About CWAC

At the Center for Writing Across the Curriculum (CWAC), we offer guidance and resources to enhance writing eloquence throughout Saint Mary's College of California. 

Pursuing the construction and expression of knowledge through shared inquiry, we are guided by the Burkean Parlor model of collaborative dialogue.

Inspired by the Lasallian tradition of service through education, we nurture writers in a safe and productive space.

We advise peer students through 1-1 sessions, Writing Circles, and collaborative workshops for diverse disciplines.

We award and publish excellent student writing and art. 

We offer faculty development workshops to guide the sharing of ideas among peers who are teaching Writing in the Disciplines or Collegiate Seminar courses. 

By supporting faculty and students, we help all writers enter more fully into scholarly dialogue, sharpening their skills, building their confidence, and connecting writing strategies across contexts.

We're not all English majors; in fact, we study diverse disciplines, from business to environmental science to integral and beyond. Read about us and get to know who we are:

Frances Allen - Writing Adviser

• Class: 2025
• Major: Integral

Mallory Asis - Writing Adviser 

• Class: 2027
• Major: English & Creative Writing

Jame Carrillo  - Writing Adviser, MFA Fellow 

• Class: 2027
• Program: MFA Fiction 

Angelica Erskine - Writing Adviser, MFA Fellow

• Class: 2025
• Program: MFA Poetry

Molly Floberg - Writing Adviser

• Class: 2026
• Major: English & Creative Writing

Lillian La Salle - Writing Adviser

• Class: 2026
• Major: Justice, Community, & Leadership & Theology and Religious Studies

Anna Moser - Lead Writing Adviser

• Class: 2025
• Major: Philosophy

Emma Owen - Writing Adviser

• Class: 2027
• Major: English

Drew Paxman - Writing Adviser

• Class: 2027
• Major: Politics/Media Production, minor Creative Writing

Zane Waterman - Writing Adviser

• Class: 2026
• Major: Psychology, minor Creative Writing

Facilitators come from a variety of backgrounds, but they have a lot in common. They're all continuously training and developing their skills as facilitators, and they love talking to students about writing. Sign up for a Circle and get to know them:
 

• Joe Zeccardi, Adjunct Professor, CWAC Director
• Chase Manning, Adjunct Professor
• Jennifer Burnside, Adjunct Professor
• Angelica Floridi, MFA Fellow 
• John Krupp, MFA Fellow 

In CWAC, we never tell anyone what to write, and we never correct papers. We do teach mini-lessons, guiding writers to learn how to analyze their work and how to apply particular strategies.

Different disciplines place unique demands on writing. As Michael Pemberton argues, Writing In the Disciplines (WID) sessions should be characterized by “parity, a balance of power”: not an absence of power but rather a harmonious balance of students’ authority over disciplinary knowledge and advisers’ authority about writing. This allows writers to enter sessions as the “experts” of their texts and also prevents them from passively taking in the suggestions of the advisers.

Readerly, collaborative response is a particularly good fit for Saint Mary’s because students are accustomed to seminar-style dialogue. Writers tend to walk in to CWAC ready to discuss. They tend to walk away with more clarity about their own ideas, more strategies for improving their writing, and more confidence in themselves as contributors to the scholarly dialogue.