Public Scholarship

Public Writing Initiative

The Public Writing Initiative (PWI) uses commissioned assignments, such as one from the Public Issues Forums (PIF) of Centre County Steering Committee, to help students engage in the issues of their civic community and use their scholarship of professional and technical writing for the public good.

Mid-State Literacy Council Annual Corporate Spelling Bee

Undergraduate Writing Center peer tutors raise $365 each year--"a dollar a day for literacy"--in order to enter a three-person team, called the Rough Writers, in the Mid-State Literacy Council's Annual Corporate Spelling Bee fundraiser. The UWC also provides a team of tutors, called the Dangling Modifiers, to represent a corporation that gave a donation but was not able to supply its own spelling team. In a good year, twenty or more teams will compete in the bee.

To the left are members of the Rough Writers and the Dangling Modifiers who participated in the Ninth Annual Corporate Spelling Bee April 19, 2007. They tied for third place. Included are the UWC Assistant Director, five peer tutors, the former Director, and the current Director (from left to right). The Rough Writers spelled botryoidal correctly but missed macellum.

The spelling bee is held each year at the South Hills School of Business and Technology in State College, PA.