653 REVIVING A DIGITAL DINOSAUR: TEXT-ONLY SYNCHRONOUS ONLINE CHATS AND PEER TUTORING IN COMMUNICATION CENTERS Roy SchwaRtzman University of North Carolina at Greensboro A qualitative and quantitative content analysis was conducted of all text-based synchronous online chats at an oral communication peer tutoring center throughout a semester. As a comparative benchmark, chats at the same university’s main library were analyzed over the same time period. The library’s chats were much more heavily weight- ed toward task-oriented research questions. The communication center chats served almost entirely as a portal for making appointments. Sug- gestions are offered for more robust incorporation of chats to diagnose a center’s operational issues, improve outreach, triage student needs, build a sense of personal connection, and reduce attrition. Keywords: online education, distance learning, synchronous online communication, communication centers The pens of pedagogical pundits are astir chronicling and critiquing all things digital. Amid the frenzy of scholarship dealing with computer-mediated communication (CMC) in educational contexts, it has become tempt- ing to embrace the polarizing mindset that categorically reveres or rejects digital tools that could revise the essence of what might count as co-curricular mentoring of students to improve their communication skills. Com- munication scholars and practitioners may need to reconceive what a personal tutoring session means once the mentoring rela- tionship incorporates interactions mediated through computers, smart phones, tablets, and other electronic devices. Successfully understanding, adapting to, and coping with these technological transformations will require going beyond dichotomies epitomized by the technopho- bia of Luddites and the evangelical fervor of “solutionism” (Morozov, 2013) that promises the digital deities will ix every problem. A deeper exploration of best practices related to interactive technologies should address the nuances of the tools in speciic educational contexts, confronting their capabilities and their constraints. This study seeks neither to praise nor to bury digital pedagogies. While many self-labeled “best practice” studies simply describe in glowing terms how well a tech- nology worked in a given instance, this essay examines the extent that actual usage of an interactive, computer-mediated instruction- al tool realizes the pedagogical potential of that technology. More precisely, how does text-based, synchronous online chat constrain and contribute to the educational practices of communication centers? Before proceeding, some deinitional clar- iication may prove helpful. The site of this study is a communication center that offers peer tutoring to assist students in improving their oral communication skills: interviewing, public speaking, group presentations, and the associated preparatory activities (e.g., out- lining, visual aids, etc.). Although this study was conducted on a center specializing in oral communication, the same principles and