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This year’s

was a rewarding event in terms of both regional progress and tutor presentation success.

The conference began with a Friday director’s meeting in which President Charlene Hirschi successfully led us through the region’s business of discussing by-laws, boundaries, website manage-ment, IWCA membership, and electing a secretary. The meeting included insightful, useful, and engaging presentations by region leaders Snow College’s Julie Simon, Boise State’s Mike Mattison, and BYU’s Matt Haslam on topics of particular interest to administrators of tutoring programs. After business concluded, our host and first past RMWCA president, Penny Bird, outdid herself by treating directors to a sunlit salad and dessert mingle session.

Penny Bird and the BYU team hosted us all beautifully, from the design of a fitting theme and logo to a timely conference call to posting helpful information about lodging and entertainment to the welcoming continental breakfast and opening breakout sessions. We offer our compliments and thanks to Penny and the BYU staff for the skillfully organized and coordinated schedule of sessions all of this preparation led to. Accommodating schools from across the region, Penny and her staff of tutors found space for a variety of sessions, grouping complementary topics together and working to make certain that each session had all the audio-visual and logistic equipment necessary to give students excellent experiences with peer presentation. Each of the sessions was moderated by BYU student consultants who accommodated presenter needs, kept time, introduced speakers, and facilitated discussion -- all with aplomb.

Throughout Saturday, we heard from talented and articulate tutors from schools including, Brigham Young University’s Writing Center, Publication Lab, and Psychology Lab, and from Southern Utah University, BYU-Idaho, Utah State University, Utah Valley State

College, Boise State University, Salt Lake Community College, and Weber State University.   All of these schools were well represented and the tutors well prepared.

Tutors from each program gave relevant, well-organized, insightful presentations, from the more informal conversations of the morning poster sessions through the 20- & 40-minute breakout workshop and lecture sessions. Their topics ranged from the interpersonal, "Art of Complimenting: Heart to Heart,"   to the detailed how to, "Building Bridges: Closing the Gap Between Words and People,"   to the more analytical and abstract, "A Hymesian Analysis of the Writing Consultation." The speakers displayed talent for presentation and concern for craft. Between sessions, participants mingled and made new friends. Mid-day, we all enjoyed the traditional lunch at Brick Oven, just east of campus and the much-anticipated keynote speaker, Steve Sherwood.

With engaging, humorous examples, Mr. Sherwood addressed both the mundane and profound experiences of tutors in a context that illuminates a creative way forward through appreciating moments as they unfold and having the courage to follow those moments. He included selected relevant ideas from Victor Frankl to describe tutoring’s connection to the most life-affirming activities, namely 1) meaningful work , 2) connection with others, and 3) adaptive strategies. Mr. Sherwood emphasized the unforeseeable value of off-topic, circuitous conversation and referenced concepts from IWCA rock star, Beth Bouquet, about the courage inherent in the willingness to be “always about to fail,” in the process of potentially succeeding beyond expectation.

   Penny's irrepressible spirit made the final door prize drawing especially fun, not to mention the books and certificates themselves. The closing session included the passing of the registration banner to Claire Hughes and the Weber State University team to host the conference in 2007.

Editor's note:

I am delighted to serve in this region and enjoy working with our enthusiastic and visionary president, Charlene Hirschi. Already she has urged the organization to renewed vigor, meeting with IWCA leadership and establishing ties with surrounding regions in an effort to redraw membership boundaries so that we can better serve our population.

Next year, we will be hosting the peer tutoring conference and the directors meeting here at Weber State University on March 2nd & 3rd, and we look forward to supporting wide participation from all interested programs.

RMWCA Secretary, Jennifer Paul, is working to update our mailing lists so that we can keep you abreast of changes and opportunities. We are also in the process of developing a conference hosting packet to include with the IWCA stipend for future hosts of the conference.

I look forward to future contacts and associations with you all as we work to discover the most effective ways to support both good writing and blossoming tutoring programs in the region.

Claire Hughes
RMWCA Vice President

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