Editor’s note: We would like to thank Dr. Bonnie Devet, Professor of English/Director of the Writing Lab, and the consultants Courtney Brown, Meg Carroll, Amelia Janaskie, Maddie Neff, Erin Niland, Whitney Tate-Moffo, and Summer Young, of College of Charleston, Charleston (South Carolina), for providing this piece. To contact the authors, please email Dr. Devet. If you would like to share your writing center’s experience during COVID-19, please submit via WLN.
Before the virus descended, the College of Charleston’s Writing Lab primarily offered face-to-face, walk-in help, only using Zoom for on-line consultations after the Lab had closed for the day. Then, it happened. The virus arrived, and all services were provided just through Zoom appointments. Consultants, receiving quick training in the technology, were encouraged to replicate, as much as possible, the face-to-face work they had conducted in the Lab. After the term ended, I asked the consultants how adapting to Zooming (a new noun!) affected their consulting process.
Consultants observed some advantages. With Zooming, no clients are walking through the Lab door, interrupting consultations, demanding immediate help, distracting consultants already busy assisting other clients. A consultant describes the pleasure of working with only one client at a time: “The consultations [on Zoom] felt more personal, as it is just you and the client.” Then, too, Zoom’s screen sharing feature helps to avoid the bane of all consultations: becoming mere editors. “On Google Drive sharing, it’s more tempting to edit little things like comma errors, but using screen share [in Zoom] is a good way for clients to show you their paper and still read aloud and keep it pretty much face to face,” explains a consultant who felt she could “maintain the role of consultant and client.”
Consultants helping each other
However, Zoom—like the proverbial double-edged sword—also generates difficulties when conducting consultations. In face-to-face sessions, clients and consultants are in the same space, confiding, trusting each other. Not so with Zoom. Screens, by their very nature, diminish the consultants’ capacity to read or interpret their clients (Feibush 40). A consultant reports, “[Zooming] eliminate[s] the ability to read body language and adjust accordingly to make the client more comfortable.” Besides separating consultants and clients, Zooming isolates the consultants themselves: “The only real downside I can see is it is harder . . . to get the help of other consultants if you are unsure about something.” Ironically, using Zoom to connect fosters isolation.
Zoom alters the consulting process in other subtle but important ways. Consider, for example, how consultants spend time with clients. The face-to-face experience, with consultants devoting as much time as needed, disappears in Zoom sessions, which, by necessity, are usually limited to 30 or 60 minutes. Consultants lament this loss: “Due to the fact that we sometimes help people for hours in the walk-in Lab, I believe that this could be a future issue.” There is yet another time problem. In the face-to-face lab, consultants often give students thinking time to write and digest, with consultants’ moving to another part of the Lab, promising to return when clients are ready to talk. This strategy is less doable in Zoom. “It was harder to determine when to leave the client alone to write since you are sitting basically face-to-face the entire time,” explains a consultant. And, unfortunately, Zoom limits the time for friendly, “get-to-know-you” communication. “Part of being a consultant is having that face-to-face and one-on-one interaction, but on Zoom I find it a bit more difficult to connect with clients. Since we are focused on the writing, I spend less time communicating face-to-face and more time following along, looking at their writing.” The tool of time—so vital to consultations—is changed.
Back in the early 2000’s, the Mazda car company famously used the slogan “Zoom Zoom,” whispered by a little boy as the sleek, speedy Miata raced by, kicking up dust. Today, the slogan has disappeared, and the little boy in the advertisement is now grown up, attending law school (Demuro). The current Zoom, however, is not vanishing any time soon, with consultants having to recognize how it can alter the one-to-one consulting process. But, being fully cognizant of Zoom’s impact, a consultant does reassure her fellow workers: “Don’t stress too much about the consultation being on-line. . . .Trust the process, trust the client, and trust yourself and your abilities!” (Niland). The College of Charleston Writing Lab will do just that, as consultants continue to “Zoom Zoom.”
Works Cited
Demuro, Doug. “Question of the Day: Has Mazda Lost Its Zoom?” The Truth about Cars Website, 13 Feb. 2015, thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/02/question_day_mazda_lost_zoom/.
Feibush, Laura. “Gestural Listening and the Writing Center’s Virtual Boundaries.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, 2018, pp. 34-43.
This is a fun piece connecting to the Mazda commercial, but it also demonstrates how consultants and director adapted to the pandemic. They took a resource they were currently using when the Writing Lab was closed, trained all consultants on the technology, and began using it full time. It is just one more way writing centers continue to adjust to changing conditions with a flexible director and a strong, well-prepared team of consultants.
The College of Charleston consultants and I appreciate your reading our short piece; we wish you a smooth transition to on-line work for this upcoming term.