Mission, Vision, and Inclusive Language Statement

Mission, Vision, and Inclusive Language Statement

Mission

WTS supports students at all skill levels as they become more confident and knowledgeable writers in a variety of disciplinary contexts.

Vision

WTS will be nationally recognized for providing excellent tutoring services for diverse groups of students and for a commitment to cultivating a culture of written communication across the University. This culture of written communication is essential to ensuring that students learn the skills and habits of mind that are essential to college and career success.

Inclusive Language Statement

Writing Tutorial Services (WTS) at Indiana University Bloomington makes it a priority to assist writers at all levels, from first-year undergraduates just beginning their college journey, to students preparing for future careers, to graduate students getting ready to defend their dissertations, and to help with all stages of the writing process, from brainstorming ideas through revising a near-final draft. 

Acknowledging the inherently intertwined nature of writing, education, identity, and language usage, we respect students' right to their own language and ideas and aim to assist each student in becoming a better communicator, translating thought into written forms. We build on Indiana University’s Mission Statement as tutors and administrators who are “committed to full diversity, academic freedom, and meeting the changing educational and research needs of the state, the nation, and the world.” We view the many forms of academic English as varieties of English, predominantly used in the university context in which we work as well as in many places of employment, both domestic and international. In conjunction with IU instructors, we aim to support the learning of academic conventions and registers with attention to critical language awareness, and to assist students in expanding their rich linguistic repertoires in meaningful ways to allow students to move with volition between discourses, using their own plurilingual resources.

In our aim to fulfill this promise for all students, we provide guidance for writers who want to strengthen their skills and fluency in academic American English, as well as respecting and valuing all varieties of English used by our diverse student population. As members of both the writing center and university community, we will continue to educate ourselves, each other, and our students on ways we speak and write about issues of racism, oppression, and bias. To that end, we seek to respect the diversity of linguistic and cultural backgrounds students bring to IU, and we advocate for antiracist, bias-free, and bias-aware language practices in alignment with leading style guides.