by Gerry Boyle '78

Last year Farnham Writers' Center tutor Anna L'Hommedieu '02 was so sure there would be no takers for her 3 a.m. shift in the center's Miller Library offices that she showed up in her pajamas. She won't do that again.

"There actually were people here," L'Hommedieu said. "I tutored somebody for a 15-page paper for over an hour."

She is one of the tutors-there are 17 on call-who staff the center for its end-of-the-semester 30-hour marathons. The sessions begin the Thursday before the end of classes and end late Friday afternoon, when many papers and take-home tests are due. Students who wander in from the dark find an expository shoulder to lean on-and nuts, chips, veggies and dip.

Students won't find volunteers to do their work for them. "The writing center is not a Îcorrectional' facility," L'Hommedieu said. "It's supposed to be a collaborative facility."

The collaboration can be invaluable to a writer on a solo all-nighter who may be experiencing a bewildering loss of perspective. Is the point of the paper clear? Is it organized? Are its conclusions supported in the text? Whom do you ask in the early morning hours? "People are amazed at how busy it can get at 2 or 3 in the morning," said the Writers' Center's director, Angela Cannon '99.

Of course some students avail themselves of the center's services during daylight hours. As first semester came to a close, Suzanne Skinner '03 stopped for a session with tutor Erin Rogers '01. Skinner's paper, for an integrated studies class, explored feminist reaction to the sexual revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. Skinner said she wanted a sounding board so that she could tell whether her point was clear. "Back in high school my mom did it," she said, "but she's not here."

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