When I read that Harvard was restructuring its Writing Center, I stopped.

Probably because I direct one.

My first reaction was the predictable one. I felt protective. Writing Centers already spend a lot of time explaining why we exist, and at a moment when higher education is cutting programs and positions, it's hard not to see another change and wonder what it means.

But the more I read, the more I tried to resist that reaction.

Harvard isn't simply deciding that writing doesn't matter. The university is going through a much larger restructuring, and writing tutors will continue working with students through its Academic Resource Center. I can understand some of the questions behind a decision like that. Does a Writing Center need to be its own separate space? Could resources be shared? Could students be served just as well—or maybe even better—through a different structure?

I don't know.

And that's actually the question I've been sitting with.

Because something very different is happening at my own Writing Center.

In the past five years, our visits have grown by more than 500% when our Writing Center separated from subject tutoring and started to be led by an English faculty. 

Five hundred percent.

Sometimes I look at that number and wonder what exactly happened.

We didn't suddenly discover the secret formula for teaching writing. I don't think students woke up one morning dramatically more excited about bringing drafts to the Writing Center.

We changed.

And students changed, too.

The Writing Center I direct now isn't quite the one I inherited. We've tried new things. We've built relationships with faculty. We've worked to make the Center feel like somewhere students choose to come rather than somewhere they're sent because something is wrong with their writing.

And lately, I've been thinking a lot about what they are actually coming for.

Because they can get answers in more places than ever before.

They can Google a grammar question. They can watch a video about citations. They can ask AI to reorganize a paragraph, brainstorm a thesis, or rewrite an awkward sentence.

So why walk into a Writing Center?

I think part of the answer is surprisingly simple.

Someone sits down with you.

Someone reads what you wrote.

And then they say something like, "Okay. What are you really trying to say here?"

I love that moment.

Not because the consultant knows the answer. Usually, they don't.

Because the writer does.

Or they're getting there.

Sometimes the most useful thing another person can do is stay with you long enough for you to hear your own idea more clearly.

That's what I don't want us to lose as writing changes.

And writing is changing. AI alone guarantees that. I'm not particularly interested in pretending otherwise. Our students are going to write in a world where technology can generate perfectly competent sentences almost instantly. Writing Centers will have to figure out what that means. So will professors. So will writers.

Maybe Writing Centers become more interdisciplinary. Maybe we spend more time on presentations and multimodal projects. Maybe we teach students how to work thoughtfully with AI. Maybe we become less concerned with the finished paper and more interested in everything that happens before it.

I hope we keep changing. Actually, I think we have to.

Harvard's decision made me wonder whether I've been asking the wrong question. Maybe the question isn't:

Do universities still need Writing Centers?

Maybe it's:

What do writers need from us now?

I don't think the answer will always be the same.

But I know what I see in my own Center.

I see students showing up with half-written introductions and ideas they can't quite articulate. I see consultants leaning over drafts and asking questions. I see students talking through something until suddenly they stop and say, "Wait. That's what I'm trying to say."

I see a lot of unfinished thinking.

And I see someone willing to sit beside it.

Maybe that's why our numbers keep growing.

I don't know.

But more than 500% later, I'm still paying attention.

Writing Centers shouldn't survive simply because they've always existed. They should keep earning their place by changing alongside the writers who need them.

The tools will change. The assignments will change. Even our definition of writing will probably change.

But I have a harder time imagining that moment disappearing:

Someone sitting across from someone else. A page between them. And one person asking,

"What are you trying to say?"

Then giving them the time to figure it out.