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2017-2018 Meeting Oct. 12 (Thursday) 2:00-3:15 p.m.

English Department Meeting Agenda

Meeting Agenda for Oct. 12, 2017
(Meeting Location: 225 Humanities and Social Sciences Building)

“Go forth! Be brave! Be proud! Be true!”

  • IUP English Professor Jane Leonard (1840-1925)

Thanks

  • To the following faculty for writing emeritus support letters:
    • Gail Berlin for Janet Goebel
    • John Marsden for Carolyn Camp
  • To Sharon Deckert for having chaired our Department Elections Committee for the past 7 years; Sharon really helped us a ton by leading the move to Qualtrics voting and getting our elections policies developed!
  • To Tanya Heflin, Emily Wender, and Pop Culture Methodologies for making IUP Banned Books Week a success
  • To Jo-Anne Kerr, Jean Nienkamp, and Judith Villa for serving as the Scholarship Selection Committee for the Betty Ann Boone Wallwork Commemorative Scholarship
  • To Rosalee Stilwell for coordinating the Rotten Potatoes Film Group
  • To the Organizers of the excellent PASSHE Women’s Consortium Conference
  • To Todd Thompson on publishing The Word, our alumni newsletter, which got 300 reads
    • We need some volunteers to provide service on an Alumni Relations Committee

Congratulations

  • To English faculty with recent scholarly news:
    • Gloria Park on publishing Narratives of East Asian Women Teachers of English: Where Privilege Meets Marginalization
    • Bryna Siegel Finer on publishing Writing Program Administration: Thirty Cases for Reference and Research
    • Linda Norris and Jo-Anne Kerr on publishing Thinking Like a Teacher: Preparing New Teachers for Today’s Classrooms
      • Conference on Nov. 2 from 5-6:30 p.m. in HSS
    • Chauna Craig for being the Featured Author at the 2017 Montana Book Festival
    • John Branscum, Tim Hibsman, and Dan Weinstein presented at the 2017 EAPSU Conference; John also serves as as our EAPSU Liaison
    • Marissa McKinley and Bryna Siegel Finger presented at the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference
    • Nick Katsiadas on being interviewed about comics by the Library of Congress Magazine
  • Please keep sending your news items to Tim Hibsman to keep us in the number one news-makers spot at IUP!

Approval of Minutes

We will vote to approve Minutes from the English Department meeting held on:

  • 9/14/17

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. Summer School/Winter Rotation Policy Overview

  • Explanation of how the summer school rotation works (Ben Rafoth, Summer School Committee Chair)
  1. English Bachelor of Arts Majors
  • Heather Powers reported that as of Sep. 19 we have 126 English B.A. majors and 46 English minors.
  • These numbers are ok, but please consider speaking to strong readers and writers in your LSE courses about the possibility of majoring/minoring in English
  1. 14th Annual Indiana LGBT Film Festival
  • IUP Stouffer Hall, Beard Auditorium
  • Sunday’s in October at 6 p.m.
  • Series begun by IUP English Emeritus Professor Lynne Alvine
  • Includes Funding from the English Department
  • Please encourage your students to attend
  1. Internship Credits
  • Curricular revision proposal to allow 1 and 2 credit internships (Oriana Gatta)
  1. Elections Committee
  • Policy for department votes (Ken Sherwood)
  1. Keeping Our Classrooms Welcoming to All Students
  • Academic freedom is highly important and we want to preserve it and encourage our students to participate actively in our class discussions
  • Please be sure to focus class discussions on the topic of the course and help students to see how discussions of current issues tie to the course content
  • Please think carefully about how to make all students welcome no matter what views they may hold
  1. Library Weeding Project
  • Drastic cuts in the library book collection
  • Response from our department?
  1. English DepartmentReports
  • I’ve highlighted in green where we left off at the last department meeting. Each meeting we will work our way through as many reports as we can and then start back at the top when we get there. I’ll mark in green where we leave off so everyone gets regular opportunities to report. If you have something really urgent/important to report, please let Gian know and he’ll make it an agenda item.
  • The more I’ve thought about the reports, the more I can see how many people it would be nice to hear from, at least occasionally. However, the more I increase the list, the more I can see I am probably missing things. Please help me add everything so that we eventually get a complete list of everything. It’s really amazing how many things the people in our department do.
  • I also want to make sure I get every name correctly listed.
  • I have also noticed that our titles vary between advisor, chair, coordinator, or director. The titles aren’t very systematic, more just based on past practice, so I’m happy to re-title things however people want.
  • If you have no report, it is fine to save time by saying “No report.” I want everyone to have a chance to talk, but it’s definitely not required every time.
  • If I left you out, I’m sorry, it was not intentional. Please help me correct any mistakes I’ve made!

English Department Reports

English Program Reports

  • Liberal Studies English/Writing Across the Curriculum (Director: Bryna Siegel Finer)
    • Assessment (Coordinator: Katie Miller)
    • Crimson Quill (Coordinator: Oriana Gatta?)
    • Writing Plan (Coordinator: Oriana Gatta)
  • Bachelor of Arts in English (Director: Heather Powers)
    • Literature and Culture Track (Coordinator: John Marsden)
    • Pre-Law Track (Coordinator: Tim Hibsman)
    • Writing Studies Track (Coordinator: Tony Farrington)
    • Film Focus (Coordinator: Tom Slater)
    • Internships (Coordinator: Oriana Gatta)
    • Student Recruitment (Chair: Mike Sell)
  • Bachelor of Arts in English Education (Director: Jo-Anne Kerr)
  • Post Baccalaureate in English Education (Director: Linda Norris)
  • Master of Arts Composition and Literature/MA Literature (Director: Mike Williamson)
  • Master of Arts TESOL – Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (Director: Curt Porter)
  • ESL Program Specialist Certification (Director: Brian Carpenter)
  • GCORE – Graduate Certificate Program in TESOL (Director: Gloria Park)
  • Graduate Studies in Composition and TESOL (Director: Sharon Deckert)
  • Graduate Studies in Literature and Criticism (Director: Veronica Watson)

English Committee Reports

  • Department Elections Committee (Chair: )
  • DEC – Department Evaluations Committee (Co-Chairs: Gloria Park, Bryna Siegel Finer, and Mike Williamson)
  • DPC – Department Promotions Committee (Co-Chairs: John Branscum and Jean Nienkamp)
  • DTC – Department Tenure Committee (Co-Chairs Jo-Anne Kerr and Judith Villa)
  • Summer School Committee (Chair Ben Rafoth)

English Organization Reports

  • IUP NCTE – IUP National Council of Teachers of English (Advisor: Jo-Anne Kerr)
  • NGAR – New Growth Arts Review (Advisor: Chauna Craig)
  • Sigma Tau Delta (Advisor: Mike Williamson)
  • Studies in the Humanities (Editor-in-Chief: Reena Dube)
  • Works & Days (Editor-in-Chief: David Downing)

English Department Initiatives

  • Alumni Newsletter – The Word (Editor-in-Chief: Todd Thompson)
  • Banned Books Week (Coordinators: Tanya Heflin and Emily Wender)
  • Graduation (Coordinator: Jo-Anne Kerr)
  • Honors Ceremony (Coordinators: Jo-Anne Kerr, Jean Nienkamp, and Heather Powers)
    • Writing Contest (Coordinator: Reena Dube)
  • Placement (Coordinators: Dana Driscoll and Melanie Holm)
  • Web Site (Director: Dan Weinstein)

CHSS and University Organization Reports

  • APSCUF (Department Representatives: Resa Crane Bizzaro, Tanya Heflin,Mary Stewart, and Todd Thompson; Legislative Assembly: John Marsden)
  • Center for Film Studies (Director: Tom Slater)
  • DHC – Center for Digital Humanities and Culture (Co-Directors: Ken Sherwood, Dan Weinstein, and Gian Pagnucci)
  • IUP Senate (Department Representative: Tim Hibsman)
  • NGAR – New Growth Arts Review (Advisor: Chauna Craig)
  • Sigma Tau Delta (Advisor: Mike Williamson)
  • Studies in the Humanities (Editor-in-Chief: Reena Dube)
  • Works & Days (Editor-in-Chief: David Downing)
  • Writing Center (Director: Ben Rafoth)

Upcoming Events

English Happy Hour

  • Sep. 27 (Wednesday) from 10:30-11:30 a.m. in the English Reading area
  • Free donuts, pastry, coffee, and tea
  • All English students and faculty are welcome
  • Coordinated by Todd Thompson
  • We have shamelessly swiped this idea from IUP’s Department of History (Thanks to Scott Moore who came up with this brilliant idea)

National Day on Writing

  • October 20
  • Coordinated by Bryna Siegle Finer (Director of WAC), Melissa Lutz, Marissa McKinley, and Ben Rafoth

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.

IUP English Google Calendar

  • 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