Cinnabar and Alabaster

passages:
114. her mission statement (literally): i believe...that collaboration is like the 'air we breathe,' like many travelers who sometimes wish for fresher, healthier air in a cabin full of strangers, or like a poor swimmer gulping and gasping, i often have my moments of distress: wishing for breathable air, for a writing partner, for voices of collusion; longing for the better angel of my nature."
115. "i find fascinating those who insist that this alchemy of collaboration is an 'inexplicable or mysterious transmuting' which is too scary to engage in, or, when it is in fact a practice for some, there is no effort to make it visible or valued. one result: institutional resistance to collaboration gives students permission to ignore, dismiss, or cheapen learning and writing with others"; another = "writing centers themselves practice one of the most powerful forms of collaborative learning (and yes, collaborative writing) embodied in the peer-consulting model. however, when asked, many writing center directors will say that their peer relations, their relationships with their institutions, their identity politics, are anything but collaborative, and they may even say that what happens in consulting sessions is not really collaborative writing." but it is: "collaboration (in, over, during) text production--the writer-to-writer talk, the mix of handwriting coloring a document, the shared excitement about a simple (re)construction, the alternate achievement of clarity or chaos in the feedback, the way time passes differently, the un-aloneness of work--all of these embody our centers"
118. me's "friend and assitant director, emily donnelli, says, 'collaboration is not collaboration only when it is with those who deserve it or with those who are sufficiently enlightened.'"
119. one necessary step: "recognizing and studying the collaboration...the collaborative writing as well as the collaborative learning about writing--that takes place in our centers" in light of not only their difference but their inherent "sameness"--"what we do with student writers is much more like the collaborative writing we practice when we academics, writers, or teachers seek feedback, participate in peer review, or work with editors; it is much more a form of intrusive caring about texts; it is much more an exchange than a one-way service"
121. moving outward: "i want to talk back to the pervasive attitude that faculty collaborate but student writers cheat....ironically, it seems collaboration is the only practice to which academics do not want to acculturate their students"--& when they do talk about it, "collaboration is most often framed as a qualifier in relation to an official writing center position on plagiarism"
123. to really become "good citizens" of the academic community, writing centers & what they know about collaboration need(s) to bleed out into "campus life"
126. sosnoski's term is "concurrence" for what binds working-groups where "a common ideal or telos does not hold the group together. intellectual compassion and care hold the group together."
129. so, the message: "professional and social networks are already formed and formidable within the writing center community; these are powerful and productive and ferry our goodies back and forth to each other, but to go beyond this we need to become a 'smart mob'--a homegrown initiative that utilizes our workaday knowledge to reach others in ways that can impact policy, influence administrative and institutional leaders, and help us grow leaders from among our writing center fellows. we can and should demand collaboration and continue to work toward boundarylessness, even with the knowledge that these actions will never be fully accomplished, completed"