship existing between academics, students and the writing centre, conflict can arise that might marginalise writing centre support even further (Appleby-Ostroff 2017; Rodriguez 2020).

Another form of constraining agency from lecturers is by choosing not to make students aware of writing centre services. If lecturers are silent about resources such as the writing centre, they can unconsciously hamper students who might otherwise benefit from these services, which, at the same time, creates a constraining environment for the writing centre and threatens its sustainability. One reason why lecturers might choose not to encourage their students to attend the writing centre might be because they do not trust in the quality of the writing centre consultants, which highlights the cultural constraint of the writing centre towards offering valued services.

Several lecturers indicated a desire to be more involved in the selection of writing centre consultants:

To get the buy-in from lecturers in the writing centre’s aim to be more integrated into the academic programme through collaborative awareness raising, the writing centre might need to consider this desire from lecturers to be more active agents in shaping academic support structures such as the writing centre. The temporary nature of writing centre consultant positions further raises the difficulty of these structural constraints in terms of the experience and training levels of these consultants. One lecturer, for example, commented on an experience of a consultant leading a class session:

Another lecturer commented on consultants communicating unprofessionally: ‘You would expect someone working in the writing centre to know all the correct formalities to set a good example’ (Lecturer 8, focus group 2, Faculty of Management Sciences). Inadequate training of writing consultants can therefore act as a constraint for the sustainability of writing centres. As Behari-Leak (2015) points out, it is problematic to expect consultants with no recognised training in facilitation or workshopping skills to conduct sessions or offer workshops.

In addition to the theme of lecturers supporting the writing centre through awareness making, a further theme that emerged was that of collaboration at the level of actual teaching and assessment. There are certainly both structural and cultural constraints to such collaborations.

Universities typically do not support them through resources (either financial or logistical); in addition, subject specialists bringing language specialists into their teaching spaces is not part of institutional culture (Collett & Dison 2019). However, some lecturers in this study indicated a clear desire for formalising more collaboration with the writing centre, which in turn would contribute to its sustainability as an integral part of university student support. Some of the ideas proposed by lecturers are indicated here:

The response by these lecturers emphasises a current lack of communication and collaboration between the writing centre and lecturers. Lecturer 17 (focus group 4, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology) indicated that the writing centre must play a more central role in building relationships and reaching out to lecturers: ‘It feels like if you have to [do] something with the writing centre or collaborate with them, you should approach them, and it should be the other way around’. Structural constraints in terms of timetabling and planning are evident, for example, from the statements by Lecturers 13 and 15, who indicate the importance of planning a year in advance. However, such collaborations are often difficult and sustaining them after a first intervention even more so (Collett & Dison 2019; Esambe & Mkonto 2017). There are several possible reasons for this. One is the temporary nature of writing centre positions, which make it structurally difficult to maintain relationships. Another is that lecturers often only see the writing centre as a support service that can be briefed about assignment expectations, rather than a partner in collaboratively developing student writing (Collett & Dison 2019). These challenges around collaboration and communication were highlighted by several lecturers, evident in their statements:

Both lecturers and students, however, showed some agency in proposing ways in which relationships between the writing centre and the faculty could be strengthened:

These responses indicate a need for frequent communication from the writing centre, but also a need for more formalised integration of writing centre services into students’ assessment tasks. More formalised collaborations, according to lecturers, can also include the writing centre being part of staff meetings and student information sessions, as well as the need for formalised workshops which can be integrated into institutional planning. Writing centres such as that at the University of Fort Hare already have partnerships with lecturers, in that lecturers invite writing centre staff to address students in classes (Skead & Twalo 2011). In line with Archer’s (1995) social realist theory, for such sustainable relationships to be lasting, solid procedural outlines and a commitment of hands-on teaching and writing centre collaboration with lecturers is needed at an institutional level (Dison, Oware & Maropola 2023). This is illustrated well by Lecturer 5 (focus group 1, Faculty of Humanities) who noted that ‘the writing centre cannot function without the support of academic staff because it’s their students and they know best how’.

Another theme that emerged from both lecturer and student focus groups is creating incentives for writing centre visits. Archer (2000) describes agency as the ability to act deliberately, make choices, and exercise control over a person’s professional role, and the following lecturers demonstrate how they do exactly this to get their students to make use of the writing centre:

These lecturers exercised their agency by structurally creating incentives through mark allocations to encourage students to visit the writing centre. Their personal emergent powers of adjustment and creativity manifest in, for example, designing rubrics that encourage writing centre visits. Rather than accepting the status quo, these lecturers applied their personal emergent powers of adjustment and negotiation, using this opportunity to encourage students to visit the writing centre.

There is, however, a fine line between incentive and penalty, and how lecturers frame mark allocation can influence students’ perceptions of autonomy. Lecturer 15’s (focus group 3, Faculty of Management Sciences) indication that they ‘will have to force you to help yourself’ might be communicated similarly in class and might again result in a constraining contradiction (Archer 2000). This becomes quite clear in Lecturer 5’s (focus group 1, Faculty of Humanities) framing of penalising students for not visiting the writing centre:

Although such requirements might improve the writing skills of all students and force them to engage with feedback from writing centre consultants, it can also limit students’ agency in their choice of resources to draw on for assignments. Writing centre consultants elsewhere, for example Arbee (2020), have found that this can result in students who ignore the feedback from writing centre consultations, which emphasises the cultural constraint that students only go to avoid losing marks. Interestingly, multiple students who had previously used writing centre services indicated a belief that writing centre visits should be compulsory:

One can assume that these students felt they had benefitted from their interactions with the writing centre, so much so that they believe visits should be compulsory for all students.

Agency, however, is closely linked to autonomy, and it might be that these students benefitted because they acted as primary agents (Archer 1995) in choosing to visit the writing centre. Incentivising writing centre visits, rather than restricting personal agency through enforced visits or penalties, might encourage more students to seek out support from the writing centre.

A limitation of this study is that all students interviewed had frequented the writing centre in previous years. It would be interesting to also get the perspectives of students who chose not to do so.