July 2020

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Dear Colleagues,

On the surface, July has seemed to be a somewhat quiet month, but that isn’t entirely the case.  I know that many of you have been hard at work on your research or planning your fall classes, whether they are face-to-face or some version of hybrid or online. I am grateful to Tiffany Morin for the work she is doing with faculty and teaching assistants to prepare for the fall. As I’ve said before, Liz Miller and Jennie Mussington have worked tirelessly on revising and updating the fall schedule. They were even able to secure simulcast classrooms for the TAs to use for their classes. And thanks to Lara Vetter, we will have the best prepared TAs in the University. Gina Kelley has had a busy summer advising students and attending virtual SOAR sessions. Monica Burke and Angie Williams have been diligently preparing the department for re-opening. You will see new floor stickers that are now in place, and soon new COVID-reminder signage. It really takes a team to run the English Department, and everyone has done a stellar job throughout the spring and summer.  We will be well prepared for our return to campus! 

Thank you for the hard work you are doing to prepare for yet another unusual semester. What is clear is that we are in this together, and together we will give our students an outstanding academic experience. The sense of community that exists in the English Department is truly a sustaining force in these challenging times. Among the many strengths our department has, it may be our most important one. 

KUDOS

Boyd Davis published “Adapting ‘Sunshine,’ A Socially Assistive Chat Robot for Older Adults with Cognitive Impairment: A Pilot Study” in The Journal of Gerontological Social Work. 

Jeffrey Leak was featured on “Charlotte Talks” recently in a panel discussion of “Examining America’s Dark History of Lynchings.”  You can listen here:
https://www.wfae.org/post/charlotte-talks-examining-americas-dark-history-lynchings#stream/0

Dina Massachi gave a talk titled “Utopia in Oz” for the OzConnection Channel on YouTube.  You can view her talk here: https://youtu.be/mOlxRj4n7UA

Copies of Ralf Thiede’s new book Language, Mind, and Power: Why We Need Linguistic Equality (Routledge) have arrived and one will soon be ensconced in the display cabinet in the department.  

If you missed Mark West’s latest Storied Charlotte blog on award-winning children’s author Alicia D. Williams, here’s a link: https://pages.uncc.edu/mark-west/blog/category/storied-charlotte/ 

Best wishes and take care, everyone! 

Paula