We help all UMD writers advance their writing skills by offering collaborative, one-to-one writing consultations, useful writing resources, and interactive workshops.
History
After a year of research, Jill Jenson, Associate Professor of Writing Studies, proposed opening the Writers' Workshop, a campus-wide service available to every member of the campus community. With funding from the Office of Academic Affairs and the support of then Executive Vice Chancellor of Academic Administration Andrea Schokker, the writing center opened on September 3, 2013, with Dr. Jenson as its full-time director. Although writing support outside the classroom had been offered to UMD undergraduates through the late 1980s and to WRIT 1120: College Writing students from 2000 to 2012, this was UMD’s first writing center open to undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and staff.
For several years the Workshop collaborated with the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; the Swenson College of Science and Engineering; and the Department of English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies to provide graduate student consultants. More recently, the Workshop has primarily been staffed by faculty consultants, but over the years, all the consultants have provided one-to-one writing consultation as well as workshops and resources for students, faculty, and staff.
To date, the Writers’ Workshop has held well over 15,000 sessions with writers from across campus and from dozens of countries worldwide. The staff is proud to have done so with 95 percent of survey respondents consistently saying they had a good experience in the Workshop. We appreciate the support!
Staff
 | Jill Jenson [email protected] |  | Emily Woster [email protected] |