ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the challenges graduate-student tutors face. As graduate-student tutors, people found it essential to depend on one another to navigate the bureaucracy of the university and to keep a sense of humor in the face of depressing or absurd experiences. Graduate student tutors occupy a space between these extremes, a space that does not always feel comfortable as people question the extent of our authority and the influence of our expertise. Excerpts from the author's first entry, dated September 25, 1993, reveal the multiple roles the author was assuming: the teacher who worries about time and instructional approaches, the graduate student who cites references to justify what he saw happening in tutoring sessions, the neophyte researcher who tentatively explores a methodology for inquiry, and the tutor who is concerned about ways of strengthening his relationship with his colleagues.
