About Writing:

Mission and Values

The Walden University Writing Center supports learners in understanding and developing scholarly writing skills needed for academic, civic, and global engagement.

The principles that guide the Walden Writing Center, its employees, and their actions.

• We put students first.
• We are committed to providing quality resources, services, and instruction.
• We are innovators, proactively refining and developing writing pedagogies for always-changing online environments.
• We are responsive to student needs.
• We engage in and pursue collaborative opportunities across the university.
• We believe that resourcefulness is critical to our growth and development.
• We are committed to clear, positive, and transparent communication.
• We rely on and incorporate our employees’ abilities and expertise as writing professionals.
• We encourage and respect employee work-life balance through flexible work schedules.

Walden University students are at the center of the Writing Center’s mission, values, and practices. All students have the right to learn in an environment where diversity and inclusion is a valued asset and integral part of the community. Moreover, we recognize and value the perspectives that traditionally marginalized groups bring to our community, and we aim to learn from each student’s historical, cultural, and lived experiences. We are committed to treating all students, staff, and faculty in our community with empathy and respect. Ultimately, we work to foster students’ writing skills for the purpose of scholarly, civic, and global engagement.

One of our goals as writing center professionals and members of a university community dedicated to social change is to encourage students to realize their power to effect social change through research and practice. We recognize that our students’ knowledge of global languages and plural Englishes is vital to their critical awareness. Through consideration of rhetorical situation, we support their pursuit of social change through their scholarship. We are united in a common understanding at Walden that “intellectual inquiry is enhanced when multiple perspectives are integrated” (Walden University, 2016, p. 14). We, therefore, aim to promote a culture where students can pursue social change through inclusive scholarship that is informed by thoughtful reflection, civil discourse, and social justice.

We acknowledge that this statement is only as meaningful as our actions. As such, we see this statement as a guiding principle from which to grow. Diversity and inclusion must be an ongoing commitment that we reinvest in and sustain over time through intentional, reflective learning and cultural humility.  The following are some of our current diversity and inclusion-related initiatives:  

• We continue to have candid conversations and thoughtful trainings informed by current research on how diversity, unconscious bias, and cultural humility impact our practice and pedagogy throughout the Writing Center.
• We encourage Writing Center staff’s engagement and representation in various diversity and inclusion initiatives throughout Walden, including Walden’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group; Walden’s Diversity and Inclusion Ambassadors program; the Office of Academic Support’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Change Group; and the Writing Center’s Social Change Working Group.
• We respect and advocate for students’ use of inclusive language in scholarly writing through Walden’s Gender-Neutral Pronoun Policy and its People-First and Identify-First Language Policy.
• We recognize the disparity in cultural representation between Writing Center staff and Walden’s student population, and we are committed to improving upon the hiring and retention of traditionally marginalized populations.  
• We are pursuing the creation of an internship designed to not only foster diversity within Walden’s Writing Center and the larger writing center field but also to support a Walden graduate student's personal career goals.
• We are committed to providing instructional resources and writing services that are inclusive and accessible. To this end, we strive to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, including ensuring access to transcripts for video content and that resources are screen reader and keyboard accessible.
• We encourage staff to grow their cultural awareness and become their own social change agents through volunteer opportunities including the Global Days of Service and The Freedman Bureau Paper’s Transcribe-a-thon.

We will assess our progress and hold ourselves accountable to this Diversity and Inclusion Statement through these Center-wide objectives, as listed above, and in partnership with the Writing Center’s Social Change Working Group and the Office of Academic Support’s designated Diversity and Inclusion Ambassadors.

 

Reference

Walden University Diversity and Inclusion Working Group. (2016). Diversity and inclusion position paper [Unpublished manuscript]. Walden University.