James Bond Consultants in a Writing Lab

During spring, writing lab directors are undergoing their own ritual. They are gathering names of students from faculty who have been nominated for the job of tutor, interviewing these prospective consultants, and, finally, making job offers to the best and the brightest in order to secure the new crop of tutors for the fast-approaching fall. Directors can now catch their breaths, assuming that training can wait until the fall. But can it? As a director of a writing center, I’ve learned not to wait until the fall but rather to use the last precious weeks of the spring term to expose newly selected consultants to the world of consulting, so they can begin, even now their process of becoming well-trained consultants.