Public Literacy and Community Engagement

Expanding the center

The Marian University Writing Center’s commitment to social justice and human dignity informs all areas of its practices, and the Center maintains a vibrant public presence across Indianapolis through service engagement, public literacy projects, and community-integrated tutorials. All people, regardless of University affiliation, are encouraged to utilize the Center’s literacy support services.

We are especially proud of our commitment to community engagement and public scholarship. We believe literacy, writing and education—formal and informal—play a vital role in working towards social justice and personal agency, and writing centers have a central role within this effort. To this end, the Marian University Writing Center hosts a number of off-campus writing support centers and works with a range of public literacy partners throughout Indianapolis including the Indianapolis Public Library, Indiana Writers Center, LYN House, Edna Martin Christian Center, IndyGo, and others.

Service to community not only strengthens neighborhoods and contributes to an urban vibrancy, but the expansion of the center to include a public role also increases the quality of tutorial support throughout all of the Center's capacities. Working from Linda Flower's (2008) definition of community literacy as a "dialogue across difference," the Marian University Writing Center believes dialoguing across difference and collaborative exploration of sociocultural perspectives encourages student tutors to embrace empathy, critical thought, and social awareness within their academic and personal lives. Like the University campus, the City of Indianapolis is a site of collaborative learning and application of knowledge.