Writing Studio Policies

Desk Attendant Responsibilities: Desk attendants are employees of the ERC, under the auspices of which the Writing Studio operates.  They are responsible for scheduling appointments for writing tutorials and for cancelling and rescheduling appointments when necessary.  If you would like to call in to the Writing Studio to check on your appointments, attendants are happy to let you know what appointments you have scheduled for a given shift.  It is, however, not their responsibility to call and notify tutors as to whether they do or do not have any appointments scheduled for a given shift.

Missing Shifts: If illness or personal emergency prevents you from covering one of your shifts, please call the desk attendant as far in advance as you possibly can, so that your appointments can be rescheduled as efficiently as possible. Whenever possible, however, please avoid missing a shift, as it means that ERC desk attendants will have to call tutees to reschedule your appointments (possibly with other tutors) during the week.  All missed shifts must also be reported to the Director of the Writing Program, T. R. Johnson, via email.  

Change of Shift Hours: Should it become necessary to change your shift hours, please notify the Studio Coordinator to make sure the change you’d like to make works with the Writing Studio’s tutoring schedule and to ensure that new appointment sheets reflect the change in schedule.

Long Shifts: For every four tutorials in a row for that a tutor is engaged in appointments with tutees, there must be one half-hour left unscheduled so that tutors have adequate time to write emails to professors notifying them about tutoring sessions with their students.

Empty Appointment Book: On some occasions – particularly early in the semester – tutors may find that they have no appointments scheduled for their shifts.  Due to the possibility that a student may show up and be ready for a walk-in tutorial, there should always be one tutor in the Studio, even if she has no scheduled appointments on the books.  If a second tutor, who also has no appointments, is also present during this shift, one of the two tutors may choose to either end her shift early or begin the shift later on that particular day.  Please be sure to strive for an equitable division of labor, as tutors sharing overlap in a shift may find themselves in this position more than once or twice in a given semester.  Please note that, except for under the abovementioned circumstances, tutors must be in the Writing Studio during their shift hours.