As we settle into summertime, and transition to a new academic year, what better time to reflect on all that we accomplished here at the Health Sciences Writing Centre in 2025-2026—our 31st year in operation. From first-year undergraduates to doctoral candidates, nearly 700 students across U of T’s health sciences faculties attended over 2500 appointments, working one-on-one with our team of instructors to tackle everything from lab reports to residency applications. The latter has become a particular specialty of ours as we continue expanding our programming, especially in the Faculty of Medicine, to support students completing high-stakes and professional tasks including program and funding applications, personal statements, and comprehensive exams. Through these and other offerings, we achieved the centre’s core objective: building capacity through conversation and teaching learners to bridge the gap between technical expertise and accessible communication.
As ever, we take pride in fostering relationships with students and faculty, acknowledging that writing is integral to scholarly thinking, and that thinking is often best explored in dialogue. When students share why they value our centre, they tell us that working alongside our instructors not only helps improve the quality of their writing but also makes the process “feel much less daunting.” Of those surveyed this year, 90% rated their one-on-one consultations as “Excellent.” Their sentiments are echoed by those who participated in our graduate writing group Inked, which continues to grow, and attended any of the 36 workshops and various writing retreats we offered throughout the year.
In a world increasingly impacted by generative AI, we also continue to model human teaching and learning, using technologies as resources we control. Among U of T writing centres, the HSWC has become a hub for innovative and promising pedagogical practices and research, many of which address generative AI and its academic implications. This year, we launched three initiatives to support that work, including two REB-approved research projects:
A team of HSWC instructors, including Marvin Lam, Danielle Martak, Monica Gagnon, Joel Benabu, Cheryl Runke, and director Boba Samuels, is conducting research on AI’s impact on writing assignments across the health sciences. Marvin and Boba presented preliminary findings at the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing’s annual conference in May 2026.
Joel, who recently published a piece in Praxis exploring the “beehive effect” in writing centres, is also spearheading a project on writing instructors’ professional development.
Finally, Boba and Marvin along with Michael Cournoyea established SCRiPT, a pedagogical writing research lab that will serve as an incubator for writing studies research focused on the impact of technology.
These initiatives build on last May's Symposium on Generative AI in Health Sciences Writing & Assessment, as well as our inaugural Writing Instructor AI Forum, hosted in April 2026, which will continue to provide professional development opportunities for instructors and faculty across the U of T.
Of course, none of these initiatives would be possible without our exceptional instructors. This year, Dr. Marvin Lam was recognized with the Margaret Procter Award for Excellence in Writing Instruction, becoming the fourth winner among our team and making ours the most awarded across U of T’s writing centres. This same standard of excellence will follow us into the 2026-2027 academic year as we welcome new and returning students to the centre, and continue to dream up new possibilities for our community. Stay tuned.