Jon Olson (Ph.D. University of Southern California) has directed the Center for
Excellence in Writing (CEW) since its inception in December of 1997. He teaches
an undergraduate course and a graduate teaching practicum in the Department of English each year and oversees the
CEW’s four programs: the Undergraduate Writing Center, the Graduate Writing Center, the Writing Across the Curriculum Program, and the Public Writing Initiative. He is a Public Scholarship Associate at Penn State, and one of his projects is to find ways a writing center can address issues of community literacy and civic engagement through public scholarship. He was
President of the International Writing Centers Association 2003-2005 and received the 2008 Ron Maxwell Award for Distinguished Leadership in Promoting the Collaborative Learning Practices of Peer Tutors in Writing.
Olson came to Penn State in 1997 from Oregon State University where he
alternately coordinated the Writing Center and interim-directed the Writing-Intensive
Curriculum Program, 1990-1997. His publication titles include “Writing Center Work at Penn State University: An Oral History,” “The Fun We Have in
Writing Centers: What Salvador Sings,” “The Conflict between Assessment
and Accreditation,” “Plagiarism Might Go Away If We Don’t Talk about It,”
“Student-Centered Assessment Research in the Writing Center,” “Tutor Training,”
“Outreach through Inreach: Writing Centers and Extended
Education,” “A Question of Power: Why Frederick Douglass Stole Grammar,”
“Writing-Intensive Curriculum Roots,” and “Bibliotherapy, Autobiography, and
the Psychology of Composition.”
Updated: 28 December 2008