Meramec’s Writing Center Website Goes District-Wide
BY: TYRA LEESMAN 
PRINT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
STLCC’s Meramec campus maintains a writing center for students who are struggling with writing. Like math tutoring, the writing center offers revisions, read-throughs, general tutoring and writing advice. In addition to help with assignments, students can also find assistance with practical, real-world problems like resumes and cover letters.
“The main thing the writing center does is face-to-face, one-to-one tutoring,” said Elizabeth Busekrus, director of the Meramec writing center.
Students at Meramec have received help with scholarship essays, admissions letters, and their own personal creative works. These benefits are now available to students of STLCC on all campuses with the launch of a district-wide online writing center.
The online writing center website was started in 2013 as a way for students to receive assistance on the writing of all kinds, through written channels. Asynchronous tutoring, done through Microsoft Word comments and features, takes place over a few days as students submit, advisors comment and edit, and revisions are made to pieces over the internet.
According to the director of the Meramec writing center, this online resource was initially created to reach virtual students who are unable to physically go to the Writing Center, those who cannot attend appointments due to scheduling conflicts and those who find verbal direction less effective than written direction.
In October of this year, the MOWL (Meramec Online Writing Lab) was expanded to reach all STLCC campuses.
“We partnered with online education because we really needed to provide services to all campuses,” said Busekrus.
The MOWL officially dropped the “M” for Meramec, and became the OWL (Online Writing Lab), and is now active for STLCC students with an A-number.
“I use the writing center on campus when I happen to be here, but I work, so a lot of the time, I’m just not able to go during the hours that they’re open. When I started taking online classes, my English professor told everybody on blackboard that we could use the MOWL and I was like, ‘Why haven’t I been using this?’ I don’t even have to leave my house to get my stuff edited now,” said Paul Nimms, a Meramec student who is also employed full time.
To access the writing center website, students can go to the STLCC homepage, type in writing assistance in the search bar, and click the link to the OWL website.
“If you’re like me and you’re not a good writer and you don’t have the time to be on campus for an hour for tutoring every time you write a paper, definitely go use the [online writing center] website,” said Nimms.
To use the website and create an appointment, users must register with their A-number and personal information, then proceed with login and scheduling.
“You have to schedule 24 hours in advance because that limits it. You can’t schedule an hour before, just so that we know each day how many appointments we have for the day. And once you do that, usually it takes about two business days,” said Busekrus.
