UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Writing Center @ Penn State Learning offers undergraduate tutors the opportunity to attend academic conferences, fostering scholarly engagement and professional growth.
As part of their employment at Penn State Learning, undergraduate writing tutors have the ability to present at regional and national conferences. Through mentorship and preparation, they share insights from their tutoring experiences, observe emerging practices in writing instruction, and connect with peers in the field. These experiential learning opportunities allow peer tutors to bring new strategies and perspectives back to their work with Penn State students, while also applying those experiences to their future careers.
“Student employees deserve mentorship that positions them as up-and-coming scholars, practitioners and industry professionals,” said Beth Parfitt, scholar-in-residence for writing and communication, Penn State Learning. “My research is most meaningful when peer tutors have been part of the process or — better yet — when they’re at the conference presenting beside me. The writing center wouldn’t exist without the service they provide, and it’s absolutely necessary that they are part of professional conversations within the field.”
Building on a legacy of professional development
The Writing Center’s commitment to professional development is rooted in a longer institutional history at Penn State. Ron Maxwell, the Writing Center’s founder, established an early foundation for professional tutor development, mentorship and scholarly engagement at Penn State.
That legacy continues today. Over the last three years, five undergraduate tutors have presented research at regional and national conferences. Their participation reflects how conferences function as a bridge between academic coursework, tutoring experience and real-world scholarly engagement rather than only existing as an isolated curricular activity.
“The goal of going to conferences like this, in addition to letting writers know that they can publish, is also giving them a vehicle with which they can publish,” said peer tutor Kyli Ramsay, who presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in October 2023.
As a result, conferences like CCCC become spaces where tutoring work is not only discussed but actively shared with wider academic audiences. At this conference, Parfitt and Ramsay's workshop about undergraduate publishing through writing centers highlighted how writing centers extend beyond simply providing feedback on writing. Rather, they also actively foster professional development opportunities, including pathways to publication.
Similarly, students develop tutor philosophy statements that articulate their growing understanding of tutoring in practice when training to become peer tutors in ENGL 250. For peer writing tutors Ava Eichelberger and Julia Goretti, this assignment extended beyond the classroom. It became the framework for their conference presentation at the International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) Conference in October 2024. This demonstrated how reflective academic work can translate into professional contribution, even within a student’s first semester of tutoring.
“They [the Writing Center community] make it really easy to get involved in every aspect of writing tutoring and Penn State Learning as a whole,” Eichelberger said. “I know we had only been tutors for six months or a year, and they were already asking us if we were interested in having leadership positions.”
Recently, at the Mid-Atlantic Writing Centers Association (MAWCA) Conference in March 2026, peer writing tutors Clara Miller and Kayla Lumish further emphasized professional growth through engagement with writing center professionals. Not only did they attend the conference, but they also led a session exploring how tutors can bridge the disconnect between physical and pedagogical space.
“Hearing about everyone's perspectives and education in relation to writing centers was really helpful,” Lumish said. “I absolutely wanted to attend, but I feel so appreciative for being able to lead a workshop in the conference.”
Conference experiences inform career trajectories
The value of these experiences is not only in what peer writing tutors contribute at conferences, but also in what they take away from them.
“Having the opportunity to be exposed to that higher academic level was just really something that I had never had the chance to see before,” Miller said. “Now I know what a conference actually is and what it’s like to present, but also other examples of what people in our field are doing.”
Across conferences such as CCCC, IWCA and MAWCA, students engage in learning by doing. They draw on their prior tutoring experience and education, apply those lessons in new contexts, and contribute to broader academic conversations in the field. In doing so, they learn how these experiences can be carried forward into their future professional lives.
“I've now taken a lot of the skills that I've learned through tutoring [into teaching],” said Ramsay, a secondary English education major. “That has been a major influence in my career path and what I want to do.”
Miller and Lumish said their participation in MAWCA strengthened their abilities to communicate professionally, but more importantly it expanded how they envision their future careers.
“As a secondary English education [major], this is so in line with what I wanted to do in the future, and, if anything, the Writing Center has opened my eyes to education beyond the classroom, as well,” Lumish said.
While each student’s journey through conference participation looked different, collectively these experiences foster scholarly engagement and professional growth.
“No matter what you're interested in, there's definitely a way for you to succeed and get opportunities through Penn State Learning, which I think is kind of the beauty of it,” Goretti said.
Penn State Learning is part of Penn State Undergraduate Education.