English Department Meeting Agenda
- Meeting Date: 8/23/19
- Meeting Location: B03 Humanities and Social Sciences Building
IUP’s 144th Year
Grow Here
- 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 Dawnette Shellhammer for keeping the English Office from coming crashing to a total halt (and doing it with her always sunny smile 🙂
- To Nicky Wilcox, our only student worker, for helping us with critical work all week
- To Chauna Craig 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 2019 English Commencement Ceremony one last time
- To Sheila Farr for continuing to help in the English Graduate Office all summer long
- To Lynn Shelly who coordinated a highly successful 2019 LSE Orientation for our Temporary Faculty and Teaching Associates
- To the following faculty who took part in the 2019 LSE Orientation along with the majority of our doctoral students who are Temporary Faculty and Teaching Associates
- Chauna Craig
- Dana Driscoll
- Tim Hibsman
- Chris Kuipers
- Gian
- Gloria Park
- Curt Porter
- Cristina Sánchez-Martín
- Mike Sell
- Peter Sorrell
- Mary Stewart
- Matt Vetter
- Dan Weinstein
- Lingyan Yang
- Yi Yu
Fond Farewells
To our wonderful colleagues who recently retired:
- David Downing
- Jo-Anne Kerr
- Linda Norris
- Jackie Rohrabaugh
To our two long serving student workers who graduated:
- Rob Clyde
- Derrick Reffer
A Big Welcome!
To our fabulous new secretary:
- Peggy Kane, new Clerk Typist 2 for the IUP English Graduate Programs (Peggy starts on Monday, Aug. 26, so please welcome her to Team English!)
Welcome Back
From their 2019 Spring Sabbaticals:
- Susan Comfort
- Tim Hibsman
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 graduate students with as much financial support as possible.
2019-2020 New CAL TF’s and TA’s
- Dana Husein, TA
- Danning Liang, TA
- Havva Zorluel Ozer, TA
- Krista Sarraf, TF
- Larry Sugisaki, TF
- Jing Zhang, TA
2019-2020 Returning CAL TF’s and TA’s
- Rajwan Alshareefy, TA
- Wenqi Cui, TA
- Tower Tchekpassi, TF
- Jiawei Xing, TA
2019-2020 New L&C TF’s and TA’s
- Alex Hagood, TF
- Olivia Maderer, TF
- Lisa Mazey, TF
- Maueve Perle, TF
- Eric Wentz, TF
- Zainab Younus, TA
2019-2020 Returning L&C TF’s and TA’s
- Najwa Salisu Ahmed, TA
- Abigail Hennon, TF
- Sarah Poeppel. TF
- Loren Stephenson, TF
Big Congratulations
- To Dana Driscoll on being promoted to Professor and being granted Tenure!
- To Reena Dube on being promoted to Professor!
- To Melanie Holm on being promoted to Associate Professor and being granted Tenure!
- To John Marsden on being promoted to Associate Professor!
- To Mike Williamson on being promoted to Professor!
2019-2020 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 Fall Sabbaticals
- John Branscum
- David Hanauer
2020 Spring Sabbaticals
- Bryna Siegel Finer
- Tanya Heflin
- Chris Orchard
English Leadership Changes
-
Chauna Craig, Interim Bachelor of Arts in English Director
-
Jo-Anne Kerr, Bachelor of Science in English Education Director
-
Linda Norris, English 7-12 Teaching Certificate, Post-Baccalaureate Director
- Ben Rafoth, Jones White Writing Center Director
-
Bryna Siegel Finer, Liberal Studies English Director (Bryna will continue to serve as IUP Writing Across the Curriculum Director)
- Todd Thompson, Assistant Chair
- Chauna Craig, Assistant Chair
- Dana Driscoll, Jones White Writing Center Director
- Lynn Shelly, Liberal Studies English Director
- Dan Weinstein, Bachelor of Arts in English Director
- Emily Wender, Bachelor of Science in English Education Director/English 7-12 Teaching Certificate, Post-Baccalaureate Director
New IUP Leader
- As if she didn’t have enough to do, Chauna Craig has been asked to serve as the Acting Cook Honors College Director
Approval of Department Meeting Minutes
We will vote to approve Minutes from the English Department meeting held on:
- 4/18/19
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
The Wheels of Bureaucracy: Some parts of our job are a pain, but they aren’t going away, so just smile and try to crank through them.
1. Clearances and Title IX Training
- We will again need to complete the online Title IX training
- Please make this a priority because IUP administration is growing increasingly strict about compliance
- It takes some time, so just plan to get it done by the deadline PLEASE
- If you are notified that you need to complete a Clearances check, please also do this as promptly as possible
- If you don’t have the proper clearances to teach, you can be pulled out of teaching any 100 level classes (this has happened to people, so please no it can be a real problem and avoid getting stuck in this situation)
- And yes, all of this may seem like a pain, but you’ll be glad you had some training when a student needs your help with a Title IX situation
2. 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
3. N Grades Deadlines
Dean Asamoah wanted to be sure we had the following list of deadlines
- 8/26/19: Verification of Attendance Opens
- 9/3/19: Last Day of Drop/Add
- 9/4/19 (10 a.m.): Verification of Attendance Deadline
- 9/4/19: Email sent to ALL students with N Grade reported
- 9/4/19: Disbursement Holds placed on student records
- 9/5/19: Disbursement of financial aid refunds to students
- 9/5/19 – 9/9/19: Email to faculty with directions for removing N Grades entered in error; faculty may update attendance – record N Grades
- 9/10/19: Students with ALL N Grades and ALL but one N Grade will have their schedules Auto Dropped
4. * Grades
- Please avoid all * grades which occur if you do not enter any other grade for a student
- In Spring 2018 the Provost’s Office charged department’s $100 for every * grade entered
- Our department bill for Spring 2018 was $3600
- Chairs were told this bill would be waived, but the money was actually deducted from our department accounts and never returned
- Supposedly departments could earn the money back by avoiding * grades, but no plan to earn it back was ever given
- No penalizing for * grades has occurred, primarily because we have basically avoided them, but the threat of the penalty remains
The Challenges: Yes, it’s going to be a tough year.
5. Budget Cuts
- IUP Fall 2019 enrollment dropped from 10,806 to 10,108 (a roughly $8 million loss for the university)
- IUP’s budget has dropped 26% in the past 7 years; in that time budget costs have only declined by 4%
- PASSHE froze tuition rates for 1 year as a marketing initiative
- The PA Legislature did raise PASSHE funding by 2%
- This created a $21 million deficit and led to $15.2 million in permanent budget cuts, which led to…
- Dean Asamoah getting his budget cut by 50% and then
- The English ESF Budget got cut by 50%
- The English Operating Budget got cut by 15%
- The Dean cut all travel funding
- All computer purchases were cut
- Doctoral student funding was cut to 1 course per TF/TA
- The graduate programs still haven’t received any of their budgets for this year, though Dean Asamoah believes that is coming
Rewriting the Story: IUP is still full of great people willing to help each other.
6. Getting Through Things As a Team
English & CHSS Enrollments
- IUP English has the largest number of majors in the entire College of Humanities and Social Sciences
- 48 English Education Majors
- 8 Pre-Law Track English Majors
- 27 Literature and Culture Track English Majors
- 51 Writing Track English Majors
- 134 Total English Majors
- CHSS Undergraduate Enrollments:
- English 134 majors down from 139
- History 121 majors down from 122
- Political Science 119 majors down from 124
- Sociology 94 majors down from 104
- Geography 62 majors up from 61
- Anthropology 54 majors down from 61
- Journalism 49 majors down from 71
- Economics 40 majors up from 32
- Foreign Languages 28 majors down from 29
- Philosophy 11 majors down from 19
- Religious Studies 5 majors up from 3
- Total CHSS undergraduate enrollments are 735 down from 829 in 2018-2019
- CHSS Graduate Enrollments:
- English 248 graduate students down from 260
- Sociology 106 and 106 last year
- Geography 19 graduate students up from 10
- Anthropology 16 graduate students down from 19
- Political Science 8 graduate students down from 15
- Total CHSS graduate enrollments are 397 down from 412 in 2018-2019
Good Deeds
Just this summer, all kinds of great things happened:
- Yaw Asamoah is broke, but he has promised that all probationary faculty may apply (with a short paragraph describing their presentation) for $500 in travel money
- He sent our request for an English Ed. hire as 1 of only 2 requests for the college
- He also hired 20 of our doctoral students to teach courses, providing them with some important financial support
- Tim Moerland and John Kilmarx approved our hiring of a new graduate secretary
- They also approved an early application for tenure and promotion
- And he turned to English when the university needed emergency leadership (since we have Chauna Craig 🙂
- Mike Driscoll has overseen initiatives to reduce both housing and food costs down for IUP students
- Gloria Park provided GAs to the BA Director, the LSE Director, and the Assistant Chair to help with Program work
- Veronica Watson provided a computer to the WAC Director because hers was slowly dying
- Rob Snyder found more good quality computers for the BA Director, the Assistant Chair, and the GAs assigned to the Graduate Office
- Lingyan Yang agreed to take a Women’s and Gender Studies Class last minute, then didn’t complain when the dean canceled the class
- Laurel Black took on a new course last minute so that Chauna could teach a new Honors College course last minute
- Tim Hibsman and Dan Weinstein both gave up classes to help colleagues who were facing very challenging situations
- Jackie Rohrabaugh got the schedule typed up with most of the room assignments, even though she knew her retirement was only days away
- Sharon Deckert agreed to prep a new ENGL 121 MLW class for spring to meet student needs even though no one had volunteered for the course
- At least half the TAs and TFs didn’t complain when their schedules got changed to accommodate other changes in the schedule
- Dana Driscoll, Mary Stewart, and Matt Vetter were appointed the Co-Editors of Writing Spaces which is an open source textbook series that could save IUP students hundreds of dollars in textbook costs as the initiative rolls out
- Gian found scholarship money to help one English major continue to attend IUP when she thought she would be unable to
- An English major will be used by Dot Gracey’s team in CHSS to spotlight new and unadvertised faculty work and interests
- Even though there isn’t much of a budget left, Gian is going to give funds to the English BA, English Ed, and LSE Programs for programming and recruitment; and he will also give funds to the graduate programs if their budgets don’t come through
- Matt Stumpf keeps sending Red Flag Poetry postcards to our mailboxes so we don’t just get bills
- Dawnette Shellhammer did everything for everybody just because she loves us
- The Avengers saved the universe
- And We still have the best jobs in the world!
12. English Department 2019-2020 Goal
- Focus on Enhancing Our Team English Spirit
- Clarifying Workload Distribution/Equity
- Defining and Setting Department Priorities
- Improving Department Climate
There are good things happening all over the world, so don’t let all the negative news get you down:
- 99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn’t Hear About
- Future Crunch: “The world didn’t fall apart this year. You just were getting your news from the wrong places.”
13. Have a GREAT 2019-2020 Academic Year!
Sure the budget’s bad, but isn’t the budget always bad? And the truth is, the travel money never made much of a dent in the expenses anyway (though Gian did once claw us all the way to a high of $800), but it’s still worth getting away for awhile. And if your computer quits working, you can stop reading emails for awhile. Things aren’t that bad because you’re part of a great team. If we focus on helping each other, we can make this a better academic year than ever.
Upcoming Events
IUP Welcome Weekend
- Meeting with new English majors on Sunday Aug. 25 @ 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. 25 @ 3:00 p.m. in the HSS atrium
Ice Cream Social for English Majors
- On Thur. Sep. 19 from 3:30-4:30 p.m. in 225 HSS (immediately following our next department meeting)
- 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