SM
Sara Mandeville
  • English
  • Harrisville, RI

Sara Mandeville of Harrisville named writing coach at Saint Michael’s College

2013 Nov 4

Sara Mandeville, daughter of Lisa and Lucien Mandeville of Harrisville has been named a writing coach at Saint Michael’s College for the fall 2013 semester. Mandeville, a junior, English major, was selected from nominees submitted by the college faculty to be one of 29 student coaches at the liberal arts college located in Burlington, Vermont. Mandeville graduated from Burrillville High School before entering Saint Michael’s.

The coaches are an elite group who do professional work—one-on-one with their peers at the college, diagnosing writing problems, designing strategies to help. The coaches work with clients who seek guidance regarding writing assignments for their courses. They follow the premise, “Teach the writer, not the writing,” and thereby don’t just correct a given paper, but work with writers, so that they will have skills to improve their writing on their own in future assignments.

The carefully selected coaches have to pass an entry test to get into a Writing Center Internship course which they take prior to being named coaches. They are also given special instructions for working with students with learning differences and working with non-native speakers of English. International students comprise a substantial portion of the visitors to the writing center. Coaches are selected because of their language skills, patience, flexibility, good humor, and a good knowledge of written English.

The Writing Center is directed by Timothy Mackin, who has a Ph.D. in English, from Johns Hopkins University, with specialization in American and British modernism. He is former Associate Editor of English Literary History and served as Director of the Johns Hopkins University Writing Center.

About Saint Michael's

At Saint Michael’s College www.smcvt.edu students are challenged to do their best, find their niche, take on opportunities to grow, and immerse themselves in academic pursuits. A residential Catholic college, Saint Michael’s is steeped in the social justice spirit of its founding priests, the Edmundites. Saint Michael’s is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top 10 college towns. Headed by President John J. Neuhauser, the college has 1,900 undergraduate students and 500 graduate students. A prestigious Phi Beta Kappa institution, Saint Michael’s also features an extraordinary Wilderness Program and rare Fire & Rescue Squad, both of which other colleges use as models. Identified by the Princeton Review, 2014 as one of the nation’s Best 378 Colleges, and included in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014, Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Goldwater, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other awards. The college is one of the nation's top-100, Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2014 U.S. News & World Report rankings.