What We Do
Launched in fall 2020, the Community Writing Center (CWC) at Duquesne University offers writing instruction and literacy programming for children and their families in the Pittsburgh region.
Building upon the mission of the University's on-campus Writing Center, the CWC seeks to develop the writing skills of community members by providing assistance with schoolwork, professional applications, résumés, and other creative endeavors.
Why Join Us?
This experiential learning opportunity fulfills requirements in the University’s core curriculum and positions you for post-baccalaureate success by providing training in English Language Arts, tutoring, cultural competency, professional writing, and the myriad connections among these fields of inquiry.
You can register for a zero-credit course, Community Engaged Learning, to recognize this work on your transcripts.
As a CWC tutor, you can use this experience to become a better communicator, problem solver, collaborator, and citizen. This work enacts DU’s mission of serving God by serving students so you can serve others, of embracing diversity, and of reaching out to the underserved.
Taking the Writing Center Beyond Campus Into the Community
In 2020–2021 the CWC formalized its partnership with ACH Clear Pathways, a non-profit educational organization that provides afterschool arts programming to underserved youth from historically African American neighborhoods. Since then the CWC has expanded to seven community partners.
The CWC also provides training to secondary school writing centers in the greater Pittsburgh area, allowing area teachers to support students in their own schools more effectively.
Community partners include:
- ACH Clear Pathways: helping elementary and middle-school students in the Hill District with English Language Arts homework and literacy projects during ACH’s afterschool program
- Bethany Hospice: revising their volunteer handbook, drafting social media content, and establishing a newsletter
- Elsinore Bennu Think Tank for Restorative Justice: helping returning citizens, incarcerated individuals, and think tank members share their stories through developing and organizing contributions to a book project
- Macedonia FACE Active for Life Senior Center: helping seniors from the Hill District share their stories through developing a community newsletter, "Voices from the Hill"
- Peters Township Middle School Writing Lab and Woodland Hills High School Writing Center: training middle and high school students to be writing tutors and to work with them on their writing to demonstrate best practices
Community Writing Center awarded NEH Grant
Since founding the Center in 2020, English Professor Dr. James Purdy has brought the power of storytelling to underserved populations through the public outreach extension of the University Writing Center. Now, thanks to another grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, that work will be fortified for years to come.
CWC Work and Accomplishments
ACH Clear Pathways
We help ACH students with their English Language Arts homework and create their showcase projects, including "All about Me" creative writing books, a play script for a Claymation movie, and more.
Macedonia FACE Active for Life Senior Center
We help seniors create "Voices from the Hill," the first print-based newsletter in the Hill District.
Local Secondary Schools
We help Peters Township Middle School Writing Coaches and Woodland Hills High School Writing Consultants learn to be peer tutors of writing at their schools.
Stay in touch with us!
Contact Us
James P. Purdy, Ph.D.
