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2017-2018 Department Meeting Feb. 8 (Thursday) 2:00-3:15 p.m.

English Department Meeting Agenda

Meeting Agenda for Feb. 8, 2018
(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 Sharon Deckert for her many years of service as C&T Director!

Congratulations

  • To English faculty with scholarly news to start 2018:
    • Melanie Holm on Co-Editing Mocking Bird Technologies: The Poetics of Parroting, Mimicry, and other Starling Tropes (University Press: 2018). Melanie was also named Managing Editor of the 18th-century studies journal, The Scriblerian and the Kit-Kats
    • Chauna Craig’s creative nonfiction essay, “Hidden in Plain Sight,” was recognized as “Notable Nonrequired Reading” in the Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing). The essay originally appeared in Ploughshares. Chauna also served as guest reader for SmokeLong Quarterly, an online literary magazine dedicated to flash fiction.
    • Bryna Siegel Finer has been selected to serve a three-year term as the book review editor for Composition Studies, a peer-reviewed, biannual journal currently housed at the University of Cincinnati. Bryna was also invited to write a post for the University Press of Colorado academic blog.
    • For the second year in a row, Resa Crane Bizzaro has been invited to vet proposals for the National Council of Teachers of English’s annual November conference.
    • “Legislating First-Year Writing Placement: Implications for Pennsylvania and Across the Country” by Katie Miller, Emily Wender, and Bryna Siegel Finer has been published in the Journal of Writing Assessmentin a special edition on the politics of pathways.
    • Matt Vetter has co-authored “Writing Theory for the Multimajor Professional Writing Course: A Case Study and Course Design” appears in the journal Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition and Culture (Duke UP).
  • 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:

  • 12/7/17

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. 1.Spring 2018 Retreat
  • Moved from April 4: Wednesday to Sep. 12 Wednesday
  • We were unable to get rooms for April 4 and later in the semester was crowded with other events
  • The ELC felt rescheduling to Fall 2018 would give us more planning time
  • Please plan the new date into your fall syllabi
  • If you already scheduled an alternate class activity for April 4, please use the date as a Personal Health Day: Take a walk that day, even if it’s just for 10 minutes (that will actually improve your health more than the Healthy Uplan does!)
  1. 2.Common Printers
  • We’ve had a few cases where confidential documents were not picked up in a timely fashion from public area printers (fortunately your colleagues kindly shredded those documents for you)
  • Please make sure that you pick up promptly any confidential documents you send to one of the printers
  • If you need a personal printer for your office, please talk to Gian
  • Please use personal printers for limited printing, not for making class copies; please use the xerox machine for class copies
  1. Star Grades
  • Always make sure you enter some type of grade for each student
  • If you don’t enter any grade, the student receives a star * grade
  • The university is trying to eliminate these grades from the system because they prevent students from graduating
  • If you have a * grade, please take care of it right away
  • Administration was worried about these * grades and wants faculty to double check to avoid them in the future

4. Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society

  • If you are interested in being nominated to join Phi Kappa Phi, please let Gian know
  • Dean Asamoah is one of the Phi Kappa Phi coordinators, so he is always interested in recruiting more faculty to join the group
  • Gian and several other people are members

5. Student and Alumni News Wanted!

  • We do great on faculty news
  • Thank you so much for writing those new items and please keep them coming
  • It would be great to also have more student news items
  • Some suggestions might be:
    • A short paragraph about an interesting student class project
    • A brief write up about any student presentations at conferences
    • A short item on unusual class events/activities
    • Brief items about student publications
    • News items that showcase student academic success while also balancing athletics, family life, military service, or even just holding down a local job
    • Brief write ups about digital products/publications/videos/podcasts that include links to those digital materials
    • Alumni job news and accomplishments are also really great
  • News about students and alumni are the types of things prospective students often look for when visiting our website, so the more news items, the better!

6. Library Weeding Project Update

  • The Ad Hoc committee is meeting weekly and making some progress
  • The number of books to be cut will be reduced, but some books will be cut
  • Faculty will get to have input
  • Faculty will have to spend some time identifying books they want to save, but the size of the list to be reviewed will be limited
  • Our department will probably need to create a list of key books for our discipline which are need to be physically held by the library

7. English Department Handbook

  • Presentation of the new online handbook
  • Thanks to Dan Weinstein, Chris Kuipers, Todd Thompson, Heather Powers, and Gian who have all worked on this project
  1. Beginning Work on English 101: Composition I Outcome Revisions
  • Preliminary overview by Bryna Siegel Finer
  1. English Events for the Semester
  • Organizing of events schedule by Oriana Gatta and Todd Thompson
  • If you want to have the department hold a particular event, a faculty member has to coordinate the event (this does not mean Oriana or Todd are supposed to coordinate)
  • Event coordinators need to make a flyer, write a brief description of the event for email distribution, include a short biographical statement if it is a speaker, and book a room
  • If you want to pay an honorarium to a speaker, you must fill out paperwork at least 1 month in advance to make sure the person gets paid
  • Please ALWAYS email Dawnette Shellhammer and ask her to put the event on the department calendar
  • We need to limit and coordinate events for each semester
  • We also need to sign up to attend events
  • Finally, we need to encourage our students to attend events by using the speakers’ publications in our classes
  1. Annual Speaker Series Idea
  • Idea by Tom Slater to pursue one important writer/film expert per year
  • Thanks to Tom for bringing Film Director Tony Buba this semester
  • Thanks to John Branscum for bringing Ken Liu this semester
  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!
  • Finally, I like showing everything everyone is doing, but obviously we will never have time to get through all these reports in any one meeting. So, if you have an important item, please send it to me, and I’ll add it as a regular agenda item. Beyond that, we’ll try to just rotate through as many reports as possible during our meeting time.

English Department Reports

English Program Reports

  • Liberal Studies English (Director: Bryna Siegel Finer)
    • Assessment (Coordinator: Katie Miller)
    • Crimson Quill (Coordinator: Marissa McKinley)
  • 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: Gloria Park)
  • 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)
  • Writing Plan (Coordinator: Oriana Gatta)

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 Across the Curriculum (Director: Bryna Siegel Finer)
  • Writing Center (Director: Ben Rafoth)

State Organization Reports

  • English Association of Pennsylvania State Universities – EAPSU (Vice President, Conference Representative, and Writing Contest Coordinator:John Branscum)
  • Pennsylvania College English Association – PCEA (Web Site Director: Gian Pagnucci; Board Members: John Marsden and Oriana Gatta)
  • This category needs more information, so please send Gian the name of any organization for which you are an officer as well as your title.

National Organization Reports

  • This category needs more information, so please send Gian the name of any organization for which you are an officer as well as your title.

Upcoming Events

 Film Director Tony Buba Visit!

  • Feb. 15 Thur. from 3:30-4:45 in 216 HSS Tony will be showing film clips of Struggles in Steel and talking about racism issues in Tom Slater’s film class
  • Feb. 15 Thur. @ 5:30 p.m. in 225 HSS Showing of award-winning Ghosts of Amistad: Voices of the Rebels (2014) and discussion
  • Coordinated by Tom Slater
  • You can get more information on Tony’s films at: https://braddockfilms.com/

Chinese Science Fiction Writer Ken Liu Visit!

  • April 18 @ 11 a.m. Talk on translation work
  • April 18 @ 4:30 p.m. creative reading (from his World Fantasy winning story collection The Paper MenagerieDCreative Reading from Liu’s World Fantasy winning story collection The Paper Menagerie, Q&A, and book signing!
  • Coordinated by John Branscum and the Department of Foreign Languages

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