When students consult with the UWC, we send them an exit survey. Usually, they don’t include anything on the open-ended comment section, but when they do, we pay attention. So far this semester, we’ve received 390 comments. We regularly check these comments and pass the positive and negative reviews to our consultants. Most of the time, we are praised (332 positive). Occasionally, though, we are either criticized or given suggestions for improvement (53). In this post, I’m going to review those 53 comments to show how they help us consider our practices, improve our services, and set goals.
Provide longer appointments, more appointment slots, and more consultants (23 comments). This is a goal we can meet as long as we can recruit high-quality staff willing to put in the work required to do the job well. Keep in mind that our professional development is ongoing and that we monitor and mentor our staff on a daily basis, so we also need to hire senior staff who won’t spend as much time consulting. We’re working on increasing our staff and our quality. If we increase our available consultations per day, we may be able to allow more than one appointment per day. However, students who want longer appointment times must understand that we offer consultations, and that we really cannot closely edit every page of a 25-page article or a 200-page dissertation.
Let students pick their own consultant (3 comments) While in theory letting students pick a consultant seems like a good idea, it’s not feasible. Most consultants work 8-15 hours a week so it would be difficult to fulfill requests. The main issue, though, is ensuring that work is evenly distributed, since consulting is difficult, demanding work.
Be specific, but not too specific (13 comments). Students don’t want us just to point out a wrong word choice or punctuation error, but to suggest alternatives. One suggested we avoid negative comments like “It doesn’t make any sense.” He was instead “hoping to hear more suggestions to improve my sentence.” Likewise, students don’t want “attention . . . on minuscule imperfections.” One student commented that although he appreciated end comments summarizing advice for the work he submitted online, ”what I really needed was a corrected paper.” We’ll never satisfy that desire, but I suspect he really wants suggestions, too—within the text and not in a single end comment. We’re always working on getting just the right balance in comments—pointing out patterns and problems without correcting each and every one, praising what is strong, and making suggestions for revision.
Help more with specific majors or disciplines (4 comments). Our consultants come from many majors, and in our professional development we teach them about different types of writing and how to analyze models. Sometimes, though, in the pressure of a consultation, they reach limits. So, for example, one student gently informed us, “Occasionally, writing consultants do not understand that it is a scientific writing, and sometimes scientific writing norms differ from general writing. Overall, they all do great job.” In fact, the comments in this vein were forgiving, for instance, “The consultant was really willing to help and trying his best to give me suggestions. I really appreciate that. His field is not related to mine so there is some gap that he understand the level of the editing. However, he really gave me good direction for seeking help.” It would be impossible for us to get the right specialist together with the right student most of the time. So instead we are improving our training and resources to cover more about genre requirements in broader genres like science, technology, or the humanities.
Did not like their consultant (7 comments). As for those who did not like their consultant, we appreciate the feedback. Some days, consultants and student just are not a good match, or the consultant has an off day. We make sure such feedback makes its way back to the consultant so he or she can adjust.
Didn’t get the desired grade (1 comment). One student was disappointed that his teacher did not like his revised essay. But we wonder where his essay stood before he revised. I suspect it did get better, even if it did not get desired grade.
Publicize services more widely (1 comment). I’ll let this comment serve as the conclusion: “Not sure if this is desired, but make UWC more apparent as a resource to grad students. You have a lot to offer.”