I transferred here from M University in a small city in southeast Texas. It was the big town surrounded by small towns, so when citizens of those small towns went to college, they went to MU. That means there were a plethora of people with conservative, small-town ideals congregated together in one big, closed-minded campus. For my first assignment in English 100, we were to choose a topic regarding the modern-day issues that American society faced. I turned in an essay entitled “How Media Portrayal Contributes to the Dehumanization of African Americans” which mainly dealt with the murdering of unarmed Blacks by American police and how some media outlets would spread misinformation when reporting on those cases.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t shocked when I received my graded paper and realized that the professor’s comments largely ignored the quality of content on my essay. Instead, they focused on how all the facts presented in my text were wrong. She had written in the margins what really happened during an incident that I had used as an example. That should have been a great, eye-opening, learning experience, but it wasn’t. I had used credible sources and still, my professor was attempting to correct me with inaccurate information. In fact, she had succumbed to the very misinformation I had denounced throughout my paper. In every word of her “corrections” I could read her intolerance and I knew that every paper I’d want to write would be misunderstood and belittled. I knew that the discussions our class would have were ones that I wouldn’t want to be involved in; so I dropped the class, feeling dejected and like an outcast in society.

Fast forward some three odd years to an embarrassing transfer credit report and me as a junior retaking English 100, here at UMBC. (Whoever said colleges make students retake classes unnecessarily to make money?) However, I did get a much warmer feeling from my English 100 professor. This time the first essay was about a book character. Being the outlandish topics person we’ve already established me to be, I wanted to write about the bisexual coming out of the titular hacker in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I submitted a rough draft, omitting her sexuality for the peer editing phase. After our peer session I went up to the professor and told her I felt I could make my paper stronger if I discussed the character’s sexual identity, but I wasn’t sure if that’d be appropriate. She assured me that she’d love to read about that and encouraged me to write about anything I’d like. So I did.

I wrote about the aforementioned character. I wrote about womanism, about how white feminism is exclusive, and that women of color and non-gender conforming people need feminism too. I wrote about abolishing tipping wage and how tipping itself actually has racist foundations that trace back to slavery. I proudly let my inner black feminist — my inner womanist — out in every paper that I wrote and I was allowed to do so unapologetically. Unapologetically, because my professor enjoyed my writing and continued to encourage me to write more. Her comments on my essay included details about how thought provoking my topics were and considerate insights on how to further improve my writing. I believe it was the same for the rest of the class, because other students wrote about the privatization of prisons, socioeconomic class’ effect on SAT scores, and the meaning of communism. Our professor didn’t let her personal opinions of content impact or influence her grading.

At the end of the semester, after reading my essays and viewing my interactions during peer editing sessions, the professor approached me to ask if I’d be interested in tutoring at the UMBC Writing Center. She was the director there and felt I’d be a good fit. I thought back on my experience in her class. It had been an open and welcoming environment for the diverse group of students within it. Even our class’ Writing Fellow ensured students received the help they needed and felt comfortable about their essays. With all of that in mind, I was overjoyed to be presented with the opportunity and accepted her offer to tutor. I agreed because I was excited about being able to help other students. Additionally, I was excited about belonging to a group that was headed by Professor Elaine MacDougall. I want to contribute to other students having a welcome and encouraging place to work on writing so they can come to love it like I do.

Thank you, Director MacDougall, for making the Writing Center that place.