An Interview with Ben Rafoth on Writing Center Research, Dissertations, and Job Opportunities

Ben Rafoth has directed the writing center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania for the past 20 years, and he currently directs the graduate program in Composition and TESOL there. He has edited A Tutor’s Guide: Helping Writers One to One and ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors, with Shanti Bruce. Rafoth served as the Treasurer of the International Writing Centers Association, and in 2002 he was awarded the Ron Maxwell Award from the National Conference of Peer Tutoring in Writing, one of the highest honors in the writing center world. Rafoth is one of the original founders of the writing center movement, and a mentor of writing center researchers, theorists and practitioners. I wanted to speak more in depth about current issues in writing center scholarship, so I interviewed him in his office adjacent to the writing center on IUP’s campus