| Important Dates | |
| Nov 7 | Second-year faculty submit dossiers for retention and tenure/promotion. |
| Nov 15 | Visitors for second-year faculty submit visit reports. |
| Nov 20 | Submit proposals for Professional Development Grants |
| Nov 30 | Visitors for everyone except second-year faculty submit visit reports. |
| Jan 4 | Everyone except second-year faculty submit dossiers for retention and tenure/promotion. |
| April 1 | Submit proposals for Professional Development Grants. |
| April 18-19 | Spring English Department Meeting (Read details here.) |
| Spring TBA | Encourage students to submit entries for the August Derleth Prize for creative writing. |
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A Quick Guide to the Announcements |
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| News from the Department | Assessment & Professional Development News | Our 20 Favorite Poems |
| Our Online Writing Lab | Opportunities for Collegiality | August Derleth Prize |
Spring Department Meeting Materials
Access the following information (linked on the Faculty & Staff Materials page under "Department Meetings," or just click here):
Reports from the Chair, Online Program Committee, and Professional Development & Standards Committee
UW-Marathon County's Placement Revisions & Recommendations from the Composition Plenary
Foundations of Excellence Report on First-Year Students & ENG 101-102
Tips for NoodleTools
Photographs!
Seeking Assessment Committee Members
From Greg Ahrenhoerster: "Cassie Phillips and I have been asked by the Executive Committee to be (and have agreed to be) the Department Assessment Coordinators for next year. However, an Assessment Committee still needs to be appointed. In the past few years, the job of the Assessment Committee members has been to help the DACs plan the departmental SoTL project for the year. Most of this work happens via e-mail over the summer, though there is likely to be a teleconference at some point (probably August).
Although the Assessment Committee is free to design a project of our choosing, this year there has been some suggestion that we might want to look into how well placement into composition classes is working. As many of you know, UW Marathon has started a project in which they are doing a much more thorough examination of students' writing before placing them. We have also been told by Central Office that the Colleges will likely start using ACT scores to place most students into composition classes, starting in 2009. This year might be a good time to gather preliminary data, before the big switch to ACT scores, that we could use as a means of comparison after the switch. We also might be able to help Marathon with their project along the way by giving them more data from the other campuses to help them learn how well their new system is working.
So...if you are interested in working on the Assessment Committee starting in summer 2008, please respond to this e-mail [to Greg Ahrenhoerster]. The names of interested parties will be forwarded to the chair, who officially names the committee, after consulting with the DACs."
New Colleague This Fall at UW-Marinette
From Jane Oitzinger: "Dean Paula Langteau and I are pleased to announce that Abayomi Animashaun has accepted a full-time IAS position to teach ENG 101 and 102 on our campus next year. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the International Graduate Writing Program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he taught a number of Composition I and II courses and courses in world literature; also, for over two years at UNLV, he served as a Writing Center Consultant. Abayo has over 20 poems published and has received national recognition for his work, including the Atlanta Review's International Merit Award and nomination for the prestigious Pushcart Prize, both in 2007. Currently he is working on a poetry collection and on a translation of Adebayo Faleti's Basorun Gaa from Yoruba into English. He has spent this academic year in Madison on a University of Wisconsin Advanced Opportunity Fellowship. This summer he has a National African Language Resource Center Summer Institute Fellowship and is teaching creative writing for Madison's College Access Program. We look forward to working with Abayo and know that you will join us in extending a warm welcome."
Results from Survey on the Pace of Grading
Here are the results to our “pace of grading” survey. Not surprisingly, there is a wide range of responses! Anyone interested in a SoTL project? Get IRB approval for a survey that goes beyond this one (and to a broader audience), get IRB approval to survey students, and do research that discusses more precisely how the speed at which we return things affects student success. (On a different planet, the one on which Marnie has infinite time, she would pursue this project. But not on this planet.)--Marnie Dresser
CFP for Changing English
Sent to us from Lisa Seale:
Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education is an established journal (published by Routledge) for English teachers at all levels, which encourages international dialogue between teachers and researchers on issues surrounding literacy, language and culture. In particular, Changing English considers the future of English as a subject in the context of its history and the scope for development and change. The editors encourage articles and reviews from writers concerned with English teaching worldwide. Contributions are welcome which discuss developments in aspects of language, literacy and literature teaching in all areas of the curriculum. Current interests include the teaching of journalism or creative writing at any level. The editors welcome submissions on an ongoing basis. Editorial correspondence and electronic manuscripts, ideally of 2000 to 5000 words, should be addressed to the Associate Editor, Dr Susan Alice Fischer (Medgar Evers College of The City University of New York), and sent to safcpw@earthlink.net or safischer@mac.com. The editor Professor Jane Miller (Institute of Education, University of London) may be reached at JaneMJamiller@aol.com.
CFP from Jessica Van
Slooten:
Serial Novel(ty): The Evolution of the Novel in the Digital Age
Eager readers in days past would anxiously await the next novel installment to arrive via newspaper or magazine, delaying (and perhaps heightening) the pleasure of the narrative world. Today’s new media, including television, internet, and digital media, also rely on various forms of serialization to deliver new texts with the click of a button. We are interested in exploring how contemporary authors use serialized formats to reach their audiences, and how today’s forms of serialization resemble, reaffirm, and reject the challenges and advantages of traditional serialization.
We are putting together a collection of essays that addresses how the novel has changed during the digital age. In anticipation of working with an exciting and innovative press, we’re looking for essays, creative pieces, and interdisciplinary approaches.
Suggested Topics:
* earlier forms of serialization compared to contemporary styles
* podcast novels
* television series/adaptations of novels
* serialized novels online
* serialization and the pleasures of the text
* author blogs
* graphic novels
Please submit a 500 word abstract and a brief CV to jessica.vanslooten@uwc.edu or [shea’s school address] by June 1. Completed essays, of 20-25 pages, will be due by January 1.
Full-Time IAS Positions at UW-Barron
The UW-Barron campus is seeking applicants for a full-time IAS for the 2008-09 academic year. Here us the position description, which includes where and how to apply: UW-Barron. If you are interested in the position at Barron, please send your queries or materials to the dean’s secretary Sandy Uchytil at sandra.uchytil@uwc.edu. If you are not interested in the position but know someone who might be, by all means pass these PDs along.
Assessment & Professional Development News
Current Assessment Information
The process and materials for our Spring 2008 assessment activities are now available on our Assessment page, including a statement for syllabi and the early-semester and late-semester surveys all instructors should give in one composition course. For more information, go to our Assessment page.
About English Department Professional Development Grants
The Professional Development Committee last year slightly revised the Professional Development Grant application form for requests. For the sake of consistency, please use this form for your requests. Here’s a little advice about how to fill out the form, based upon the committee’s discussion of the proposals this past semester.
Do tell us at what conference you are attending or presenting.
The budget really should be itemized (conference fee, travel expenses, food, etc.). Please do also provide us with a total.
Under Part 2—the Background, Rationale, and Outcomes—you should provide a short paragraph for each section. We consider these sections carefully, and we like to know how you think your proposal will help you achieve your professional goals.
The criteria the Committee uses to determine funding spell out which requests are given the highest priority. The deadlines are November 20 and April 1.
Opportunities for Collegiality
Summer Gathering at Spring Green!
Check back here for details, once they're available....
Let's Get to Know Our Newest Colleagues
In 2007, Julie Tharp began a wonderful new departmental tradition of new folks taking turns in writing a "New Faculty and Staff Bio" and sending it to the department via engdept@uwc.edu periodically--not all at once, perhaps a few weeks apart. It's very informal, but it'll help us get to know you new (and new-ish) folks a little better. After the New Faculty & Staff Bio is distributed, it would be up to the rest of us to try to make you feel welcome, to find and express common interests, to ask questions, etc. Each campus's university relations person can take a digital picture if you don’t already have one. The format can certainly vary, depending upon how you choose to express yourself and what you want us to know about you.
Suggested Content Areas:
Name (& what you go by, like Jen, instead of Jennifer)
Campus
Home location (since some don’t live in the same town as their campus)
Your primary area of research and/or writing
What you read for pleasure (guilty and not-so-guilty)
What do you most want your colleagues to know about you as a person? (Cannot be related to work!)
What else?.... Hidden talents? Anything else literary or professional, such as favorite author? Favorite experience as a student?
You'll find the New Faculty and Staff Bios archived on the Faculty & Staff Directory page next to the basic biographical entry. So far, we have Katie Kalish, Marc Seals, Jen Heinert, Bill Gillard, James Reitter, Mat Bartkowiak, Amy Reddinger, Lisa Schreibersdorf, and Jessica Van Slooten. What about the rest of you? Tell us about yourselves!
Remember when we started the wonderfully distracting work of sharing our 20 "favorite poems"? Some of you were focused on finals, others needed time to come up with a list, and others simply forgot. Now's the time to try again! Refresh your memory on what we were up to, why, and what poems your colleagues have seared into cyberspace.
The OWL is an online writing resource for UW Colleges students. During the 2006-2007 academic year, the OWL staff responded to 1,589 papers from all 13 UW Colleges campuses. The OWL director and peer writing tutors at UW-Waukesha’s campus respond to students’ papers and writing concerns in any subject via e-mail. To learn more about the OWL, please visit the website at http://www.waukesha.uwc.edu/academics/owl or contact Sara Pagliaroni, OWL director. You may view the OWL report from the 2006-2007 academic year here.
What is poetry? What is fiction? What is creative nonfiction?
Let our students show us the possible answers!
August Derleth published roughly 150 books in a variety of genres during his lifetime—novels, short stories, poems, biographies, essays. Maxwell Perkins of Scribners was his editor for about a decade. Shortly after his death in 1971, admirers of his work, many of them professional writers (Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Studs Terkel, Norbert Blei) formed the August Derleth Society to promote the reading of his works. In the 1980s, the Derleth Society endowed a prize on the UW Madison campus for graduate students in the English Department. In the early 1990s, UW Madison medical physics professor Herb Attix came up with the idea of extending the prize to the UW Colleges. The Derleth Society Board approved an annual $250 prize which members of the English Department administer.
Submission Guidelines
| 2000 | Linda Christopherson
of UW Rock
Honorable Mentions:
Sarajane Lieble of UW Marathon and Kimm Schaat of UW Manitowoc
|
| 2001 | Co-winners Kristopher
Kono of UW Manitowoc and Therese Heckenkamp of UW Waukesha
Honorable Mentions:
Landie Van Haren of UW Manitowoc and Dora J. Simpson of UW Sheboygan
|
| 2002 | Stacy Bogan of
UW-Fox
Honorable Mentions:
Scott Carlson of UW Fox, Crystal Schroeder of UW Sheboygan,
and Rebecca Haasch of UW Richland |
| 2003 | Scott Carlson
of UW Fox
Honorable Mentions:
Lea Larson of UW Baraboo and Emilie Lindemann of UW Manitowoc
|
| 2004 | Anoush Greylord of UW Fond du Lac |
| 2005 | Jennifer Stevens of UW Waukesha |
| 2006 | Jennifer Mimier of UW Waukesha for the short story "No Good Deed..." |
| 2007 |
Ryan Heraly of UW-Fox for his short story “Dis/Member”
Robert
Erickson, UW-Baraboo |
| 2008 | TBA... |
