English Department Meeting Agenda
- Meeting Date: 8/24/18
- Meeting Location: B03 Humanities and Social Sciences Building
IUP’s 143rd Year
- IUP’s Department of English has been producing students with first rate reading and writing skills for all those years
“Go forth! Be brave! Be proud! Be true!”
- IUP English Professor Jane Leonard (1840-1925)
Thanks
- To Todd Thompson for helping Chair for part of the summer
- To all faculty who taught over the summer
- To Jo-Anne Kerr for overseeing an excellent May 2018 English Commencement Ceremony
- To Bryna Siegel Finer who coordinated a highly successful 2018 LSE Orientation for our Temporary Faculty and Teaching Associates
- To all the faculty who conducted training sessions at the 2018 LSE Orientation
- To Rajwan Alshareefy who helped me create this great new website along with help from…
- To DR! Adam Colton for STILL helping to maintain the DHC web server even after graduating from our Literature and Criticism Program
- To Jackie Rohrabaugh, Dawnette Shellhammer, and Sheila Farr for keeping things running for us all summer long (and see exciting notes below! 🙂
Fond Farewells
To our beloved colleague who retired in December:
- Gail Berlin
- Thanks to John Marsden for agreeing to write Gail’s nomination for Emeritus Status
To our colleagues who left IUP to pursue other opportunities:
- Oriana Gatta
- Katrina Miller
To our Acting Graduate Office Assistant:
- Sheila Farr (but she didn’t go far, just over to the dean’s office!)
Welcome
To our fabulous new tenure track hire:
- Cristina Sanchez-Martin, Applied Linguist
To our fabulous new secretary:
- Darlene Beatty, new Clerk Typist 2 for the IUP English Graduate Programs
2018-2019 English Teaching Associates (TA’s) and Temporary Faculty (TF’s)
One of the English Department’s primary missions is to prepare future English teachers. Below are the full lists of this academic year’s Temporary Faculty and Teaching Associates. Some are new; many are returning. Thanks to Dean Asamoah for providing funding for all of these positions. These positions help support students in our English doctoral programs. We try to provide our students with as much financial support as possible.
2018-2019 New CAL TF’s and TA’s
- Rajwan Alshareefy, TF
- Wenqi Cui, TA
- Jim Swider, TF
- Tower Tchekpassi, TF
- Jiawei Xing, TA
2018-2019 Returning CAL TF’s and TA’s
- Jun Akiyoshi, TA
- Lara Hauer, TF
- Brittany Hull, TF
- Jailei Jiang, TA
- Sukanto Roy, TA
- Mohamed Yacoub, TA
- Yi Yu, TF
2018-2019 New L&C TF’s and TA’s
- Abigail Hennon, TF
- Bradley Markle, TF
- Sarah Poeppel. TF
- Carl Sell, TF
- Loren Stephenson, TF
2018-2019 Returning L&C TF’s and TA’s
- Asmaa Alshehri, TA
- Mark Di Mauro, TF
- Nicol Epple, TF
- Julia Galm, TF
- Lauren Gaynord, TF
- Gerardo Muniz Villalon, TF
- Michaela O’Toole, TF
- Hediye Ozkan, TA
- Jirayu Sinsiri, TA
- Derek Smeltzer, TF
- Matthew Stumpf, TF
- Rod Taylor, TF
Big Congratulations
- To Brian Carpenter on being promoted to Associate Professor and being granted Tenure!
- To Curt Porter on being promoted to Associate Professor and being granted Tenure!
- To Emily Wender on being promoted to Associate Professor and being granted Tenure!
- To Heather Powers on being promoted to Professor!
- To Ken Sherwood on being promoted to Professor!
- To Todd Thompson on being promoted to Professor!
2018-2020 Sabbaticals
- As always we will have some people on sabbatical this year as well as next year. I’m listing the faculty members’ names here so you will know why you might not be seeing them on campus. We hope all of these faculty all have very productive sabbaticals and return to us energized and ready to dive back into our department’s work.
2019 Spring Sabbatical
- Susan Comfort
- Tim Hibsman
2019 Fall Sabbatical
- John Branscum
- David Hanauer
- Bryna Siegel Finer
2020 Spring Sabbatical
- Tanya Heflin
- Chris Orchard
Program News
- Interim Bachelor of Arts in English Program Director: Chauna Craig is serving as BA Director for Fall 2018
- Well wishes to the current BA Director
- New Program Name: Graduate Studies in Composition and Applied Linguistics
- CAL for short
- New Program Director: Gloria Park is now serving as MATESOL Director
- Thanks to Curt Porter, outgoing MATESOL Director
- Still needed: Internship Coordinator
Approval of Department Meeting Minutes
We will vote to approve Minutes from the English Department meeting held on:
- 4/12/18
The minutes were circulated by email and will be shown at the meeting using the classroom instructor projection station. A limited set of copies will be printed, but please bring your own copy or review the minutes ahead of time so we can limit paper usage and printing costs. Thanks.
Agenda Items
1. Neil Gaiman
- On why reading and writing matter
- Thanks to Tanya Heflin who helped me find some of this material
2. Clearances and Title IX Training
- Please continue to complete all required training in a timely manner as needed
- If you don’t have the proper clearances to teach, you can be pulled out of teaching any 100 level classes
3. N Grades/Mandatory Verification of Student Course Attendance
- Federal law requires verification if students are attending courses
- This verifcation helps students get tuition refunds
- Verifications need to be done at the end of Drop/Add week, at midterms, and at the end of the semester
- Verification will be done in URSA’s grading system; it will be an extra column
- An “unearned F” grade is to be given to students who did not complete the course due to non-attendance
4. * Grades
- The Provost’s Offices is charging department’s $100 for every * grade entered
- Our department bill from Spring 2018 was $3600
- Fortunately that bill was waived, but we will be billed in the future
5. Budget Cuts and Enrollment Declines
- Enrollment targets are 700-1100 students less than was projected; this means a shortfall for IUP of $7 million to $11 million dollars
- Our department budget was cut by $10,000
6. Travel Funding for 2018-2019
- Each tenured and tenure track faculty English faculty member will be eligible for $500 in travel
- Current IUP students (TAs and TFs) are not eligible for these funds due to the college’s current funding formula, but they are eligible for travel funds from IUP’s School of Graduate Studies and Research
- The good news is, there will still be opportunities to earn bonus travel funding, such as attending IUP Convocation on Sunday (and that bonus opportunity is open to TAs and TFs too 🙂
- For the time being, we do NOT need to enter travel through the online approval system
- Gian is serving on the Travel Advisory Committee that brought the many, many faculty complaints about the online approval system to the attention of administration; this process is still under review
- For now travel requests do not need to be approved ahead of time
- To receive travel funds, you will have to submit travel reimbursement forms in a timely manner as always
- The other requirement is that to be eligible for full travel funding next year, you must also submit 1 web news item about your travel (this helped us to become one of the leading news generating departments at IUP last year!)
- Contact Tim Hibsman, our Public Relations Officer, if you need help submitting a news item
7. Senate Travel Grants
- Senate travel grants for up to $1000 to fund conference travel for professional presentations
- These grants require matching funds and you can be awarded 1 Senate travel grant per year
- Your travel allocation may be used as matching funds if you apply for a Senate travel grant
- To encourage people to apply for Senate travel grants, I will supplement your travel funds with an extra $200 to be used as matching funds
- I am willing to write a letter of support for Senate travel grants so long as you help me draft it
8. University College (UC)
- This is a new initiative to provide students who don’t have a major as well as students with lower test scores a home and extra support
- These students are being called “explorers”
- The UC will be housed in Stabley Library and is getting a new entrance
- The UC will offer mentoring, special advisement, linked courses, and other resources
- English fully supports the program and we are a major part of this initiative
- The dean is directing which faculty teach in the program
- I want to thank the following faculty who are teaching in the program:
- Peter Sorrell
- Bryna Siegel Finer
- Lynn Shelly
- Britany Hull
- Lara Hauer
- Abigail Hennon
- I also want to thank the following faculty who did some preparatory work for the UC:
- Jun Akyoshi
- Laurel Black
- Chauna Craig
- Heather Powers
- Matt Vetter
- The UC is a major retention initiative which both the president and provost discussed in their opening remarks today
- If you have ideas on how we can help the UC as it develops or want to help, please let Gian and Bryna know
9. Hiring News
- Faculty hiring is supposed to be single digit if at all
- We have 2 coming retirements in our Bachelor of Science in English Education which will create a major staffing crisis for us
- Gian has discussed this with the dean multiple times so he is aware of the problem
- Our doctoral students have had great success landing jobs
- Which created flurry of last minute staffing changes during the summer
- Sadly new immigration policies have slowed down OPT clearance processing that prevents several of our international students from being able to teach for us in Fall 2018
- Thanks to Jackie and Dawnette who have redone contracts and schedules and office assignments multiple times
- We start out with fair good plans, but sometimes everything gets jumbled up
10. Service Policy Review
- Gian and Todd have been working to update the department policy to strengthen it and make it reflect more of the work we do
- We also want to find ways to encourage people to do special projects and other particularly needed work
- If you want to help us finish the review, please contact Todd
- We will then bring the revised policy to ELC and eventually the department
11. English Department 2018-2019 Goals
- Strengthen Department Collegiality
- Strengthen the public image of IUP’s English Department
12. Have a GREAT 2018-2019 Academic Year!
I’m excited to get the new academic year under way. I hope you are too. This is the time to give yourself a fresh start, make ambitious plans, and dream big. I hope that you will all have a fabulous year!
- Desr’ee : You Gotta Be
- Thanks to Lynn Shelly for inspiring me; Lynn loves to use music to pump up her students and herself for class
Upcoming Events
IUP Welcome Weekend
- Meeting with new English majors on Sunday Aug. 26 @ 2:00 p.m. in B03 HSS
- It is EXTREMELY helpful to have English faculty here to talk to our new majors and make them feel IUP wants them to be here
- Travel funding bonus for anyone who attends!
- CHSS Ice Cream Social for new students on Sunday Aug. 26 @ 3:00 p.m. in HSS atrium
Ice Cream Social for English Majors
- On Wed. Sep. 12 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. in 306 HSS
- Please encourage all English Majors and Minors to attend
- This is a great event to which you can bring potential majors
- Please join us yourself!
- The more faculty who attend, the better impression of our department students will get
Announcements
APSCUF Membership
It is very important for all tenure track and temporary faculty to join the union. The cost is minimal as all faculty already pay roughly 90% of the membership due. But a strong union helps protect both temporary and permanent faculty. If you are not a member, please join as soon as possible.
In addition, please consider joining APSCUF CAP which does lobbying for the union. This is the best way to influence legislators to support our concerns.
- Please remember to email Dawnette to get all English Department events and key meetings added to the department web calendar
- Please check the calendar before scheduling meetings to help limit conflicts
- TR from 2:00-4:00 p.m. is a common open time for tenure track faculty members to use for meetings
Additional Announcements
- If anyone has an important announcement, we’ll use the last few minutes of the meeting to cover this