English Department Meeting Agenda
Meeting Agenda for Mar. 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 Dan Weinstein, Mike Williamson, and Literature and Criticism doctoral students Mary Reading and Zainab Younus for serving on the judging panel for the ArtsPath regional Poetry Out Loud recitation competition. The statewide competition involved 6217 Pennsylvania students from 111 high schools. Having our faculty do this type of community service really helps promote IUP as a great college choice.
- Tom Slater for bringing film director Tony Buba to IUP
- Mike Sell for bringing the Schell Games designers to IUP
- Mary Stewart for giving the first in our new series of Faculty Spotlight talks.
- Mary presented on “Cultivating Communities of Inquiry in Online Writing Courses: Results of a Mixed Methods Study of ENGL 202”
- Thanks to Veronica Watson for taking the photo of Mary in action!
- Mike Sell will be featured in our next Faculty Spotlight on March 27
- Matt Vetter for coordinating the Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon (our 2nd annual Wikipedia event!)
Congratulations
- To English faculty with scholarly news in 2018
- To Melanie Holm (Co-Editor Mocking Bird Technologies: The Poetics of Parroting, Mimicry, and other Starling Tropes) and Gloria Park (Narratives of East Asian Women Teachers of English: Where Privilege Meets Marginalization) who were honored for their book publications at a reception held by IUP Women’s and Gender Studies Program with support from IUP English
- 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:
- 11/16/17
- 2/8/18
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
- 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
- Administration first complained about these grades, then f
- Revised Course Objectives for English 101: Composition I (Byrna Siegel-Finer, LSE Director)
- The Liberal Studies English (LSE) Committee has revised the course objectives for ENGL 101
- We will vote on these revised objectives at our meeting
- Library Weeding Project Update
- The Adhoc Committee on the Library Weeding Project (Scott Moore, Francisco Alardon, Ben Ford, Chris Clouser, Dean Gonzalez, Provost Moerland) is making good progress
- Many books will undergo a format change
- The Provost has agreed to pay for IUP to join the HATHI trust which costs roughly $12,000/year
- About 60% of the books slated for weeding are in the trust and this will give faculty access to roughly 16 million volumes total
- This will eave about 30,000-40,000 books for review
- Each department is supposed to generate a list of about 100 books that are seminal in the field
- These should be books published prior to 2000 and already in IUP’s collection
- Books should be documented in this way:
- Author last name, author first name, full book title, publication year, ISBN number
- Send your books, in the correct format, to your library liaison Jean Nienkamp (B.A. Program), Gloria Park (C and AL), and Veronica Watson(L&C)
- Let’s aim for about 50 books per program
- Due by April 15
- Anyone who wants to identify a book may do so
- In Fall 2018, we will be given a list of the books that remain for weeding and will have a chance to give input
- English Book Project
- Since the library is getting rid of books, Gian thought we should provide some of the best books to our students
- We purchased a new book shelf for the English Reading Area which will be used to house books by IUP English faculty
- We will aim to buy 2 copies of each book and have them available for students/faculty to read (we’ll try an honor system circulation plan initially)
- We will start by ordering books for which faculty are an author/co-author or editor/co-editor
- Please find your books on Amazon/publisher site and send the link to Dawnette Shellhammer so we can order copies
- Depending on the cost, we will start buying some books this budget year and may need to continue into next year
- We’ll see how many books that is, then think about getting books in which people have chapters
- This should be a great display to show prospective students and their parents
- Online Course Observations (Mary Stewart)
- The LSE Online Teaching and Learning Subcommittee has developed a proposal for improving how we do observations of online courses
- We will vote on this proposal at our meeting
- Graduate Teaching Eligibility
- If you need to renew your graduate teaching eligibility, please send your materials to Todd Thompson
- Click here to view the Graduate Teaching Eligibility List
- Click here for the Graduate Teaching Eligibility Application
- Bachelor of Arts in English Updates
- Thanks to Heather Powers and Gian who worked on curriculum revisions to the Writing Track and Pre-Law Track to bring them into alignment with new IUP credit requirements
- Composition and TESOL Updates
- Thanks to Sharon Deckert who worked on curriculum revisions to the Graduate Studies in Composition and TESOL Program
- The program is changing it’s name to Composition and Applied Linguistics (C and AL)
- Campus Safety Issues
- Gian spoke to Associate Dean Gracey about student and faculty concerns regarding campus safety after the recent tragic Florida shooting
- Situational Awareness Training will be offered on March 27 and March 28 (two separate sessions) at 3:30 in HSS 225
- The session will be run by Campus Police and will cover how to gain better awareness of your surroundings
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: Resa Crane Bizzaro)
- 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
- Please join us for the 2018 Pennsylvania College English Association (PCEA) Conference from March 23-24 in Bethlehem, PA
- John Marsden, Mike Williamson, Gian, and English Literature and Criticism Graduate Student Mark DiMauro all serve on the PCEA Board and will be happy to tell you about what a great conference this is
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
Fall 2018 Department English Retreat
- Sep. 12 Wednesday from 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. @ the KCAC
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