Writing Center Peer Consultant (Peer Tutor)

About the job

The Writing Center on Level 2 of Halvorsen Library holds 45-minute sessions in person and online for any assignment a Porter course produces: lab reports, design rationales, posters, résumés, theses. We are hiring five peer consultants for spring 2027, with priority for majors in engineering, health sciences, and computing, because those writers book the most and see the fewest peers from their own fields.

The center is a conversation, not a proofreading drop-off. Consultants help writers make their own decisions; they do not fix drafts and hand them back. Last year the center held about 3,100 sessions, a third of them with first-year students.

What you’ll do

• Hold scheduled and drop-in sessions, in person and online, with writers at any stage of a draft.
• Write a short session note the writer can see, and that the writer’s instructor sees if the writer opts in.
• Visit one course per term to introduce the center in five minutes or less.
• Attend a weekly one-hour staff meeting, which is paid and occasionally has bagels.

What we’re looking for

• Sophomore standing or above by January, with an A or B in first-year writing or its transfer equivalent.
• One faculty recommendation; a lab or studio instructor counts.
• A writing sample of three to five pages from any course, technical writing included.
• Curiosity about how writing works in fields other than yours. See becoming a peer tutor for what the job asks of you.

Schedule and pay

Consultants work two or three blocks a week between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. Monday–Thursday, plus an optional Sunday evening online block. Training on January 19–22 is 12 paid hours and covers session structure, multilingual writers, and citation styles. Returning consultants can add hours as embedded consultants in writing-intensive courses.

Campus jobs are capped at 20 hours a week combined while classes are in session and 40 over breaks (see hour limits); for F-1 students the 20 is firm. Pay is biweekly by direct deposit; log every shift in the payroll system so your supervisor can approve it before the cutoff.

How to apply

Apply in PorterConnect, the student employment portal in MyPorter, under job number SJ-26-1149. Upload a résumé, your writing sample, a one-paragraph statement about a piece of feedback that changed how you write, and your recommender’s email address. Finalists do a 20-minute mock session with a current consultant in early December.

Apply by November 20, 2026. Questions about the job go to Dr. Celeste Marwick, Director, Writing Center, at marwickc@uwporterfalls.edu or (715) 555–0172. Once hired, you complete an I-9 in person and a W-4 before your first shift; plan on a pay period or two before the first check arrives.