The people involved in �ֲ���ý’ peer-tutoring program know how good it is — and now the word’s about to spread, thanks to recognition from the national organization that sets standards for training peer tutors.

Now in its third year, the system for training �ֲ���ý’ excellent peer tutors received the International Tutor Training Program Certification from the College Reading and Learning Association on Jan. 7.

The certification “says that we’re serious about our work,” says Dan Sanford, who oversees tutor training as the director of the college’s Academic Resource Commons. “It says that we’re serious about making sure that every �ֲ���ý student, from first-year student to graduating senior, is supported throughout that entire process.”

“There’s a well-recognized set of best practices nationally for learning centers” like the ARC, Sanford explains. The CRLA certification, which requires a long and rigorous evaluation process, tells the world that a given program meets those criteria.

Math tutor Gabe Nelson ’20 of South Burlington, Vt., works with Monica Luna ’21 of Avondale, Ariz., in the Mathematics and Statistics Workshop in Ladd Library. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“It’s a mark of maturity and of national recognition for ARC, and a nice feather in �ֲ���ý’ cap,” Sanford says, especially because CRLA “looks comprehensively at a learning center’s entire institutional context in awarding these certifications.”

He adds that the ITTPC makes �ֲ���ý unique among the NESCAC schools. And if the certification is a valuable credential for �ֲ���ý and the ARC, it can be a powerful resume item for the peer tutors as well, especially those planning a career in education or hoping to land teaching assistantships in graduate school.

Around 100 students serve as peer tutors, filling a variety of roles in ARC headquarters in Ladd Library. There are peer tutors in specific disciplines; tutors in writing and speaking; experts in the academic resources available to students; and peer-assisted learning leaders who, as veterans of an especially challenging course, can tutor students who come after them in that course.

The �ֲ���ý training, Sanford notes, was designed around the CRLA criteria (which, in outline form, fill 10 pages). Training begins with a half-day session just before classes start in September and continues throughout the academic year.

Though it encompasses topics as diverse as Title IX guidelines and the cognitive science behind adult learning, the core of the training involves collaborative learning and active learning (which uses various techniques to effect active student engagement with what’s being taught).

In essence, empowerment is the objective of this training. And empowering the tutee may require some impulse adjustment for the tutor. “Students become tutors because they know their stuff,” says Sanford. “When you’re tutoring, the most natural thing to do is open your mouth and let all of the things you know come out.”

Dan Sanford is the director of �ֲ���ý’ Academic Resource Commons and the Writing at �ֲ���ý program. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

But, he continues, “a lot of tutor training goes to checking that instinct.” The point is to “encourage the student who comes in for tutoring to do as much talking as the tutor, and to empower the expertise and knowledge of the tutee.”

Sarah Raphael ’21 of Carlisle, Pa., is a student manager in ARC and a peer writing and speaking assistant for a first-year seminar. She sees tutoring as “a bridge between teaching and learning.

“Professors at �ֲ���ý don’t want students to regurgitate material, but rather to think critically about content. Tutors endeavor to guide the transition between the presentation of information and the comprehension of information.”

Advancing equity is another key concept in the training, focusing on the specific abilities of students from various linguistic, racial, and ethnic groups, as well as those of first-generation-to-college students.

The point is to empower the expertise and knowledge of the tutee.

And there’s also an important counseling component. “Students may be stressed out, overwhelmed by their studies,” Sanford notes. “There’s an emotional component of being listened to, and calming down a little bit, that has to happen before students can get in a place where they can learn.”

�ֲ���ý’ peer-tutor training is unique in at least one aspect that Sanford has been able to discern: Tutors are required to write reflections on the trainings as they progress through the program, he explains. “Those reflections become, over time, a portfolio of their progress through the training curriculum.

“And then they develop, as another part of that portfolio, a statement of their own philosophy as a peer educator that builds on all those reflections.” The capper is producing a project for ARC “that’s rooted in that philosophy and that pulls all those reflections together.

“They create trainings, they create posters, they create study guides — there are a lot of directions they can go in.” So a chemistry tutor deeply dedicated to active learning might, for example, create a set of pedagogical tools that chemistry students can use in ARC.

The certification arrives at an auspicious time. ARC was established as a pilot program — an experiment, as Sanford says — supported by a Davis Educational Foundation grant. Bringing peer-tutor training at �ֲ���ý up to contemporary national standards, including support for the full spectrum of student needs, was an objective of that experiment.

“What we really did is put together sort of an outline, a sketch, of a learning center. And the students who run the center filled that out and made ARC what it is,” Sanford explains.

The Davis grant runs out in June and ARC, having proved its worth, will transition from pilot program to established institutional asset — “a permanent part of the �ֲ���ý vision,” Sanford says. “And it’s because of what the students have brought to it in coloring in that sketch.”

In this 2017 image taken in the Academic Resource Commons, Claudia Krasnow ’18 (at right), peer writing and speaking assistant for a Spanish course, works with Madelyn Heart ’18 on a paper. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Recently appointed as director of Writing at �ֲ���ý, Daniel Sanford comes to Maine from New Mexico. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

A linguist and ardent advocate of language rights, Daniel Sanford has been appointed director of �ֲ���ý College’s Writing at �ֲ���ý program, as well as director of the college’s new Academic Resource Commons.

Sanford began at �ֲ���ý Aug. 1, following 13 years at the University of New Mexico, where he served most recently as director of the award-winning Center for Academic Program Support.

“Dan is deeply experienced in both writing program administration and, more broadly, the oversight of student support centers,” said Matthew Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at �ֲ���ý.

“We welcome his keen intellectual engagement, his strong record as an academic support leader, his commitment to student success, and his already palpable collegiality.”

“I’m honored to serve as the director of Writing at �ֲ���ý, leading the staff in supporting students in their growth as writers, and faculty in the use of writing in their courses,” said Sanford.

“I’m fascinated by the role that writing plays in the transformative experience of a liberal arts education, and I believe strongly in the power of writing to help individuals to access communities both within the academy and in the world beyond it.”

He said, “I’ve always wanted to work at a college like �ֲ���ý — an intimate community where there is a close relationship between faculty and students.” Sanford added that he was also drawn by �ֲ���ý’ longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. “�ֲ���ý has realized that commitment in very impressive ways.”

Strongly intentional about developing students’ abilities to communicate through the written word, the �ֲ���ý curriculum is bookended by writing. First-Year Seminars ground students in college-level writing. �ֲ���ý’ distinctive senior thesis program is the culmination of a student’s writing for �ֲ���ý. Along the way, students are required to take courses designated as writing-intensive.

Sanford directs a staff of writing specialists who support both faculty and students. In addition, Writing at �ֲ���ý incorporates a large team of peer writing and speaking assistants, students who help students.

Situating support for both faculty and students in one office, Sanford says, “is a unique model that I’m lucky to have inherited. We’re supporting the teaching of writing in the classroom, and supporting students as they use writing in their courses, in order to approach writing from both sides — and hopefully make a real difference.”

Still in development at �ֲ���ý, the Academic Resource Commons coordinates Writing at �ֲ���ý, the Mathematics and Statistics Workshop, and other resources for learning and teaching. “A goal is to converge all of our resources in one central area so that students and faculty have a clear idea of where to go for support,” Sanford explains.

At the University of New Mexico, Sanford headed the Center for Academic Program Support for two years, following stints as associate director of CAPS and, before that, head of the writing center within CAPS.

Sanford is particularly proud of two achievements as CAPS director. For one, he broadened the writing center’s mission to support student writing in not just English, but in all languages taught at UNM — including Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Navajo.

He also shifted the advising emphasis away from one-on-one sessions with students to working in groups. “That change, I think, fit well with the goal of writing centers to treat writing as a process rather than a final product, and to encourage students to engage with one another over writing.”

Sanford became involved in writing center and academic support work while working toward a doctorate in linguistics at UNM. He earned an undergraduate degree in classics and linguistics at the University of Wisconsin.

An active scholar, Sanford conducts research in cognitive science and linguistics, composition studies, and language rights. Sanford says that while it’s more common for writing specialists to have backgrounds in composition or English, his training in linguistics has served him well.

“As students come in from a whole host of international backgrounds and U.S. dialects, and move toward the fluencies we’re trying to teach them, understanding typological differences across languages can help bridge those boundaries.”

Sanford adds, “A lot of the work that I do in writing centers is through the lens of language rights. So I’m thinking about students having the full right to use the languages that they grew up with as a way to navigate the world — and how we can help empower them in that.”

“When you have an institution like �ֲ���ý that’s so intensively committed to diversity of many types, it’s important to engage with writing in a way that allows every type of student from every background — linguistic, cultural, and national — to fully access everything here.”

Sanford lives in an 1850s farmhouse in South Paris, Maine, with his wife, a landscape artist, and their two daughters. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, running, hiking, and biking.