Writing center director resigns after 21 years

Effective Sept. 2, Chloe Diepenbrock resigned from her position as director of the UHCL Writing Center.

Diepenbrock developed the Writing Center in the fall of 1993. Throughout the last 21 years, the Writing Center has been nationally recognized under Diepenbrock’s tutelage.

Diepenbrock’s decision to resign came after an announcement to restructure all Student Services components, including the Writing Center.

Under the new organizational chart, Student Services directors will report to an executive director instead of directly to the assistant vice president as they have in the past. Diepenbrock said the restructuring of Student Services was a final event in the long chain of events that led to her decision.

The decision to restructure Student Services was announced at a director retreat in summer 2013.

“This was discussed last year, and I didn’t believe it was going to happen,” said Chloe Diepenbrock, who is also an associate professor of writing and literature.

Diepenbrock was informed Aug. 20 that Tim Richardson, director of the Student Success Center, was being promoted to the position of executive director of Academic Support Programs and that directors for the Writing Center, Math Center, and Disabilities Services would now directly report to him.

“This was the final event that led to my resignation,” Diepenbrock said. “The new changes in place left me feeling that I would no longer have autonomy in the Writing Center.”

Lisa Hacker, supervisor of the Speaking, Reading and Writing Center at College of The Mainland, was a former tutor under Diepenbrock’s supervision. Hacker said she was devastated to hear about Diepenbrock’s resignation.

“It breaks my heart, and the hearts of everyone else she has taught and personally invested herself in, that she will be no longer leading the UHCL Writing Center,” Hacker said. “Unfortunately it is an immeasurable loss to the students, tutors and colleagues.”

Although Diepenbrock has retired as the director for the Writing Center she will remain at UHCL. Diepenbrock has gone back to teaching fulltime and remains the program chair for the Writing Program.

Darlene Biggers, associate vice president of Student Services, attributed the university’s growth and maturation for changes to the Student Services division. Biggers said the changes began two years ago when new individuals were hired in response to expansion of the university.

“The Student Services division was very flat and everyone reported to me,” Biggers said. “This works when you have six or seven reports, and now it’s 16 people who directly report to me. The most important reason for the restructure is to increase effectiveness of our services to students.”

The restructuring of Student Services is division-wide, and affects the following departments: Career Services, Counseling Services, Health Center, Student Success Center, the Writing Center, Math Center, Disability Services, Student Assistance Center, New Student Orientation, University Forest Apartments, Student Life, Pearland Student Services, Intercultural Student Services, Student Publications, and Student Conference for Research and Creative Arts.

The Student Services departments are being organized into four clusters: Health & Career Services, Involvement & Inclusion, Dean of Students, and Academic Support Services.

Clusters are the grouping of departments and centers that have commonalities between them. Biggers said the prospect of clustering departments with similar purposes and missions together would be to increase communication and collaboration among them.

A major concern for Diepenbrock is that when a writing center is combined with a content area of tutoring in some way, eventually the question is raised in regard to keeping separate directors for all these facilities. Diepenbrock witnessed this when San Jacinto Community College made similar changes last year abolishing their writing center directors in both their South and Central campuses.

“When you lose your writing expertise you are no longer a good writing center,” Diepenbrock said. “This is not like a regular content area of tutoring; you need the expertise from someone who knows composition pedagogy.”

Tim Richardson, executive director of academic support services said that there are no plans in place to change the director’s role.

“We want to make sure we retain the identity of these departments,” Richardson said. “The advantages of clustering is we will have the opportunity to collaborate and have a commonality in our academic support cluster of student success and learning.”

Two clusters have been formed; a third, under the supervision of the Dean of Students, is underway. The fourth cluster yet to be organized is Student Involvement and Inclusion, which will include Intercultural Student Services, Student Life, Student Publications and the Student Conference for Research and Creative Arts. The completion date of the restructure is estimated to be one or two years away.

“Each department is still a separate department headed by a director; now they’re part of a family of departments,” Biggers said. “Diepenbrock created and developed an outstanding Writing Center, and we are committed to continuing its high–quality service to students.”

Timeline compiled by The Signal reporter Samantha Oser.