Graham Stowe, assistant professor of English and director of the Canisius Writing Center, published an article in WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship (49.2, Winter 2025) titled “‘Everything Counts’: Impacts of Centering Social Justice in a Writing Center.”
The article explores the impact of social-justice-centered tutor-training courses, like the one Stowe teaches, on student-tutors.
Stowe’s ENG 390, Tutoring Writing, the course that Canisius tutors take in preparation for their work in the writing center, is grounded in Paulo Freire’s educational philosophy emphasizing radical empathy, dialogue and empowerment. Stowe’s research documents the positive outcomes of this approach. The students in the study showed evidence of personal growth, greater openness to diverse perspectives, and increased awareness of how writing center work connects with the kind of social justice and care for the whole person that is at the core of our Jesuit mission.
Stowe’s study suggests that “a writing center explicitly oriented towards justice shows extraordinary promise for nurturing more conscious, engaged citizens.”
Submitted by: Mick Cochrane, Professor, English
