BALTIMORE INFORMATION

Hey kids! I'm reposting Dr. Bob's email here for point of reference. Information on Baltimore!!

"What follows is travel schedule, housing information, and some basic guidelines on our participation in the conference. For those of you flying to Baltimore, I will send you a separate e-mail tomorrow morning; I'll also send some suggestions/guidelines for the final steps in preparation of the posters.

Travel schedule for folks driving to Chicago on Tuesday, Nov. 2. We load the two 15-passenger vans and the two automobiles (my Honda Odyssey and Jacquie’s vehicle) at 12:00 noon. Meet at the Writing Center, and we’ll load in the loading dock driveway. Our goal is to be on the road by 12:10. Be sure all Baltimore support materials for poster presentations are packed and ready to go by 11:00 a.m. Each team will be responsible for getting their poster materials to the conference. We will not stop to eat after we depart, so be sure you have either eaten before hand or bring food with you.

Luggage and clothes: everyone can bring one small travel bag and one book bag or school bag. If you need a pillow or sleeping blanket or Teddy Bear to help you sleep at night, be sure those items are packed in your travel bag. There may be instances when you will have to walk some distance with your bags, so travel light. There’s also a chance we can be walking in rainy or inclement weather so plan accordingly. And we could enter some fairly chilly weather so bring clothes that are appropriate for early November. With regard to your choice of clothing at the conference, we do want to give a good impression so nice, casual professional clothing. If possible avoid clothing with insignia or advertising (exception: items with Coe College; it would be okay to wear Coe Writing Center shirts/sweaters at some points at the conference).

Travel Schedule on Train
When we arrive in the Chicago area we will park our vans & autos (at a place not yet determined) and then take the train (or some other public transportation) to Union Station. We are all traveling by train on one group ticket (Reservation # 10BFF7). Our travel schedule is as follows:
Depart on Train #30 out of Chicago at 6:40 p.m.
Arrive in Washington D.C. on November 3 at 1:10 p.m.
Department on Train #198 from Washington, D.C. at 8:45 p.m.
Arrive in Baltimore at 9:26 p.m.

Between our departure at noon on Tuesday and our evening meal in Washington on Wednesday, you will be responsible for your own meals. You will each receive $10 to help cover your food costs; food will be available on the train, but you might also want to plan on traveling with some food to prevent starvation.

We have dinner reservations in Washington, D.C. at 6:00 p.m. at the White Tiger restaurant, an Indian cuisine restaurant about two blocks walking distance from the train station. At the dinner we will be joined by some Writing Center alums and perhaps my son and his wife. I think there should be lockers at the station where we can check our bags so we don’t have to carry them while walking around D.C. It’s not likely the train will arrive exactly at 1:10, but I trust we will arrive early enough that folks will have several hours for seeing the sites. You will be on your own schedule while in Washington, D.C.: we will make no effort to travel as one large group so you will be free to visit what you want to visit. I would recommend that you travel in small groups and you might want to do some planning ahead of time. It will be your responsibility to at the White Tiger at 6:00 p.m. That meal will be paid for by Coe.

When we arrive in Baltimore, we will go to the Mount Vernon Hotel, located in the historic Mount Vernon District at 24 West Franklin Street. Their web address is www.mountvernonbaltimore.com. For a web tour, you can visit www.easyviewmedia.com//Mount-Vernon-Hotel/index.html. This is a 2 ½ star hotel so it should be okay but not luxurious. It does come with complimentary hot breakfast, and it’s about half of the cost of staying at the conference hotel. We have 10 rooms reserved: one room for Singleton and Marrs, one room for the other three men on the trip, and 8 rooms for 32 women (I’ll let you ladies decide how you want to divide yourselves up).

The conference is at the Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel, just a few blocks from the Inner Harbor. Here’s the web site with full information, including the schedule of presentations for the conference: http://www.mawcaonline.org/iwca/index.html. The conference begins Thursday morning at 9:00 a.m. On Thursday you will be on your own for the noon meal; the Friday schedule includes a luncheon at the conference. Conference events are over by 6:30 on Thursday and 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Both evenings you will be free to do whatever you wish in the evening; on both evenings we will arrange for a group meal in the area for folks who want to eat a meal paid for by Coe.

Our poster session is scheduled for Friday afternoon, 2:10-3:10. There are no other sessions scheduled at that time so we should meet a lot of people.

With regard to participating in the conference, here are the basic ground rules:
• Everyone is expected to participate fully in the conference and attend a broad sampling of sessions. In addition to keynote addresses and our poster session, you need to attend a minimum of six sessions–which will ensure that you have time for escaping the conference and doing some sightseeing in the daylight hours.
• Everyone is required to keep a detailed journal during the conference and submit a report on your conference experiences. That report should be submitted no later than midnight on Sunday, 7 November to a forum on the Writing Center Moodle site (same site where we keep the database). For those of you in Topics, this trip and report can take care of your “publication” assignment.
• During the conference, please divide into small groups; except for meeting for evening meals or preparing for our poster session, there should be no big mass of Coe consultants traveling around together. This includes spreading yourselves out during the Friday luncheon. A major reason for going to this conference is to meet as many people as possible from as many different Writing Centers as possible. It’s okay to talk about Coe if people ask, but my advice is to ask people about their Writing Centers and about their programs. Ask questions during presentations. When presentations are concluded, go up and talk to presenters. Pick up handouts. Be active participants, looking for ideas and practices that might be applicable to our Writing Center. Prior to the beginning of each day, we will distribute groups to different sessions so we ensure a broad sampling of presentations.

Our train (#195) departs Baltimore at 1:40 p.m. on Saturday, so we will be leaving the conference at approximately 12:00 noon on Saturday. Our return trip will go through Washington, D.C., but we only have about 90 minutes before our train departs for Chicago. We are scheduled to arrive in Chicago at 8:45 a.m. on Sunday morning, November 7. Depending on the time of our arrival (and how people feel), we will have a final group meal in Chicago–and then drive back to C.R.–or drive part of the way and have a noon meal (paid for by Coe) somewhere between Chicago and C.R. Assuming the train is not too late and we don’t have any other unforeseen problems, we should be back in C.R. before 5:00 p.m. If everything went perfectly, we might be back as early as 3:00–but I wouldn’t count on it.

Tomorrow morning I will send out a travel information e-mail for the folks flying to Baltimore and send another e-mail with updated information concerning final preparations for the four presentations." - Dr. Bob

Baltimore Preparation

Hey gang!

As November 2nd draws nearer, I can't contain my excitement for the Baltimore conference. I'm psyched for the night train, time in Washington DC and then the conference in Baltimore. Right now my group, Do We Practice What We Preach, is working hard to get our project done. Big meeting on Sunday to finish the presentation up. I have never been to either Washington DC or Baltimore so I'm excited to explore both cities and see all they have to offer. Well, off to work on Baltimore preparation, I'll will write more later, maybe an update from Baltimore!

Hailley

PARKA

Beth, another consultant in the parka! I think is catching on!

PARKA

Karin C. Writing Center Consultant in the parka!!

the winter cometh

Folks, maybe you haven't noticed, but it's getting cold outside! I even see snow in our near future! What does this have to do with the Coe Writing Center, you ask?

The answer: THE WRITING CENTER PARKA.


(Me. In the parka...)

Getting cold just means getting warm in the Writing Center. Come drink coffee, tea or cocoa. Cuddle up with your papers and a consultant AND get work done! And, if you have the guts, try on the parka! (If you try on the parka, take a picture and send it to me. It may appear here!)

- Taylor E.

"Take a Loaf Off!"

Hey everyone!

It's Hailley, a newbie consultant, writing my first blog post of this school year! Today was priceless and showed me why I love the Writing Center so. I came into the WC around 12:15 to wait for my roommate, Heidi, to finish her shift before heading to the caf for lunch. Ashley C. and Jon A. were also working with Heidi. We were all just relaxing and catching up on some homework when Heidi informed me that someone had put some bread it and it would be done soon. After confirming with the Speaking Center it was our bread, Heidi and I waited, somewhat impatiently, for the bread to be done. The buzzer rang and Heidi took the bread out of the bread maker. Then came the challenge and the fun part. I tried to pry the bread out but couldn't since the bottom was attached to the spinner. After a few unsuccessful tries, Heidi and I switched places and she too couldn't get the bread out of the bucket. By this time, bread crumbs were everywhere and Ashley came onto the scene. She tried to pry it out but she also failed. The three of us were now laughing at how hard it was get the bread out. Finally Heidi used her big muscles to pull the bread out. Success (finally). We put the bread on a plate and gathered around the table near the coffee. Jon joined us and we chowed down, devouring the bread like there was no tomorrow. The bread was delicious and the four of us thank whoever made it because it was WONDERFUL. In my slightly crazy mood I imagined a scene where a student would come in, looking for a conference. We would tell them to "Take a loaf off and have some bread!" When I told Heidi, Ashley, and Jon this I truly believe they thought I was crazy because that was definitely a horrible pun. But horribly funny as well.

Well there's your random story of the day! :)

- Hailley

writing center minutes

September 27th WC Meeting

The meeting was only required for those going to Baltimore on the conference, where we are responsible for four different poster presentations. A two-page handout that summarizes the information on the poster will also need to be made for each poster.

The four different posters that will be presented at the conference include:
1. Tybee Island Staff Development Course (a.k.a. The writing center beach orgy)
2. Moodle as a Writing Center Management System
3. A Writing Center Assessing a WAC Program
4. A Writing Center Staff: Do They Practice What They Preach?

We broke into semi-equal groups to discuss plans for the poster presentations. One group member was selected to communicate the group plans to Dr. Bob, and he would like to hear sometime this week about any plans that have already developed.

If you were not at the meeting and you are planning on going to Baltimore, you need to talk to Dr. Bob about being placed in a group. Work has already started on the plans so doing this sooner rather than later would be appreciated by the rest of the group.

Dr. Bob will be sending out an email to staff and faculty, excusing those going on the conference from class November 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. If you encounter any problems with staff or faculty just let Dr. Bob know and it will be taken care of.