Praxis: A Writing Center Journal is proud to present the second installment on our theme, Professionalization and the Writing Center. Because this topic generated so much interest, we decided to do a two-part series on professionalization in our centers. Please see both Part I and Part II of this exciting topic!

Our Focus section offers a continued meditation on professionalization and the writing center environment. Kelli Prejean's article relates how her center has involved undergraduate tutors in the administrative process and how this has created a flexible and workable center. Kevin Dvorak looks at how an internship program at his center offers new avenues of professionalization for both his undergraduates and for himself. Chad Habel describes his career arc from writing center consultant to writing center director, and offers helpful advice about transitioning from one role to the next. Mark Hall and Daniel Reardon tackle professionalization and the writing center from the perspectives of social capital and actual capital, respectively, offering a hard look at writing center policy in the larger university system. Finally, Russell Carpenter discusses professionalizing writing center practice through digital technologies and their applications for specific centers.

In our Training section, Matthew Schultz takes a new look at consulting with non-native speakers and suggests we look at these experiences as moments of cultural translation and hybridity, as two-way rather than one-way streets. Sarah Dees explains what she learned about both teaching and consulting when she played both roles, and how, ultimately, these experiences sustain the idea of writing as a collaborative process. Finally, Jane Hirschhorn discusses the training side of moving from consultant to director, and how her journey gave her new understandings of tutoring and of directing.

In our Consulting section, Chris Edwards, a University of Texas at Austin undergraduate consultant at our Undergraduate Writing Center, discusses how the writing center has offered him numerous opportunities for personal and professional development that would be hard to find elsewhere. His article offers a nice look at the UWC, where Praxis is housed. Our Featured Center this issue, The Noel Studio for Academic Creativity, is housed at Eastern Kentucky University and is directed by long-time Praxis contributor Russell Carpenter. The Noel Studio will open in the Fall of 2010 and promises some exciting innovations to writing center space and practice. The subject of our Consultant Spotlight, Orlando Dos Reis, is a writing coach at Virginia Tech. He tells us about his consulting practices as well as his experience with writing center professionalization.

In our Columns section, the Undergraduate Writing Center Research Group discusses how working at the front desk at the UWC offers professionalization opportunities due to its liminal nature between consultant and administrator. The Merciless Grammarian discusses hyphen use in contemporary writing and seemingly gives in to popular style.