by Dr. Inas Mahfouz, Associate Professor of Language and Linguistics at the American University of Kuwait and Regional Editor of Connecting Writing Centers Across Borders

How should we assess writing centers and what type of information should we focus on? In his article, “When a measure becomes a target,” Bruce Bowles pinpoints the inadequacy of reliance on numbers for assessing writing centers and explores the possibility of using a different approach (Bowles, 2025). Despite the proliferation of writing centers worldwide, assessment remains a challenge to centers globally and in the Middle Eastern North Africa (MENA) region. Writing centers assessment is a complex issue.

Some of Bowles’ suggestions about assessment are relevant and already practiced in MENA writing centers, but others might not be feasible or require contextualizing. In the Middle East, writing centers were introduced as part of neoliberalism which promotes the hegemony of the Western model of education as the rightful source of knowledge (Barnawi, 2017). Consequently, their role and importance are not well established in some institutions where their presence may seem superfluous. The concerns that Bowles raises in this piece and his attempt to find some answer in writing center literature echo the concerns of many writing center practitioners in the MENA region. But how we assess our centers must be attuned to our context and our needs?

In the summer of 2020, a group of writing centers practitioners in the region won the IWCA research grant to begin the process of developing a knowledge database of MENA writing centers (Hodges et al., 2022). I was lucky enough to be part of the research team and though there is still much work to do to reach our goal, the survey included separate questions to directors and tutors regarding the nature of their work and their duties.

Out of the 24 directors who responded to our survey more than half stated that they report either to the Dean or other senior administrator such as Provost or Vice President (Table 1). Though the survey did not include explicit questions on assessment, the fact that directors report to top administrators casts its shadow on the type of data they would most likely include in their annual reports. This is further supported by the type of information directors keep track of.

Most directors answered that they record feedback data, post-session anonymous surveys evaluating how helpful it was,  from both faculty and students. Almost one fourth of the directors keep record of the visits and usage statistics while 20% mentioned that they record the demographics of their visitors. 

Table 1: To Whom does the Writing Center Director Report?

In our annual meetings it is a common practice that writing center directors refer to the number of sessions scheduled or students who visited the center. There seems an underlying sense of pride that the center serves hundreds of students and how visits to the center peak before midterms and finals. As Gofine (2012) argues directors feel the urge to “justify to upper- level administrators that funding a writing center is a worthwhile investment for the college or university” (40).

In the MENA region, writing centers are relatively young and were introduced to educators as part of the Western model of higher education and neoliberalism. Thus, the center may sometimes be regarded as some peripheral piece that completes the picture. Consequently, staffing the center and the professional development of tutors may be seen as luxuries. Many centers rely primarily on peer tutors and lack full time staff; 52.6% of the respondents reported having no staff members working as tutors in their institutions. Hence, emphasis on visitation data does not only validate the existence of writing centers but also supports requests for hiring more tutors. It can be seen as part of a metamorphosis process where centers in the region are still developing and trying to secure their place in their institutions.

However, although visitation data proves the need for more tutors, it is not necessary to assess tutors’ performance, which is something Bowles recommends. Bowles (2025) promotes the adoption of a model for assessing  the performance of tutors during sessions through observation. The adoption of this model can be a useful way for assessing writing center practices, however, in a region that is still not certain about the role of the center or its place in students’ development as writers, adopting this assessment model may not be feasible due to the scarcity of tutors. Furthermore, most of them are peer tutors and not professional staff. Hence adopting this model includes encumbrances that directors cannot accommodate. It is perhaps better for centers in the region to develop their own tools according to their working environment. Importing the Western model of higher education along with writing centers does not necessarily dictate adopting their assessment practices.

Keeping track of feedback from faculty and students about visiting the center through surveys or questionnaires receives much attention from writing center practitioners in the MENA region. While Bowles (2025) does not discuss this as an approach for assessment in his article, it can provide valuable insights about centers in the MENA and their performance. This can be another way of justifying the need for the centers or perhaps it has to do with L2 writers and the assumption that they need more scaffolding. This can be part of what Moghabghab et al. (2021) refer to as flash archiving where records of nonevents can be used to provide “scope for writing center self-knowledge across administrations and contexts” (138).

There is a widely spread misconception that weaker students should be sent to the writing center. They are mandated to visit the center with the assumption that such visits should help them get higher grades. However, visiting the center may not immediately improve students’ writing or magically lead to a better grade. Using students’ grades for assessing the writing center may interfere with tutor’s performance in this case. What happens during the visit and the discussions students have with tutors are more relevant to assessment than grades.

Bowles (2025) warns against the reliance on students’ grades as an assessment tool since it can entice tutors to focus on grades and forget the non-evaluative nature of writing center sessions. Although these warnings are valid, they are not relevant to our context. Reliance on students’ grades cannot be used as an assessment tool for measuring writing center performance in the MENA region as grades are not often shared with writing center staff; once the session ends the tutor cannot follow up with the student or receive any updates about their performance. In our survey only 10% of the directors reported keeping track of students’ grades. In many institutions in the region, the teaching of academic writing is detached from the writing centers due to the factors mentioned earlier. Writing center assessment is an integral step in the development of the centers and should lead to better outcomes, however, it must be tailored to the context where the centers operate and the resources available.

References

Barnawi, O. (2017). Neoliberalism and English Language Education Policies in the Arabian Gulf (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi-org.auk.idm.oclc.org/10.4324/9781315276717

Bowles, B., Jr. (2025). When a measure becomes a target: The dangers of using grades in writing center assessment. WLN, 49(2), 3–8. https://doi.org/10.37514/wln-j.2025.49.2.02

Gofine, M. (2012). How Are We Doing? A Review of Assessments within Writing Centers. The   Writing Center Journal, 32(1), 39–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43442380

Hodges, A., Mahfouz, I., Maari, S., AlKhalil, M., Habre, P., & Daouk, H. (2022, November 18). Connecting MENA writing centers through data. Connecting Writing Centers Across Borders. Retrieved March 9, 2025, from https://wlnconnect.org/2022/11/18/connecting-menawc-through-data/

Moghabghab, E., Saville, K., & Allen, I. (2021). Flash Archiving the Writing Center: Snapshots from Lebanon and Egypt. Deleted Journal, 38(3). https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1896