We'd like to extend a warm "Hello!" from this year's Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors crew. We are excited to meet you, get to know you, and be here for you and your writing process this year. If you're curious about who we are and what we are interested in, browse this page for more information.

The Writing Center here at GVSU offers both virtual and in-person services in a variety of locations in order to help writers whenever and wherever they are. View our infographic on the right in order to get a snapshot of our work during the 2025-2026 academic year. Here, you can see data regarding popular topics, disciplines, and total numbers for completed consultations and in-class support. 

Curious about how consultants can help you accomplish your writing goals? Contact us to learn more about how the Writing Center can help provide writing support both inside and outside of the classroom.

Celebrating over 45 years of helping writers, the Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors is proud to share its history at Grand Valley. English professor Walter Foote first proposed a center where students could be tutored in writing, a relatively new concept in higher education at the time, in May 1979.

The College of Arts and Sciences, one of the colleges that made up the Grand Valley State Colleges federation, accepted Professor Foote’s proposal and planned to open the CAS Writing Tutorial Center at the beginning of the next semester. According to a memorandum to the facilities department, the room that was going to be used—Mackinac B-204—was too messy, which forced faculty to move the opening day from September 20 to October 15, 1979. Despite its difficulties in getting started, the CAS Writing Tutorial Center was an immediate success, helping nearly 130 students in the first, shortened year.

Over the next two decades, Grand Valley’s Writing Center went through many changes. Faculty directors alternated between Professors Walter Foote, Roz Mayberry, Sharon Whitehill, Carlos Salinas, and more as the Writing Center changed departments. The location was moved from Mackinac Hall to the basement of the Commons in the early-1990s, and again to the Student Services Building later in the decade. Under the first full time director, Denise Stephenson, Writing Center tutors created two publications: Boccaccio’s Discourse and Write Club.

With a different director, Ellen Schendel, and a change of names from “tutors” to “consultants,” Grand Valley’s Writing Center moved to its Lake Ontario Hall home in 2005. After almost a decade with the Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors name and Lake Ontario Hall as home, our Writing Center has established satellite offices on the Pew Campus, in the Mary Idema Pew Library Knowledge Market, and even online. However, one aspect has remained the same: our commitment to helping students become better writers.

In 2011, Pat Johnson joined the Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors, having previously worked at the Washington State University Writing Center. After Ellen Schendel moved into a new leadership role in Brooks College, Pat became the acting director under Kay Losey, followed by him being promoted to full director in 2014. With a background in Composition and Rhetoric and years of experience both as a writing consultant and a composition teacher, Pat brings a student-minded focus to his work. He will gladly speak with you for too long about any of his passions, so guard your time wisely.