Statement on Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity

The University Writing Center is dedicated to being a safe, inclusive, accessible environment for learning. We work to make the University Writing Center a welcoming place where writers feel comfortable bringing the diverse range of perspectives found in the university community. We are committed to accommodating all writers and all learning styles and we respect writers' use of their home languages and world Englishes. We are also committed to advocating for equity and social justice and responding the diverse needs of the entire University of Louisville community. Our goal is to support literacy practices that are empowering on both an individual level and community level.

Our commitment is to make the University Writing Center a place where writers can express their identities and be assured that they will receive a respectful and supportive response. Trust and safety are key elements to writing and teaching and central to our tutoring practices. We continue to work as a staff to educate ourselves, listen carefully, and reflect on issues of identity, language, and power so that we can respond as allies and advocates for writers in the UofL community. We understand issues of inclusion and diversity require ongoing, daily work that is never finished.

We also work to understand and respond to the influence of culture and systems of power on issues of education, language, and learning. We will work with writers to understand how identities and their writing are positioned by larger cultural ideologies and narratives. We also commit to critiquing and speaking out against individual and structural oppression in an effort to create a safer, more just university for all students.

Our mission is to encourage and empower critical thinking and civic discourse. We work with all writers, from all political viewpoints, to help them learn how to create arguments that are evidence-based, nuanced, and engage respectfully with opposing points of view. We work with all writers to encourage a discourse that, even when in opposition, is respectful of the humanity of others. We continue to believe in and advocate the value in listening, and responding, thoughtfully to the ideas of others. We regard empathy as a strength, not a weakness.

In addition to our daily work of tutoring, we create events and activities that support the writing and voices of people who feel silenced and marginalized in our culture and that engage conversations about the political nature of reading and writing. We have been engaging in these kinds of activities through programming such as our LGBTQ+ Writing Group, faculty roundtable discussions about writing and difference, International Mother Language Day celebrations, and events during Banned Books Week. We also work with and support UofL organizations in their efforts to engage in similar kinds of programming. We support the writing and expression of ideas of people in the city through literacy tutoring and programming at Family Scholar House and the Western Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library.