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From Stuck to Confident: How Owens’ Learning Commons Is Changing Students’ Writing

Writing Support tutor Emily Waldvogel works with Owens student David M. Case III in the Learning Center in College Hall.

David M. Case III just needed someone to talk to.

The Owens Community College student pursuing a Literature Transfer Pathway had recently changed majors — welding was behind him and academic writing was ahead. Past instructors pointed him toward the Learning Commons. He went, and he kept going back.

“When I feel like I’m stuck in a jam, they help me out,” Case said. “I love it, I learn something new. It’s been a good experience, plus I like going into the library to help me think.”

Case, from Toledo, said tutoring has strengthened his skills across the full arc of essay writing — introductions, body paragraphs, conclusions, thesis statements and in-text citations. But the biggest change, he said, has been internal.

“I had trouble with confidence in my writing, and these people have helped me with that,” Case said. “They’ve helped build that confidence. When I have free time, I do free writing to help me with my academic writing, like blurbs on stories I’ve read. I feel confident after I’m done here with the tutoring sessions. It feels good.”

He recommends the Learning Commons to anyone who will listen.

That kind of transformation is exactly what Emily Waldvogel works toward. A Writing Support Tutor in the Learning Commons, Waldvogel brings adjunct teaching experience to one-on-one sessions with students working on everything from essays and lab reports to PowerPoint presentations and speeches.

“I love writing, it’s my passion, and it’s something I feel like everyone can get better at and at least gain proficiency,” Waldvogel said. “You may not walk away with a love for writing, but if you can get through and write a confident email, be able to finish out your essay strongly, I want to make sure each student walks away with one new concept.”

Waldvogel said no two visits look the same. Some students return for every step of a single essay. Others stop in for a quick review. Many are non-traditional students who haven’t written formally in more than a decade.

“Walking them through and showing them what to do, it’s baby steps, it’s a process,” Waldvogel said.

“The best thing about writing is the process is whatever you make it. I always tell the students, it’s not silly if it works. Whether you have to do a careful outline and break it down step-by-step or you literally just start writing and putting things on the paper, what matters is that you are doing it. Too many people open that blank Word document and just freeze. It’s about getting at least the confidence to just start.”

The payoff, she said, is visible.

“Sometimes when you’re teaching someone, you can be uncertain in the moment if they truly do understand it … so to see someone turn around and know what they’re doing with confidence and pass the essay, those little things where they look relieved, I understand how they feel,” Waldvogel said.

The numbers back up the demand. Writing Support sessions in the Learning Commons have grown steadily every year, from 433 in fiscal year 2021-22 to 1,199 in fiscal year 2024-25, nearly tripling over that span.

The service is free and open to all Owens students, regardless of major or course. Writing tutors can help at any stage of the writing process, from narrowing a topic and building a thesis to strengthening organization and applying citation formats. Tutors guide students through revisions rather than editing papers directly, building skills students can carry forward.

Walk-in tutoring at the Toledo-area campus runs Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Findlay-area campus offers walk-in hours Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Online tutoring by appointment and eTutoring through the Ohio eTutoring Collaborative are also available.

For Case, it has been worth every visit.

“It’s a jigsaw puzzle sometimes,” he said of academic writing. “But the experience has been excellent.”

For more information on writing support and the Learning Commons, please visit owens.edu/tutoring.