Kenneth Bruffee (September 1, 1934–January 20, 2019) was an American

writing center Writing centers provide students with assistance on their papers, projects, reports, multi-modal documents, web pages, and other writerly needs across disciplines. Although writing center staff are often referred to as Tutors, writing centers are p ...

administrator and professor emeritus in the department of English at Brooklyn College.

Background

Bruffee published the first peer tutoring handbook, ''A Short Course in Writing'', in 1972. While a writing program administrator at Brooklyn College, Bruffee played a leading role in the development of writing center studies, and collaborated with both educators and administrators across several CUNY institutes to establish peer tutoring as a standard academic support service within NYC public higher education. The rise of writing centers was necessitated by a growing population of students who were unprepared for college writing. In 1979, Bruffee and colleagues founded the Brooklyn College Institute for Training Peer Tutors, which trained peer tutors and encouraged the development of writing centers and writing labs. In 2007, Bruffee gave the keynote address at the 25th National Conference on Peer Tutoring and Writing. In 2008, the ''Writing Center Journal'' issued a special issue on ''Kenneth Bruffee and the Brooklyn Plan''. Bruffee graduated from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...

and earned a Ph.D. in English from

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. He has taught at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

, the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, Cooper Union, and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

."Bruffee
Brooklyn College. Retrieved 11 August 2012.

Publications

Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence and the Authority of Knowledge
(Johns Hopkins University Press; 1993)
A Short Course in Writing: Composition, Collaboration and Constructive Reading
(Peason, Longman; 2006)
Elegetic Romance: Cultural Change and the Loss of the Hero in Modern Fiction
(Cornell University Press; 1983)

Background

Publications

Notes

See also