The WSU Writing Program celebrates multiple community members recognized at this year’s DAESA Awards Ceremony, including Jamie Comstock, recipient of the DAESA Excellence Award for Classified Staff, senior writing consultants honored with the Jeanne Rounds Olsen Award, and Dr. Wendy Olson, winner of the Writing Program Award for Contribution to Writing Across the Curriculum.
Suzanne Desilet Cofer (‘71 Engl.) knows full well the power of a college education. Throughout her college years, and following into her storied career, Cofer saw the impact of writing on her success, and the success of the students who came through her classroom. This knowledge inspired Suzanne, and her husband Don, a retired Assistant Attorney General for Washington State, to establish the “Suzanne Desilet Cofer Undergraduate Writing Center Excellence Fund” and strengthen student writing support at WSU for future generations.
Angela Mitchell, Director of the Writing Program, is pleased to announce that Jeannie Griffin Bennett has been hired as Writing Center Director for the Pullman campus. Along with her dedication to peer tutoring as a model for effective student learning, Dr. Bennett also brings a spirit of collaboration and inquiry to the Writing Center.
The Washington State University Writing Program invites faculty systemwide who are interested to apply to be members of the WORD Fellows cohort for spring 2026. The WORD Fellows program supports faculty across the disciplines in their efforts to teach students to write more effectively in their courses and their major, while also promoting deep learning of disciplinary content in the process. Fellows will become part of an interdisciplinary community interested in supporting student writing across and in the disciplines.
The WSU Writing Program Associate Director Lisa Johnson-Shull and five Writing Center consultants were recognized for their outstanding performance and contributions at the annual Division of Academic Engagement and Student Achievement (DAESA) Awards Celebration on April 22, 2025. “The accolades received by our Writing Program members are well earned and well deserved, and we could not be prouder of all of them,” said Angela Mitchell, program director. “We appreciate their excellence and contributions to our programs.”
One of our Undergraduate Writing Center consultants, Jada Rome, has won the Campus Civic Poet Award. The award is sponsored by the Department of English and the WSU Martin Luther King, Jr. Program and recognizes students who are dedicated to civic engagement and poetry.
The Washington State University Writing Program invites faculty system-wide to apply to be members of the WORD Fellows cohort for spring 2025. WORD is the acronym for Writing Occurring Rhetorically in the Disciplines. Twelve group sessions will begin Jan. 30 and end April 24. Fellows are compensated for completing the program successfully.
The WSU Undergraduate Writing Center is in its fourth decade, and its director, Brooklyn Walter, and five student consultants presented on the program Oct. 18-20 at the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing in Tacoma. The conference promotes the teaching of writing through collaborative learning, said Angela Mitchell, director of the Writing Program.
The system-wide Washington State University Writing Program and its units will be led starting July 1 by Angela Mitchell, current director of first-year writing at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte (UNC). “Dr. Mitchell brings to WSU years of experience guiding university writing initiatives in addition to considerable teaching experience and research into writing studies,” said William B. Davis, interim vice provost for academic engagement and student achievement in the provost’s office.