Writing is far more than just research papers, essays, and reports; for writers at the Farmer School of Business, writing also includes presentations, slide decks, job applications, marketing materials, and so much more. This broad definition of writing is at the heart of all the Howe Center for Business Writing (HCBW) offers. With a team of writing consultants specially trained to help writers improve the content, design, and delivery of their writing, the HCBW supports Farmer writers as they develop the skills to communicate with their teachers, colleagues, and future employers through a variety of platforms and modalities.

Founded in 1996 thanks to the many generous and significant contributions from Roger and Joyce Howe, Class of 1957, the Howe Center for Business Writing supports writers in all FSB majors and disciplines. The HCBW is staffed by Howe Writing Center consultants, who are trained to work with writers across modalities and at all stages in their process.

In addition to supporting FSB students, the Howe Center for Business Writing also provides teaching support for FSB faculty. Dr. Mandy Olejnik, Assistant Director of Writing Across the Curriculum, offers individual teaching consultations for faculty who want to learn how to more effectively teach the kinds of writing valued in their disciplines and programs.

“All faculty benefit from talking with their students explicitly about what this writing and communicative work looks like in their fields of study,” Dr. Olejnik said. “I've worked with faculty across FSB to help them recognize that charts, figures, graphs, and other visual representations of data also count as writing, and that we can teach and support students’ use of these features the same way we can help them make their alphabetic prose more rhetorically effective.”

Dr. Olejnik also emphasizes the importance of writing and communication, not just in the classroom, but in our personal and professional lives, and encourages faculty to engage in discussion about how to effectively use writing in the classroom.

“We can meet with you right in our space in FSB to have a quick chat about the writing you're assigning to your students, and the different ways writing could be incorporated in even smaller ways,” Dr. Olejnik said.

FSB faculty who would like to schedule a consultation with Dr. Olejnik may do so here. Faculty are also encouraged to stop by the Howe Center for Writing Excellence’s main space in King Library, as well as the HCBW, so they can tell their students first-hand about the ways the center can support student writing through peer consultations.

The HCBW’s new space in FSB 2045 is a marked improvement in terms of sheer accessibility and exposure. It is now located right above the main atrium and one floor up from the Student Services office, as well as right down the hall from the William Isaac & Michael Oxley Center for Business Leadership. By visiting the space, FSB writers can meet with a Howe Writing Center consultant.

Among the HCBW writing consultants is Cole, a junior Marketing and Emerging Technology in Business and Design double-major with a minor in Rhetoric and Composition. In addition to his work as a consultant, Cole is actively involved in the Pi Sigma Epsilon business fraternity, UP Magazine, and the Armstrong Student Center Board. He loves connecting with students in the new HCBW space, especially because he himself is a FSB writer who has taken the same courses and completed the same assignments.

“I have talked to multiple Farmer students who were unaware of the previous location,” Cole said. “This office space and location is far more ideal. I have talked to quite a few faculty who have both congratulated us on the new space and also expressed how this space is much more accommodating to students in the sense that it is more accessible.”

The HCBW is now equipped with the technology and space for writers to practice presentations, a common end-of-term project for many FSB instructors, courses, and programs. By using a webcam and microphone to record themselves and their teammates, writers can record their presentations and review their performances for feedback from consultants.

The Howe Center for Business Writing offers in-person, live online (synchronous), and written online (asynchronous) writing consultations to not only Farmer School of Business students, but the entire Miami campus. Writers interested in scheduling a consultation or booking the presentation technology can do so through the HCBW’s appointment portal.