English Department Meeting Agenda
Meeting Agenda for August 25, 2017
(Meeting Location: B03 Humanities and Social Sciences Building)
IUP’s 142nd 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 Ben Rafoth for serving as Interim Chair while I was on sabbatical for Spring 17
- To Heather Powers for serving as Interim Assistant Chair while Todd Thompson was on sabbatical for Spring 17
- 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 2016 English Commencement Ceremony
- To Adam Colton for maintaining the DHC web server
- If you want a web page, please talk to him
Fond Farewells
To our colleagues who left IUP to pursue other opportunities:
- Janet Goebel
- Retired after teaching at IUP for 31 years (1986-2017)
- Gail Berlin will write her nomination for Emeritus Status
- We will vote on her in October and it is vital to support our former colleagues for these votes
- Todd Thompson will be collecting donations for retirement gifts for both Janet and Carolyn Camp who retired in January of 2017
Welcome
2017 English Teaching Associates and Temporary Faculty
One of the English Department’s primary missions is to train future English teachers. Below are the full lists of 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.
2017 English Teaching Associates (TA’s)
| Composition and TESOL |
Literature and Criticism |
| Abdullah Darwish–new |
Issaam Aldowkat–new |
| Samah Elbelazi–new |
Patrick Chambers–new |
| Maria Prikodko |
Samantha Vertosick–new |
| Yi Yu |
Ashley Stahle |
| Tong Zhang |
Gerardo Muniz Villalon |
2017 English Temporary Faculty (TF’s)
| Composition and TESOL |
Literature and Criticism |
| Returning |
Returning |
| Abdullah Darwish | Issaam Aldowkat |
| Marissa McKinley | Patrick Chambers |
| Justin Nicholes | Adam Colton |
| Roger Powell | Julia Grove |
| Anthony Schiera | Meghan Hurley |
| Yi Yu |
Nicole Katsiadis |
| Nadia Zamin |
Alexandra Lykissas |
| New |
Wesley McMasters |
| Jun Akiyoshi |
Rod Taylor |
| Zhigang Bai |
Kaitlin Tonti |
| Lara Hauer |
New |
| Brittany Hull | Asmaa Alshehri |
| Jialei Jiang | Sahar Al-Shoubaki |
| Sukanto Roy |
Nicol Epple |
| Mohamed Yacoub |
Mark Di Mauro |
| Lauren Gaynord |
|
| Hediye Ozkan | |
| Jirayu Sinsiri |
|
| Matthew Stumpf |
Big Congratulations
- To Gloria Park on being promoted to Professor!
- To Tanya Heflin on being promoted to Associate Professor and being granted Tenure!
- To Bryna Siegel Finer on being promoted to Associate Professor and being granted Tenure!
- To Dan Weinstein on being promoted to Associate Professor and being granted Tenure!
- To David Downing and the rest of the IUP faculty on the publication of the Works and Days Strike Issue!
- free copies are available for any faculty member that would like one (normal cost is $5)
2017-2018 Sabbaticals
- This year we will have two people on sabbatical. I’m listing their names here so you will know why you haven’t seen them for awhile. We hope all of them have very productive sabbaticals and return to us energized and ready to dive back into the department’s work.
2017 Fall Sabbatical
- Lingyan Yang
2018 Spring Sabbatical
- David Downing
English Faculty Award Winners
I have congratulated these folks in the past, but these award winners certainly helped bring added acclaim to our department last year.
2017 IUP Distinguished Award for Research
- Todd Thompson
2017 IUP Center for Teaching Excellence Award Winners
- Todd Thompson (2017 Faculty Winner)
- Marissa McKinley (2017 Teaching Associate Winner)
- Kaitlin Tonti (2017 Teaching Associate Winner)
2017 IUP English Faculty Award Winners
- Congratulations to the following English faculty who were recognized by our English and English Education majors:
- 2017 Outstanding English Professor:
- 2017 Outstanding English Advisor:
- 2017 Outstanding English Education Professor:
- 2017 Outstanding English Education Advisor:
Agenda Items
- English Department 2017-2018 Goals
- Increase recruitment and retention of majors
- Improve Transparency, Communication, and Community
- Mandatory Verification of Student Course Attendance
- A new federal law requires verification if students are attending courses
- This verifcation helps students get 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
- Jane Leonard Room
- 506 NN HSS Seminar Room
- Thanks to Tanya Heflin for overseeing collection of materials about Professor Leonard
- Please start using the great new name to link to our past!
- Summer Pay Issues
- Check your contract for correct/changed course numbers
- Be sure you get a contract
- Pay dates can fluctuate/problems can occur, so be prepared
- Travel Funding for 2017-2018
I was pleased with the results of the new travel funding model we implemented two years ago. Therefore, we will stick with that model going forward:
- Each tenured and tenure track faculty English faculty member will be eligible for $700 in travel
- Unfortunately our budget got cut, but I have limited that cut as best I can
- Current IUP students (TAs and TFs) are not eligible for these funds due to the college’s current funding formula 🙁
- 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
- Travel requests will need to be approved using some yet to be determined mechanism
- 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
- 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
Have a GREAT 2016-2017 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!
Upcoming Events
IUP Welcome Weekend
- Meeting with new English majors on Sunday Aug. 27 @ 1:45 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!
Ice Cream Social for English Majors
- On Wed. Sep. 6 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