About the Founder
Aaron is a former university Writing Center Director, course administrator and instructor of writing and collaborative learning with over a decade of experience working with writers and learners of all ages and abilities. He received his BA in English at Marian University, Indianapolis and his MA in English at IUPUI. In his time as first Assistant Director and then Director of the Marian University Writing center, he and his staff transformed it in profound and dynamic ways. What started as a small university writing center sequestered in a basement and serving a few hundred undergraduate writers from a few departments each year became a force for writing on campus and across Indianapolis, recognized nationally as a model for a successful and impactful urban written and critical literacies center. The center he directed served over 4,000 writers and learners each calendar year, including high school, undergraduate, Masters and PhD-level, and Faculty/Staff writers and learners on campus, and everyone from elementary students seeking help on completing homework to juniors and seniors working on scholarship applications and college admissions, all the way up to elderly community members working on their memoirs and even assisting refugees in attaining citizenship. His thesis focused on the impact of a single session in a collaborative writing center, just like CALL. The findings, while just a pilot study, indicated that even a single meeting with a writing support specialist can show lasting impacts on a writer's ability to navigate writing needs.​
Just a few of the ways that the Marian University Writing Center and writing on campus in general changed and grew as a result of Aaron's leadership are:
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He was also a key contributor to the development of multiple off-campus writing centers, including the Flanner Community Writing Center, which served residents of the Near Northwest Area at the wrap-around services community hub, Flanner House.
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He rebuilt the center's systems and processes from the ground up for free by utilizing software already owned by the university. The newly designed systems simplified processes for both staff and the writers they served, while more efficiently gathering and utilizing the qualitative and quantitative data these integrated systems generated.
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He oversaw an expansion of the university Writing Lab from a few dozen writers each semester to over 150, including creating a brand new course to accommodate the university's growing graduate population.
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He consulted for writing center directors from New York to Utah to support their own systems overhauls, providing crucial advice and insight.
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He coached multiple campus departments on campus in creating more effective writing prompts, providing effective feedback to writers to support their learning, and developing ethical and effective scoring rubrics.
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Her created and coached instructors in the "Basic Writing" courses at Marian University.
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He oversaw an overhaul of the admissions scoring process for writers entering the writing program at the university.