From the editor.

Harris, Muriel

Among the unexplored areas of writing center studies are the variety of programs created by writing centers as they mold their services to the educational missions of their institution. Two such programs discussed in this issue are a service-learning program--a combined effort by Lisa Zimmerelli and Victoria Brown--and Writing Circles, a program built by Tereza Kramer. A related article is Glenn Hutchison's review of Tiffany Rousculp's recent book about writing centers' role in community literacy.

Zimmerelli and Brown view their service-learning program as an ethical model for community engagement. While they acknowledge the difficulties of creating such a program with minimal resources, the model they offer has sustained itself, helped disadvantaged students succeed, and given tutors an opportunity to learn a new form of tutoring. Hutchison's review of Rousculp's Rhetoric of Respect notes that community engagement also means engaging in a rhetoric of respect for the literacy needs of the community as well as creating opportunities for change.

For Kramer, the Writing Circles she set up through her institution's Writing Center and WAC program began with a request from a Great Books seminar instructor. From there, the number of Writing Circles grew rapidly and became a popular campus program. Kramer offers us a close look at the way such circles are formulated, run, and assessed.

Should anyone in writing centers have to contend with questions about automated grammar checkers, you'll find a champion in Les Perelman's extensive work explaining why grammar checkers produce false results and just don't work. Perelman's detailed work on why grammar checkers fail complements his extensive, well-known work on demonstrating the many problems with automated grading of essays.

In the last few pages of this issue, you'll also find notices of conferences, job announcements, and calls for proposals for special issues of WLN. We hope you find this an issue filled with good reading.