Student Spotlight: Faith Vawter

Faith Vawter is pursuing their MFA in creative nonfiction writing and serves as a TA in the English department. They presented at a round table at the National Conference for Peer Tutoring in Writing, and have interned in the writing center in previous years.

You presented at the NCPTW, how was that?

I presented at a round table, so rather than an individual presentation I gave an overview, a history on my topic, and how I do it in my own work. My topic was creating a queerer writing center, and bringing in queer theory into the writing center. I’m very passionate about it. Some of the aspects are the idea of progress over perfection. I don’t expect students to become perfect writers over the course of one semester or one session in the writing center. So as long as you can progress, that’s enough. We also talked about breaking down binaries in the writing center, and how do we break down those power dynamics between teacher and student to create a collaborative environment but recognize that there’s times when binaries can be helpful in creating distance. We also talked about identities. In the writing center, we’re not just a writer, or a student. We have other things going on—I’m a student, I’m a tutor, a teacher, but I’m also a sibling and a cat parent and so on.

How has the experience of being a TA changed you and what has it taught you?

I actually have my bachelor’s in nutrition, exercise, and health sciences from UNL. So this is not at all what I saw myself doing six, seven years ago. So I came to UNO and I ended up choosing to get my MFA after taking a few writing classes. Being a TA has been a huge, huge learning experience because I didn’t know how to teach. That wasn’t my background and English wasn’t my background. It’s been a great opportunity to work with students and learn the different ways of learning and how I can better support and connect with students who have different individual needs. The other TAs, it’s really great to hang out with them and have people to talk to and bounce ideas off of. Through this experience, I know this is what I want to do. I want to teach, I think it’s incredibly important.

What is your biggest motivator as a student, teacher, and writer?

I love to read and write. Sharing that with students is what motivates me as a teacher. In my own program, it’s when you read them and you want to cry because of the talent it takes. I love the idea of getting to share my story, and I think there’s not enough representation out there of queer individuals. I identify as non-binary, I use they/them pronouns, and finding books by non-binary writers can be very difficult. If I could help, potentially, add to that representation that would be amazing.