1969 — Graduate students in the IUP English Department begin a program to help undergraduate students improve their writing skills.
1971 — IUP Composition Clinic is founded by Lorrie Bright and Jack Davis and funded by a grant of $30,000 from the US Department of Education, an enormous grant sum at the time for a composition program. The clinic was housed in a former classroom in Leonard Hall, which was razed in 2016. Others involved in the early years included Laura Miller, Malcolm Hayward, Don McClure, and Gary Olson.
1981 — The IUP Composition Clinic is renamed the IUP Writing Center.
1985 — IUP Writing Center moves from Leonard Hall to Eicher Hall and is codirected by Michael M. Williamson and Lea Masiello.
1987 — IUP Writing Center acquires 28 computers that use floppy disk drives and run the “WordPerfect Jr.” word processing program.
1988 — Ben Rafoth becomes codirector, with Lea Masiello, of the IUP Writing Center.
1995 — Rafoth and Dennis Ausel receive a State System grant to pilot an online writing center using then-new email attachments. Nearly 1,000 students submit papers and receive feedback in the first semester. This online writing center was among the first of its kind in the US. Many online writing centers today still use email attachments.
2000 — Jennifer Ritter, then a graduate student in the Rhetoric and Linguistics Program, builds the first website for the IUP Writing Center.
2002 — Elizabeth Boquet (IUP PhD) publishes Noise from the Writing Center and becomes co-editor of The Writing Center Journal.
2003 — Rafoth organizes and coordinates the first joint conference for the International Writing Centers Association and National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, held in Hershey, Pennsylvania. A record 951 people attend.
2006 — Tina Perdue serves as interim director until 2010, while Rafoth serves as graduate coordinator for the Composition and TESOL Program (now Composition and Applied Linguistics).
2007 — Michele Eodice (IUP PhD ’99) becomes president of the International Writing Centers Association. Eodice also publishes The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice, and in 2013, Working with Faculty Writers.
2008 — IUP Writing Center tutors receive prestigious Best Article award for “Taking on Turnitin,” published in the Writing Center Journal in 2009. The essay has been republished and anthologized many times.
2009 — A Tutor’s Guide (2nd ed.) is published by Rafoth. ESL Writers (2nd ed.) is published by Shanti Bruce (IUP PhD 2008) and Ben Rafoth
2010 — Kevin Dvorak (IUP PhD 2006) becomes president of the Southeast Writing Centers Association.
2011 — Lindsay Sabatino, then a graduate student, develops a synchronous online tutoring platform for the IUP Online Writing Center.
2012 — The IUP Writing Center-Library Satellite opens in Stapleton Library. Weekly Walk-in Wednesday Workshops have been offered every semester since this time.
2013 — Kevin Dvorak becomes president of the International Writing Centers Association. Leigh Ann Dunning, Emily Weber, and others launch a social media campaign to promote the Writing Center on and off campus. Emily Weber is the center’s first communications coordinator.
2015 — On October 16, 2015, a generous endowment for the Writing Center is established by David White, the Kathleen Jones White Writing Center is dedicated to the memory of Kathleen Jones White, and the Writing Center is renamed. The Jones White Graduate Editing Service is launched, administered by the Writing Center and funded by the Graduate School. Rafoth delivers the keynote address at the IWCA annual conference in Pittsburgh and publishes Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers.
2016 — Shanti Bruce and Ben Rafoth publish Tutoring Second Language Writers.
2017 — Rebecca Day Babcock (IUP PhD) publishes Writing Centers and Disability and, in 2018, Researching the Writing Center, rev. ed.
2019 — Dana Driscoll becomes director of the Jones White Writing Center, in advance of Ben Rafoth’s planned retirement in 2020. Rafoth is invited to deliver a plenary lecture at the IV Congreso Internacional de la Red Latinoamericana de Centros y Programas de Escritura (fourth International Congress of the Latin American Network of Writing Centers and Programs), held at ITESO, Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara, Mexico.
2022 — Kathleen Jones White Writing Center moves from Eicher Hall to its current location in Stabley Library.
2023 — Dana Driscoll helps start the first writing in the Czech Republic.
2024 — Dana Driscoll becomes founding director of the Center for Scholarly Communication and Dan Weinstein becomes director of the Kathleen Jones White Writing Center.
2026 — Dana Driscoll and Omar Yacoub (IUP PhD) help start a writing center in Turkey.