Photo Courtesy of Jenny Yu ‘24
By Kate Donovan-Maher ’25
Staff Writer
Though writing a paper or preparing a presentation can seem overwhelming, the Speaking, Arguing and Writing (SAW) center is available to help students in need, now featuring newly appointed faculty director of the center, Mark Shea.
Shea, who is also a senior lecturer in the English department and the coordinator of the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Program, became the faculty director of SAW at the beginning of the fall 2021 semester. Shea is also. The SAW program is a peer mentoring program that pairs trained student mentors with students looking for help with writing or speaking assignments.
“The goal [of the SAW Center] is not so much focused on the end product of a specific paper, but instead helping students develop their own skills to become better writers, arguers and speakers,” Shea explained. This goal also helps to distinguish between mentors and tutors. A tutor may help with a particular assignment in a direct way, whereas mentors, as Shea put it, “[are] really there to be a sounding board for what the student is really trying to do. It’s the student’s paper … the mentor is someone there to use their experience and their listening to reflect back on what [the student is] trying to do.”
Within the program, Shea works with Kimberly Jeffers, the SAW Center’s assistant director, to keep the center running smoothly. He is responsible for the policy and practices of the center, hiring mentors and overseeing their training. The training course Shea runs is a two credit course held in the second half of the spring semester that all mentors must complete before they are eligible to work in the SAW center. But before that, mentors must either apply to the program or be nominated by a faculty member, in addition to completing an interview — all steps to ensure that students who go to the center receive consistent, top-notch help.
In addition to working at the SAW Center, mentors also work with specific classes. In the fall semester, the mentors are most directly involved with the First Year Seminar (FYS) program, although, as Shea said, “classes up and down the curriculum” may also have a class mentor. Mentors periodically meet with the professor of the course they are assigned to, and they may attend class meetings or run workshops for students in the class. Since all first year students are required to take a FYS, this helps new students form a connection with a more experienced student while also becoming acquainted with the SAW center. According to Shea, many first year students apply to be mentors in December of their freshman year.
Shea acknowledged that, despite the connections made in the FYS mentor program, many students are still nervous to reach out to the SAW Center. Nonetheless, he believes that, “because it’s a peer mentoring system, it’s much less intimidating,” and the process of making an appointment is very straightforward. He explained that appointments can be made at any stage in the writing or preparation process, and students should not feel the need to be at the “right” stage. A student could make an appointment as early in the writing process as brainstorming ideas, to as late as the very end, if the student wanted someone to check over their work. Students can even choose a specific mentor they would like to meet with, based on that mentor’s major and background.
Unlike a tutoring session or meeting with a professor, Shea emphasized that meeting with a mentor “is a process of mutual learning, the mentors are learning from their mentees, the mentees are learning from their mentors. It’s a really great collaborative experience.”
This year, the SAW center is also offering virtual meetings and asynchronous help sessions, alongside their usual in-person appointments and drop-in hours.
In addition to complications due to the pandemic, Shea faces another challenge in this new position: getting to know the sheer number of students he is now responsible for. There are roughly 50 mentors working for the center, and, he said, he’s only “used to teaching classes where I know the students fairly well, fairly quickly.”
Despite challenging circumstances, Shea finds his work extremely rewarding. He stated that the work is “a really great way to have a different type of conversation in a different setting about academic discourse.” He is also enthusiastic about the program.. “I want to express my excitement about the work we are doing, and I encourage any student to make an appointment and see if it works for them,” he said. “I think it’s a really great program.”