July 2021

Saturday, July 31, 2021

Dear Colleagues,

I can’t believe that the end of July is here and fall semester classes are just around the corner. I hope you have had a restful and/or rejuvenating summer and are looking forward to teaching again.  As a reminder, classes start Monday, August 23.  At the end of this email, you will find a listing of department meeting dates from the upcoming semester. 

Yesterday you should have received a Niner Notice stating that masks are now required on campus in all areas (except personal dorm rooms or personal offices). If you aren’t vaccinated, I urge you to get the vaccine as soon as possible.  

Before classes start, ENGL staff will distribute masks, sanitizer, and disinfecting wipes to each department member. If you need these supplies sooner, please let me, Angie, or Monica know. The supplies are currently stored in my office, so one of us can make them available to you whenever needed. If you run out of supplies during the semester, please let me know and I will order more.  

Since new information about the Delta variant comes available almost daily, I encourage you to stay informed and check your email regularly for any updates from the university. You may want to have a contingency plan in mind should classes have to move online during the fall.   

We will have a “Welcome Back” Coffee Hour Friday, August 20, from 11-12 on Zoom. I hope you will join your colleagues for this informal get-together. It will be good to see everyone and catch up! 

Our first regular department meeting will be on Friday, September 3, from 11:00-12:30 on Zoom. Depending on campus conditions and room availability, we may or may not be able to meet face to face for future department meetings. Angie will keep you posted on locations/links for those.  

As you can see in the Kudos section below, English Department has much to celebrate in the way of faculty accomplishments.  Congratulations to the following faculty on their hard work and success:

KUDOS

JuliAnna Ávilahas received acontract from Purdue University Press for a new book titled  A Collapse of Distance: Learning and Living Vaquero Horsemanship in the Southeastern United States.

Meghan Barnes published a co-authored essay titled “Facilitating Social Justice through Critical Service Learning: Middle Grades ELA Teachers Engage in Responsible Change” in Teacher’s College Record.

Bryn Chancellor and Chris Davis have published work in You Are the River: Literary Expressions of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Ed. Helena Feder. The book, supported by the Mellon Foundation and American Council of Learned Societies, is a volume of ekphrastic poetry and prose by seventy-five North Carolina writers invited to respond to artwork in the permanent collection to celebrate the museum’s seventy-fifth year. Chris’s poem, “Portrait of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius,” responds to a 2nd century sculpture of the same title, and Bryn’s flash essay, “Aerial,” responds to Richard Diebenkorn’s Berkeley No 8. The anthology will be available at the NCMA store.

Chris Davis’s poem “Idol,” will appear in another anthology, Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 9/11 and Its Aftermath, edited by Joseph Bathanti and David Potorti, published by Press 53 in Winston-Salem.  There will be a book- launch reading for the anthology at Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, Sunday September 12 at 3:00 PM. 

Dina Massachi gave a presentation titled “Matilda Joslyn Gage’s Influence on L. Frank Baum” at the OzCon International Convention. She also interviewed Angelica Carpenter and Gita Morena for OzCon’s yearly event. Dina also recorded an interview on writing about Oz for an upcoming “To Oz” event, and was interviewed for Your Biggest Fan New American Folk Theatre podcast. Here’s a link to the podcast:  https://www.newamericanfolktheatre.org/naft-podcast/episode-two-the-super-fans-msppc 

Liz Miller has agreed to serve on the editorial board of a new journal titled Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Also, she helped organize and participated in a webinar titled “Collaborating and Communicating with Publics: Engagement for Social Impact.” It was hosted by the American Association of Applied Linguistics and open to all members. The participants were authors who contributed chapters to the book that Liz recently co-edited on Extending Applied Linguistics for Social Impact.

Matthew Rowney presented a paper at the Romanticism and Black Studies Conference titled “Calenture and the Black Anthropocene.”

Mark West participated in the Vancouver International Summer School in Children’s Literature. He served on their Academic Editors’ Panel, which was attended by over 100 graduate students from all over the world.

Please keep sending me news of your accomplishments, and, if I overlook anything you might have sent me, please don’t hesitate to remind me. 

I hope you enjoy the remaining days of your summer break and thank you for making the English Department such a special and collegial place. I look forward to seeing you soon!

Best always,

Paula 

Welcome Back Coffee Hour

August 20  from 11-12 (Zoom)

Department Meetings

September 3  (Zoom)

October 1  

November 5  

December 3 

Department meetings will be held from 11:00 to 12:30. First meeting (9/3) will be held on Zoom. We will use Zoom and/or meet in person for later meetings, depending on room availability and campus conditions. 

Advisory Meetings 

August 27 

September 24

October 29

November 19

Advisory meetings will be held from 11:00-12:30 via Zoom.