Student Success Champion Profile - Chris Manion, Ph.D.

Many students find writing to be challenging or even scary. For nearly twenty years, Dr. Chris Manion has worked tirelessly to improve Ohio State students’ relationship to writing. As the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Coordinator in the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing (CSTW), Chris has partnered with departments across campus and worked directly with student writing consultants to support their success in writing; this outstanding work was recognized in 2023 by the Distinguished Staff Award.

In his work with departments, Chris has helped embed writing skills into curricula across a variety of disciplines; designed and delivered workshops with University Libraries on information literacy; created endorsements for the Drake Institute on Teaching and Learning on inclusive writing; taught graduate student instructors how to teach writing; and encouraged faculty to think differently and more productively about student writing. Chris points out that many instructors read student writing through a “deficit” lens, and return writing assignments with red penmarks across the page. Such feedback can be understandably frustrating and de-motivating for students. By switching to an “asset-based” lens, instructors can learn from the student’s writing and help them build the skills necessary to communicate their unique perspectives and ideas.

When he first began in his role, Chris started to notice that the student voice was missing in the process of engaging with instructors about writing in their courses. To address this challenge, about 12 years ago he started the Writing Associates Program, in which undergraduate “WAs” (endearingly pronounced “wahz”) work as embedded consultants and partners with instructors of writing-intensive courses for the entire semester. Chris meets with the WAs weekly and works with them on how to navigate discussions with instructors. Today, a team of about a dozen WAs provide their insight to instructors each semester. He is also proud of the many WAs and graduate students who have graduated to bigger and better things, including teaching, running their own programs at other institutions, and publishing scholarship that he draws from in his ongoing work.

As a General Education Bookends instructor, Chris enjoys the opportunity to put his work into practice in the classroom. In the Bookends Reflection Seminar (which Chris helped design assignments for), he guides students in the practice of reflective writing, with the student and their goals as the focus.

“Everyone brings valuable knowledge and experience to their writing.”

When asked about his advice for students, Chris says he encourages students to continue practicing writing and understand that it’s a process that develops over time and is often not linear. “Everyone brings valuable knowledge and experience to their writing. Often, writing is about performing what someone else wants, but a student’s interests should be at the center of everything they write. When a student builds up the skill of writing, they can then use it as a tool to help them explore their goals and advocate for the resources they need to achieve their goals.”