Student Spotlight: Nolan Bennett

Nolan Bennett is an English student here at UNO’s Honors program. He’s presented at two Writing Center conferences, the MWCC and NCPT, and over the summer interned at the archives and website at the National Willa Cather Center. Through his capstone project on Chinese-English short story author Sui Sin Far, Nolan uncovered two previously unknown short stories penned by the author.

How was the experience presenting at the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing?

It was fun to prepare for it, I was working with Kenneth Michael who’s a graduate student. I liked working with someone on the presentation, and it’s interesting doing research for writing centers because it can be limited compared to other fields. Finding the one or two articles that really related to what we were talking about, using mindfulness and mindful listening in writing center work, was interesting.

What’s your favorite thing about working in the Writing Center?

The consultants. I’ve met a lot of good people, other students working in the writing center, and it’s also been really fun to go to these conferences. I’ve been to a couple others that I haven’t presented at but it’s always a fun experience to see the work that’s been done in the other writing centers.

What, at UNO, do you feel has been most influential to your success as a student?

Being in the Honors program has been really helpful for me. Working with Dr. Morrison, she’s been able to help me a lot when problems have arisen an figuring out classes. I’ve also really enjoyed the honors-specific classes that are offered and the topics that are chosen for those.