Jennifer Alexander - Student Services Coordinator
Jen provides primary support for courses satisfying First-Year Writing Requirement (FYWR) and Upper-Level Writing Requirement (ULWR). The FYWR and ULWR are requirements for all students in LSA.
Some FYWR and ULWR Stats:
Processed around 1000 FYWR petitions. Of those, around 900 were for outside courses and around 100 were waiver requests (after the ULWR was complete) after the ULWR was complete.
Handled around 150 ULWR petitions, 100 of which were Honors agreements and 50 of which were Individual Arrangements.
Between Winter 2025 and Fall 2025, I worked with departments to organize the offering of around 250 ULWR courses.
“Honestly, my favorite part of my job is working with the students. I really enjoy talking down those freaked out students who think they're not going to graduate because they're missing their First Year Writing Requirement!”
Beth Baker - Undergraduate Program Coordinator
Beth provides support for two of Sweetland’s largest programs, the Minor in Writing (MiW) and the Peer Writing Program (PWP).
Beth’s support of the MiW program involves managing the nomination and application process, assisting students with course permissions, and providing support for tabling and outreach requests for the MiW. In the 2024/25 academic year, Beth processed a total of 64 applications which resulted in 49 students accepted.
2024 saw Sweetland reinstitute its MiW Student Ambassador program (MiWSA). Student ambassadors are current students in the MiW who serve as ambassadors to connect the MiW students with the program. Beth serves as the direct supervisor for our two student ambassadors ensuring they have the resources they need to perform activities like two annual orientation sessions, community-building events (2-3/semester), and attendance at first-year orientations.
Beth’s support of the PWP program involves managing the nomination and application process, assisting students with course permissions, and providing support for tabling and outreach requests for the PWP. In the 2024/25 academic year, Beth processed a total of 33 applications which resulted in 15 students accepted. Beth creates and maintains multiple schedules for Peer Writing Consultants. She also creates orientation materials and training documents for consultants and consultant/receptionists in the PWP.
Some fun statistics related the PWP:
- Fall 2024 saw 24 Peer Consultants offer a total of 1585 consulting hours with a 68% utilization rate. The 1585 hours included 1441 individual appointments.
- Winter 2025 saw 25 Peer Consultants offer a total of 1915 consulting hours with a 54% utilization rate. The 1915 hours included 1385 individual appointments.
Jennifer Catey - Academic Program Coordinator
Jennifer provides general supervisory support for the student services staff and stand-in support when the Chief Administrator is away from the office. Jennifer has created transparency with regard to the many forms that faculty are asked to complete. Jennifer has created an internal calendar that lists Sweetland’s internal deadlines and when faculty can expect to receive the form. These deadlines have been added to an academic year planning calendar that is distributed to faculty at the beginning of each academic year; the dates have also been added to the standing Sweetland meeting calendars so that faculty may use a single place to check on deadlines and other important dates.
Jennifer has also instituted cross training for the student services staff. Cross-training amongst the three student services staff allows Sweetland services to continue uninterrupted should a staff member need to be away from the office. In the last year, Jennifer has also assisted two student services staff with a slight realignment of duties which helped balance staff work load.
Lori Moizio - Student Services Assistant
Lori provides the primary support to Sweetland’s Writing Workshop (WW). Writing Workshop offers undergraduate and graduate students the ability to work one-on-one with a Sweetland faculty member to discuss course-related writing.
Supporting Writing Workshop means that Lori performs daily checks of WW appointments to ensure that students are scheduled for the appropriate amount of time and for the appropriate materials. Lori also coordinates last-minute changes to the schedule and the scheduling of walk-in students.
Writing Workshop stats from academic year 2024/25:
Fall 2024 saw Sweetland faculty offer 1292 hours with 932 of those hours used for a utilization rate of 72%. Of those 1292 hours were 1496 individual student appointments with 797 in-person appointments and 699 virtual appointments.
Winter 2025 saw Sweetland faculty offer 1168 hours with 593 of those hours used for a utilization rate of 51%. Of those 1168 hours were 928 individual student appointments with 410 in-person appointments and 518 virtual appointments.
Lori also coordinates our time schedule and course guide planning working with faculty to schedule their courses and adds their course descriptions to the LSA Course Guide.
Lori supports the Sweetland Writing Prize committee and worked with 62 student nominations which resulted in 52 student submissions. Lori is the primary support who handles outreach requests (from other faculty or other U-M programs). Lori also assists with our Minor in Writing commencement assisting with arranging catering, event planning and logistics and additional items related to the celebration.
Laura Schuyler - Assistant to the Director
Laura provides administrative support to the Sweetland director. She manages the director’s calendar and meetings along with administrative duties such as faculty hiring, searches, and reviews. The 2024/2025 academic year saw Sweetland hiring two new faculty members. To satisfy both faculty searches, Laura arranged a total of 18 Zoom interviews along with arranging travel and hosting which brought six final candidates to campus to give their job talks. This work led to the successful hiring of two new faculty members.
Laura also provides the primary support for the Sweetland Graduate Committee. Sweetland works closely with Rackham Graduate School and is central to ensuring that Sweetland upholds its commitment to graduate student assistance. Part of the commitment to graduate students also means that Laura provides support to Sweetland Dissertation Writing Groups (DWG) and the Sweetland Dissertation Writing Institute (DWI).
DWG and DWI Stats (academic year 2024/25):
DWG received 193 applications which resulted in 46 groups.
DWI received 38 applications which allowed 24 graduate students additional spring support with their dissertation writing.
Laura also provides support for the MWrite program with undergraduate students supporting writing-to-learn pedagogies in four large-enrollment introductory undergraduate courses.
Aaron Valdez - Design Services Associate
Aaron supported our Rackham/Sweetland Workshop series' workshops in both fall 2024 and winter 2025. Support for the series includes event planning and communications/marketing. The 2024/2025 academic year also saw Sweetland hiring two new faculty members. Six final applicants were selected to participate in job talks and Aaron recorded and distributed the job talks to the unit.
Aaron also serves as Sweetland’s web content manager and designer. His work, with the support of LSA Technology Services, transitioned our course and project websites created over the years on various platforms over to LSA Technology Services’ Wordpress services ensuring accessibility ahead of the university-wide April 2026 Accessibility deadline. Aaron also helped Sweetland win a $1000 "Raise the Bar" Giving Blueday challenge by increasing donations 300% from the previous year.
Aaron designs and publishes our online annual newsletter and writing prize pages. He also creates department print materials and photographs all of Sweetland's events.
