January 9, 2024

January 9, 2024
Categories: Kudos

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome back!  The spring semester has arrived and no doubt you will soon be very busy. Here are a few important dates to keep in mind as your classes get underway: 

  • January 15–The University is closed in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
  • January 17–Last day for students to add, drop with no grade
  • February 2–Early grade alerts due for students of concern in 1000- or 2000- level courses
  • March 1–Unsatisfactory midterm grades due

Our first department meeting of the semester will be Friday, January 19. Writing Resources Center and WRDS faculty Dr. Jan Rieman and Dr. Katie Garahan will present at the meeting. 

You will soon get a request from Lane Rhodes to submit your spring syllabi and office hours. Monica Burke will also be contacting you about fall course descriptions.  Angie Williams will be sending out activity report forms by mid-January. Completed activity reports will be due by Monday, February 5.  I will be sending out English Department bylaws with instructions on reviewing and revising the various sections of the bylaws. Please be on the lookout for all these items. 

As I begin my last semester as department chair, please know what a privilege it has been for me to serve the English Department in this role. I’ve been so impressed by your many accomplishments and your inspiring efforts in working with students. We have such a special department with amazing faculty, staff, and students.  I know that the next department chair will find this to be true as well. Thank you for all that you do on behalf of the English Department.

KUDOS

Matt Rowney’s book In Common Things: Commerce, Culture, and Ecology in British Romantic Literature received a very favorable and extensive review (7 pages!) in The Wordsworth Circle.

Mark West published an article titled “Dealing with Childhood Anxieties through Play” in Clio’s Psyche, an interdisciplinary journal that focuses on the intersection of psychology and culture. The article is part of a special section on the “Psychology of Anxiety and Fear.”  Mark was also interviewed about his book Theordore Roosevelt and His Library at Sagamore Hill by Steve Albrecht of Library 2.0, a large online social network for librarians.The interview is attached to this email.  

STUDENT NEWS

Honors Student Gabrielle Bryant presented her work at the Japan Studies Association in Honolulu with support from English, OUR, and the Honors College.  Her paper was titled “Yin and Yang: How The Goddess Chronicle’s Feminism Harmonizes a World of Nature.” 

Graduate student Sarah Engle received a Mark West Study Away/Study Abroad Award.  She will use the award to visit the archives at the University of Louisville, Waverly Hills Sanatorium, and the Filson Historical Society to aid her work on a collection of documentary poetry focusing on the tuberculosis outbreak in Louisville and in the sanatorium in the early 1900s.

Undergraduate student Annalisa Smith  also received a Mark West Award and will participate in the study abroad program “Martinique: History, Culture, and Arts of the ‘Island of Flowers'” over spring break. 

Best wishes, everyone, for a wonderful semester!

Paula