June 2021
Tuesday, June 29, 2021
Dear Colleagues,
I hope you are enjoying your summer and are getting a well-deserved break. I know Angie has communicated with you about the staff’s return to campus. I will be in my office regularly after July 6th. I will probably work from home 1-2 days per week (not sure what days yet), but I am always reachable by phone (cell: 704-574-4933 or work: 704-687-0021) or can meet by Zoom.
I have ordered additional COVID-19 supplies for faculty and staff (masks, wipes, and hand sanitizer) for the fall semester. These will be distributed in the next 2-3 weeks. If you haven’t gotten your vaccination yet, I strongly encourage you to do so. At last week’s Town Hall, we were told that about 60% of faculty and staff were now vaccinated. No word on student vaccination rate yet.
If you want to view the most recent Town Hall, here is a link to the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn-6Z4zADsw. It was very informative and well worth the time.
Additional return-to-campus information can be found at:
(be sure to click on the links in the sidebar)
Here are links I found particularly helpful:
Given the unknown with the Delta and other COVID-19 variants, you may want to have a back-up plan for moving your courses online, should there be a resurgence in infections this fall and winter. If the past few semesters have taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected and to be flexible/adaptable. I am hopeful that things will go well this fall. At the same time, I am confident that we can make changes smoothly and skillfully, should they be needed.
I hope the rest of your summer goes well and that you have safe travels and some time to rest and recharge. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I look forward to seeing you in August, if not before.
And thank you for all that you do on behalf of the English Department and our students!
KUDOS
Former M.A. student Paula Rawlins, who graduated in 2010, completed her Ph.D. at the University of Georgia and has accepted an offer from Yale University to serve as Assistant Director at the writing center for the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning.
Meghan Barnes received a Chancellor’s Diversity Grant that will fund a Critical ELA Educators Collaborative that includes both pre-service and experienced teachers in a year-long professional development reading group. She also published an article titled “Empowerment through Rejection: Challenging Divisions Between Traditional, Authentic, and Critical Writing Pedagogy” in the journal English Teaching: Practice & Critique.
Paula Connolly published an article titled “Breaking the Surface: Mermaids and the Middle Passage” in Marvels and Tales.
Allison Hutchcraft read from her new book, Swale, at various venues via Zoom, including the Hudson Valley Writers Center, Lewis & Clark College, New Issues press, Poetry in the Boro, and a joint reading hosted by the Gettysburg Review and Willow Springs.
Kirk Melnikoff presented the paper “Women, Wills, and the Early English Book Trade (1537-1665)” at the 2021 Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) Conference on gender and the book trades.
Jen Munroe has accepted an invitation to join the editorial board for the Environmental Humanities in Premodern Cultures book series at Amsterdam University Press. She presented a paper at Green Heritage: Early Modern Ecologies, an ASLE-UKI online panel. Her paper was titled “Colonial Botany, Knowledge-Making, and Environmental Justice: Mary Somerset’s ‘innocent diversion of gardening.'”
Becky Roeder has been named as co-editor for the Sociolinguistics subsection of the journal Language and Linguistics Compass.
Daniel Shealy’s 2008 book Little Women Abroad: The Alcott Sisters Letters from Europe, 1870-1871 has been published in paperback for the first time by the University of Georgia Press. https://ugapress.org/book/9780820330099/little-women-abroad/
Ralf Thiede delivered a paper titled “Gertrude Stein as a Children’s Book Author” at the annual Children’s Literature Association conference.
Mark Westpublished an article with his son Gavin in Riverside Quarterly titled “Gaudí’s Park Güell at 100: Celebrating a Creative Visionary’s Failure.” https://riversidequarterly.com/antoni-gaudis-park-guell-at-100-celebrating-a-creative-visionarys-failure/
EdNC published Mark’s article titled “Support Programs Providing North Carolina’s Children with Summer Books.” https://www.ednc.org/perspective-support-programs-providing-north-carolinas-children-with-summer-books/
Queen City Nerve republished his Storied Charlotte blog post about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. https://qcnerve.com/dolly-partons-imagination-library-charlotte/
Mark also published an opinion piece in the Charlotte Observer on Eric Carle’s picture books: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article251747598.html
If I have overlooked anyone’s recent accomplishments, please let me know.
Best wishes and happy summer!
Paula