Burrell, Carnegie Mellon team up to establish writing center for high school students

Burrell high schoolers soon will have free access to guidance from students at Carnegie Mellon University.

CMU is establishing a writing center at Burrell High School, said Mimi Wertheimer, the director of student instructor development and K-12 community partnership at the university’s Gelfand Center.

Details of the program are still being worked out, but the goal is to get the writing center operational sometime next semester, said Darcy Holtzman, a literature teacher at Burrell.

CMU students already coordinate a writing center at Taylor Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill. When covid hit, they developed the writing center online.

“It quickly became popular at Allderdice — and popular for (CMU) students who wanted a flexible work opportunity,” Wertheimer said.

While CMU students offer tutoring services at many local schools, Burrell will be only the second school to have the writing center.

“It’s a real win-win between our program at the Gelfand Center and to support teachers and students at Burrell High School,” Wertheimer said.

Future pairings between Burrell and CMU are endless, Holtzman said. Her hope for the collaboration is that people get to see that no matter the level — high school or college — helping students is the No. 1 goal.

“The fact that this collaboration is even an option speaks to how open colleges and universities are about getting high school students ready for the next step in their educational journey no matter what that step may be,” Holtzman said.