Purdue OWL Engagement Overview
Introduction
Welcome to the Engagement area of the Purdue OWL. This area houses resources dedicated to - and often developed with - local organizations in greater Lafayette and Indiana. The goal of this area is to provide literacy material for local organizations and OWL users worldwide. Another goal of the Engagement area is to provide an interactive space for Writing Lab staff and members of the English Department to continue working with local communities. Engagement is an important part of the Purdue land-grant state university mission, and it is an important part of the Writing Lab's history.
Upcoming Engagement Events
Purdue Experience Liberal Arts Month: Writing Lab Open Houses - check back for dates and times
Engagement Projects
Community Writing and Education Station (CWEST)
Partner: Lafayette Adult Resource Academy (LARA)
Support: Purdue Writing Lab, Purdue Liberal Arts Community Engagement (PLACE), Student Engagement Grant
Overview: The CWEST (pronounced "quest") is a sustainable, collaborative civic engagement literacy project. Literacy materials are being developed in close cooperation with LARA, a local adult basic education program. Specifically, the CWEST contains the following material: GED preparation resources, ESL resources, workplace and personal finance literacy.
Purdue Professional Writing Students @sea
Partner: Purdue Professional Writing Program, Tippecanoe County Historical Society
Support: PLACE
Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) Civil Engineering Workshop Series
Partner: INDOT
Support: INDOT, Purdue Civil Engineering
One Laptop Per Child "Buy One, Give One"
Partner: OLPC Foundation
Support: Purdue Writing Lab
Words on the Go (WOTG)
Partner: Friends of Words on the Go, Creative Writers in greater Lafayette
Support: Purdue Public Radio WBAA FM 101.3 and AM 920, CityBus of Greater Lafayette, Tippecanoe Arts Federation
Overview: Words on the Go is a group of volunteers working in collaboration with staff at CityBus to mount poetry onboard our local buses. Our aim is to celebrate language and to encourage the use of public transportation. And in the process of soliciting and showcasing local poetry, we hope to build a rich sense of community. Although poetry-on-the-buses is an international phenomenon, Words on the Go is somewhat unique in its focus on community participation.
Engagement at Purdue
Office of Engagement
Purdue Liberal Arts Community Engagement (PLACE)
Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS)
Service-Learning at Purdue
Background
Community engagement in the Writing Lab first started as a paper-based handout system organized in filing cabinets. Paper handouts were mailed to users in response to questions about writing, citation, and research. In 1993, these engagement efforts shifted to a GOPHER system (precursor to the Internet) where users could review and download electronic writing resources through FTP. In 1995, the OWL launched on the World Wide Web with html versions of writing resources, and it has maintained an ongoing effort of engagement with the world ever since.
This Engagement area, however, is different from past efforts. Users' feedback notwithstanding, many OWL resources have been developed by members of the Writing Lab or members of the English Department and then disseminated to OWL users. Many projects and resources in this Engagement area have been (or are being) developed with OWL users or members of local organizations. Therefore, work housed here represents a participatory approach to resource authorship (civic invention) that teams users and developers in close, collaborative, and ongoing relationships. We hope you find this section informative and useful.