CAHSS Faculty Present at the 2019 Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference

Writing and Communication Center (WCC) Faculty Coordinators, Kelly Concannon (College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Associate Professor of Writing) and Janine Morris (CAHSS Assistant Professor of Writing), presented at the 2019 Feminisms and Rhetorics conference at James Madison University, November 13-16, 2019. Their presentation, “Mindful Mentorship, Self-Care, & Fostering Graduate Student Well-Being in the Writing Center,” focuses on a month-long mindfulness project the two conducted in fall 2018 with CAHSS Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media Master’s student Nicole Chavannes and alumna Veronica Diaz (both WCC graduate assistant coordinators at the time).

Their presentation focused on the effects of a four-week project Concannon, Morris, Chavannes, and Diaz undertook to examine how performing self-care and mindfulness practices affected mentorship and leadership positions. The presentation concluded with acknowledging the benefits and challenges of practicing mindfulness and self-care as mentors and provided attendees with strategies to enact in their own writing centers.

Concannon stated, “The conference allowed us to share our experiences cultivating mindfulness in the writing and communication center and to create collaborations with faculty and students who were additionally invested in feminist practices.”

The mindfulness project is also the focus of a co-written article by Concannon, Morris Chavannes, and Diaz that will appear in a forthcoming issue of WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship.