AULA Teaching and Learning Center

Teaching & Learning Center

Welcome to the AULA Teaching and Learning Center. The Center provides services free of charge to all students with academic support in numerous areas: academic writing, creative writing, mathematics, statistics, and computer skills. Students are able to work with our tutoring staff of writing and math professionals via Zoom or over the phone.

Writing support sessions are scheduled through WCOnline, and students are required to create an account in order to schedule appointments. If you would like assistance using the WCOnline system, please contact the Teaching and Learning Center at [email protected]

Note that in the WCOnline schedule, students have the opportunity to schedule appointments with AULA writing specialists or with peer consultants available across the university. Students can schedule up to 180 minutes per week in 30, 60, or 90-minute sessions. Each session ends 5-10 minutes before the scheduled end of that period.

Math, statistics, and computer skills support are by appointment only and can be scheduled by emailing our math specialist, Bob Thomas, directly ([email protected])

Also, look through the upcoming workshops offered by our staff via Zoom on the TLC Workshop siteand browse a library of resources from previous workshops in the Workshop Archive.

You can find more writing and math skills support on our resources site. 

Writing Support

Tutoring Schedule

Day	Hours	Tutor
Monday	9:00am - 12:00pm	Adrian Cepeda
	11:00am - 4:00pm	Roz Weisberg
	3:00pm - 8:00pm	Megan Vasquez
Tuesday	9:00am – 2:00pm	Adrian Cepeda
	9:00am – 1:00pm	Andrea Auten
	3:00pm - 8:00pm	Kolleen Carney Hoepfner
Wednesday	9:00am - 2:00pm	Adrian Cepeda
	9:00am - 2:00pm	Roz Weisberg
	3:00pm - 8:00pm	Kolleen Carney Hoepfner
	3:00pm - 8:00pm	Megan Vasquez
Thursday	9:00am - 2:00pm	Andrea Auten
	10:00am - 12:00pm	Adrian Cepeda
	3:00pm - 7:00pm	Kolleen Carney Hoepfner
Friday	9:00am - 1:00pm	Roz Weisberg
	10:00am - 2:00pm	Megan Vasquez

MAKE AN APPOINTMENT

All tutoring sessions are held via Zoom or on the phone. You may schedule a maximum of 180 minutes per week. Sessions end 5-10 minutes before the end of the scheduled time.

Please honor your appointment. If you determine that you cannot make it, please cancel within 24 hours of your appointment to ensure other students may use the time.

Writing Support Services

Students can bring anything from a draft to a finished paper, kick-start ideas, organize a paper, or grapple with grammar. Writing specialists do not create the work for the student but discuss methods and identify areas where students need to focus and strengthen their skill set. These tutors guide, suggest, and question – they teach rather than do. The doing is the privilege of the student. A successful tutor-student relationship allows the student to realize their potential as a writer and feel confident that, independently, they can produce quality and inspired academic work.

Get support at any point in the writing process:

• brainstorming
• research
• drafting
• revision
• Proofreading

Work with tutors on many types of writing:

• academic
• persuasive
• creative
• resume/business

Refine your writing from multiple perspectives:

• critical thinking
• thesis statements
• argumentation
• supporting evidence
• organization
• citation
• grammar
• finding your voice
• research
• writer’s block

Math & Computer Support

Math Support Services

We provide the support that makes math accessible and even enjoyable. Questions about statistics, mathematics, or computers are addressed with a comprehensive, step-by-step approach.

Math tutors work with students to help alleviate fears related to math and discover the joy that this field of study can bring, particularly to those who have struggled in the past. Our expert math tutors empower students to tackle any math concepts they encounter with confidence.

Math Appointments

Appointments for Math Tutoring can be made directly with Bob Thomas, the Math Specialist, by emailing him at: [email protected]

Workshops

The writing centers of the University run workshops that are available to all current students; click here to see the archive as well as all upcoming workshops.

All tutoring sessions are held via Zoom or on the phone. You may schedule a maximum of 2 hours per week.

Please honor your appointment. If you determine that you cannot make it, please cancel within 24 hours of your appointment to ensure other students may use the time.

Meet the Tutors

LaCoya Katoe Gessesse, Director of the Teaching and Learning Center (AULA)

As an undergraduate business major, my favorite English professor asked me a single, life-changing question—“Why aren’t you majoring in something you love?” The question was instantly freeing, and the rest is history.

I knew I loved words on the page and the task of arranging them to engage readers, so I majored in English literature at Lake Forest College, received my MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, and now have more than 15 years of experience as an educator, teaching artist, curriculum developer, and anthology editor.

As Director of the AU Los Angeles’ Teaching and Learning Center, I encourage our Professional Writing Specialists to eagerly assist students with all stages of their writing, and to work with students, sentence-by-sentence, to create something that addresses the requirements of the student’s assignment and something that makes the student feel proud about their own words on the page. 

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Andrea Auten

Hello Students! Your work is important to me. Upfront, I want you to know I put time into tutoring. I’ve been a student while raising two sons, and at the same time holding an active acting career. I’ve commuted, studied, memorized lines, and met school deadlines. You have my respect and my attention.

Inspired by my father, a music education professor, I used to line up my dolls and stuffed animals, stand in front of them, and conduct lectures. I was two. My teaching journey began in early elementary school, tutoring classmates then racing home to teach the neighborhood kids. They were less than thrilled. School was difficult for me and I could barely read due to Amblyopia. I was a D student until age 15 when hormones evened out and learning blossomed.

This taught me patience and insight when the learning process frustrates.

Awarded four degrees, I have a great love for academics, research, and the reciprocal relationship between teacher and student, artist and element, writer and reader, and performer and audience. I apply arts teaching and my stage career as a musical performer, dramatic writer, and theatre director to enhance my creative writing instruction. If you’re an idea human, I’m an idea whisperer. I’d love to hear what you’re thinking and help you write it to life. A fiction writer, I’m a member of the Degenerate Writer’s Group. My creative nonfiction work has been seen in Made In LA, Lady/Liberty/Lit, Lunch Ticket, and The Antioch Voice. I hold an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and a teaching certification in creative writing pedagogy from Antioch’s post-MFA program. Also, I am a California, Single Subject, credentialed teacher for Art and Drama education with years of experience in both Ohio and California. Prior to this arts-focused work, I substituted in all subjects.

Your work has value. Emerging, building, or polished and ready for proof edits, I’ll help you get the work done. Even if it seems tangled, bring me your work. I’m ready to help you clear a path and make the goal.

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Adrian Cepeda

Greetings and Salutations Antochian Students, As a fellow writer, my goal as a writing consultant echoes Walter Benjamin’s famous saying, “Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed; an architectural one, where it is constructed; and finally, a textile one, where it is woven.” My job as your tutor in the Antioch Teaching and Learning Center is to take the musical construction you have crafted and be the guide that weaves your creation into life on the page. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in English from the University of Texas in San Antonio and I just received my MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles. I have also taught an Inspiration2Publication poetry course at AULA. In addition, I have had over a hundred poems, essays, and creative non-fiction pieces that have been published in such publications as the new Tia Chucha Press anthology: Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes & Shifts in Los Angeles, the non-fiction anthology Everything I Need to Know About Love I Learned from Pop Songs, Popmatters, The Lake Poetry, Edgar Allen Poet Journal # 2, Fukushima Poetry Anthology, The Syzygy Poetry Journal, Luna Luna Magazine’s Latino Poetry Project, First Literary Review-East, Love Poetry Lovers, The Fem, Journal of Artistic Creation and Literary Research, Silver Birch Press, Transcendence Magazine, The Yellow Chair Review, Ekphrastic California, Poetry and Art for Social Justice, Subterranean Blue Poetry's The Children of Orpheus Anthology and Angel City Review.

For those of you who are apprehensive about visiting the Antioch Teaching and Learning Center, remember we writing specialists are here ready to guide, assist and help you. Just follow the advice Hugh Laurie gave which reflects the mindset of some hesitant writers: “It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Now is as good a time as any.”

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Kolleen Carney Hoepfner

Kolleen Carney Hoepfner earned her MFA in Poetry from AULA in 2013. She is the author of Your Hand Has Fixed the Firmament (Grey Book Press) and A Live Thing, Clinging with Many Teeth (Spooky Girlfriend Press). Her writing can be found in Memoir Mixtapes, Birth.Movies.Death, Lammergeier, Honey+Lime, and elsewhere. Kolleen serves as Editor in Chief of Drunk Monkeys. Her main goal in life is to have Alec Baldwin smile at her. She lives in Burbank, California, with her husband and children.

 

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Ben Taylor

Hi, My name is Ben Taylor. I have worked in education for ten years as a teacher, tutor, and curriculum writer. I taught middle and high school English in Dallas and tutored undergraduate and graduate students at several universities. In each experience, I worked with students to leverage both their strengths and passions in writing and research. My essays and book and film criticism appear in Electric Literature, Colorado Review, under the gum tree, and other outlets. I received my MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch in December 2022 and am currently the Blog and Content Director for Lunch Ticket.

 

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Bob Thomas

I am one of the Antioch University Math Tutors.  I specialize in working with students on basic math skills, as well as basic computer skills (both PC and Mac).  I also tutor students in the BA Statistics classes.

I have worked with many students who have had bad experiences with math and math teachers in the past.  Through our sessions, my students discover ways to approach math that are empowering and even fun. I love seeing the look on a student’s face when they discover they actually enjoy working through their math exercises.

One reason for my interest in math is based on my passion for juggling.  I have been juggling as a hobby since 1981 and the skill of juggling actual objects in space is very similar to juggling mathematical ideas.

I look forward to working with you as we discover the joy of math.

 

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Roz Weisberg

Roz Weisberg has been providing teaching and learning since 2017 after receiving my MFA from AULA. I think everyone can write, has a story to tell, and a voice to be heard. We get there by demystifying the process and putting words on the page. I teach screenwriting at UCLA Extension and privately coach and edit writers working on fiction, CNF, and screenplays in both long and short form. I've written curriculum and served as a mentor at places like Write Girl (for teens) and Cinestory (for screenwriters of all ages). I've published some pieces along the way in Drunk Monkeys, Bangalore Review, and Manifest-Station and have been on the receiving end of critique when workshopping at places like The Disquiet in Portugal. When not working or writing, I'm planning my next excursion and awaiting Springtime for March Madness to see how Gonzaga will continue to break my heart. Despite the fact that I never attended Gonzaga and have never been to the actual campus in Spokane, it makes me happy. Undergrad for me was UC Santa Barbara, where I finished with a BA in English Lit. “Go, Gauchos! That is all.