Bailey McKeon ’22
Contributing Writer
Summer Dow ’22 brings her deep passion for written work to the Allan K. Smith Center for Writing to provide support for her Trinity peers as they make their way through the writing process. Dow and her fellow writing associates engage in one-on-one tutoring to improve pieces of writing brought in by clients. Although sessions are focused on the specific piece a student wishes to discuss, the goal of Dow and other writing associates is to help their clients grow into better writers overall.
Dow, who has been working at the Writing Center since the start of her sophomore year, believes that the support system the Writing Center provides speaks to how essential collaboration is in the craft of writing. Through her experience as a writing associate, Dow has come to realize that individual writing is elevated in excellence when it is approached collaboratively. Dow values this in her own writing, always striving to improve her personal work by seeking feedback from her fellow writing center associates, frequently visiting the writing center herself, and also learning from her clients.
Prior to working at the Writing Center, Dow never believed writing to be a strength or hobby of hers. Thanks to many inspiring visits to the Writing Center during her freshman year, a passion for writing arose in Dow and she applied to be a writing associate with the dream of supporting Trinity students like herself in their writing process and leading them to view themselves as strong writers. Because of the immense enjoyment she has found in collaborating on the writing of others, Dow imagines pursuing a career in editing or publishing.
Dow has come to greatly appreciate the opportunities writing affords us to communicate with each other. Dow believes writing to be so powerful because of its ability to connect people. One is able to not only express their own ideas, arguments, and emotions, but also understand those of others, perhaps learning from or coming to understand perspectives that they may otherwise have not come across. To Dow, writing is like a time machine because, through the written work of others, she can travel to eras she otherwise would have never been able to experience.
Dow greatly cherishes this access to various perspectives that writing provides her with as her favorite part about working at the writing center is exploring pieces from diverse curriculums. Helping students with anything from a chemistry research proposal to a political science essay to a creative writing poem, Dow loves to learn about subjects she has not taken at Trinity and to meet students from these different disciplines that she otherwise may not have had the opportunity to meet.
In her position as a writing center associate at Trinity College, Dow aims, over her next two and a half years at Trinity, to make the writing center even more widely known across campus. Working to make the writing center more equipped to handle the needs of all students, Dow hopes her peers can find comfort and confidence in the writing center and its ability to collaboratively produce excellent pieces along with excellent writers.
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