A Bullpen Bulletin: New Schedule, New Editor, New Submissions Policy

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Face front, true believers!

Alejandro here, with a few items of interest for our loyal readers:

  1. Starting this semester, AXIS is running on a new publication schedule. We will have a new post live every other Monday.
  2. Our first fresh post will be an interview with none other than my new co-editor, Sarah Riddick. There's nothing quite like a brief, entirely textual introduction to publicize the new blood in the Praxis office. Keep your eyes peeled for that in the near future!
  3. Last, but certainly not least: we here at the AXIS blog are instituting an open submissions policy EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. Do you have something to say about writing centers? Are you keen on upsetting the applecart of writing center theory? Have you got an inspiring, educational, or harrowing tutoring anecdote to share with an audience of fellow tutors and writing center professionals? Send us a line at praxisuwc@gmail.com, either in the form of a 100-word blog post pitch or a 400- to 500-word blog post draft. This is a fantastic opportunity for undergraduates, graduate students, and professional scholars alike to nab a snazzy web publication and share their work with an interested audience of writing center workers.

That's all from me for now, folks. In the meantime, enjoy the new semester, stay out of the heat, and keep those pencils sharpened. 

Time and Publication

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Time and Publication

As we prepare to publish another issue of Praxis this week, we're thinking about time. As editors, we think about time in terms of deadlines, publication schedules, author time-to-publication, and upcoming projects, all of which are fairly discrete, tidy units. Someone has to do something by a certain moment, or in a series of certain moments, and as editors our job is to be that someone or to assist that someone, and to hold the timeclock. It's a little like a race, and just like at the end of a race, we're a little tired, a little sweaty, and a little proud right now.

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Hello, Goodbye: Axis Welcomes A New Blog Editor

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Hello, Goodbye: Axis Welcomes A New Blog Editor

Today is a sad occasion for us, the Managing Editors of Praxis, because we are losing a friend and colleague, Hannah Alpert-Abrams, to the exigencies of academic life. Hannah is leaving Axis to pursue research in the digital humanities. While we are excited for her and will follow her progress carefully as she explores new areas both physical and intellectual, we are sorry to lose the first blog editor of Axis and the woman whose editorial direction and professional ability has been a fundamental aspect of Praxis’ migration from our previous platform. In many ways, Hannah has been the public face of Praxis on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Axis itself, and she has represented us extremely well.

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Axis @ South Central Writing Center Association

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Axis @ South Central Writing Center Association

We're so excited to be hosting the SCWCA conference this weekend here in Austin, which is guaranteed to start a whole lot of exciting conversations. We'd like to keep those conversations going online at Axis. Send us an e-mail (praxisuwc@gmail.com) if you're interested in writing short post-conference reflections, reactions, questions, or ideas. 

See you all today!

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Axis Returns: Spring 2015

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Axis Returns: Spring 2015

Today in the academy we are writing lesson plans and finalizing syllabi, writing e-mails to students and finishing novels and bracing ourselves for the start of the spring semester, which at UT Austin begins tomorrow.

Today in the United States, we honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement, and we think seriously about their legacy. In what ways is the current moment a continuation of slavery and colonialism, of civil war and civil rights? In what ways have we broken with that history, and to what ends

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Praxis: Statement after the Ferguson Grand Jury Verdict

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Praxis: Statement after the Ferguson Grand Jury Verdict

This week, as the national conversation about systemic racial violence continues, we think about what it means for our institution and for our work.

At his 2005 keynote address at the IWCA/NCPTW conference, Victor Villanueva earned a standing ovation for his call for increased attention to race in the writing center. Within weeks, as Laura Greenfield and Karen Rowan report in Writing Centers and the New Racism, the conversation was reduced to silence. 

Racism, write Greenfield and Rowan, is shaped by silence. As Villanueva remarked, "if we no longer speak of 'racism,' racism gets ignored." There are many appropriate responses to the events in Ferguson and Staten Island, but silence, we think, is not one of them.

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