ABOUT US

The Writing Skills Improvement Program (WSIP) is a presidentially-mandated academic support program which provides professional individual tutoring to historically underrepresented students taking freshman composition and writing-related courses across all degree programs. It is also open to any student who desires professional help through a teacher referral. In the past 28 years, as the number of underrepresented students has increased, WSIP has steadily served and retained greater numbers of students. Since the inception of the program in 1980, WSIP has aided over 20,000 students individually and over 40,000 students in Weekly Writing Workshops. Students who once comprised the bulk of the composition attrition rate now pass their English classes (99%) and improve their beginning grades (78%).

The program consists of the following components: a) Individual Tutorials, b) Weekly Writing Workshops, c) Drop-in Service, d) Professional Writing Development Tutorials (for underrepresented graduate students), e) Graduate Writing Institute (for graduate students), and f) Summer Institute for Writing and Thinking (for high school students and school teachers).

An Accountability Study conducted in 1985 attests to the power of WSIP's individualized instruction. This statistical study tracked participants and non-participants for five years and the results indicated that WSIP can improve not only writing, but academic skills in general. The average WSIP participant's semester English course grades before and after tutoring evidenced a difference of 1.37 grade points. The mean GPA of WSIP participants was .91 grade points above that of similarly situated non-participants. Furthermore, passing CGPA's evidenced that after a five-year period, WSIP participants earned higher CGPA's and were twice as likely to graduate as non-participants.

The dramatic success of this program may be attributed to distinguishing features of WSIP which include: 1) an academic base, 2) professional staff, 3) tutor-student-professor conferences, 4) aggressive recruitment, and 5) thoughtful student management.