Thursday's Notes

1. Announcements:

• The College of Humanities is calling for proposals to receive supplemental funding from the Spring 2006 Academic Programming Fund for such activities and events as guest lectureships, workshops, and performances. Proposals must be submitted to the Academic Programming Fund, College of Humanities, SH 461, mail code 8252 by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 22. Awards will be announced in late February or early March.
• The AGSE is soliciting donations for its garage sale on February 11. The group is looking for typical garage-sale items—clothes, furniture, books, electronics, and the like. If you have a large item (e.g., a desk or sofa) and are reasonably close to CSUN, email Brian Scott (brian.scott@csun.edu) to discuss a pickup. All other items can be dropped off Friday after 10 a.m. at the TA office, located in Santa Susana Hall (formerly FOB), rooms109 and 113.
• LsBiGTr’s is announcing the LsBiGTr’s Film Series, beginning this semester. You can help select films for the series at the February 22 meeting of LsBiGTr’s in ST 703 at noon. If you want to make a presentation at the group’s brown bag meetings in February, April, or May, contact Leilani Hall (leilani.hall@csun.edu) or Brian Leung (brian.leung@csun.edu).

2. Reminders:

• The application due date for the 2006-2007 Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity awards is 5 p.m. on Monday, February 20, 2006. Awards are mini-grants up to $5,000 or 3 units of reassigned time for use in Fall 2006 or Spring 2007. Applications are available at http://www.csun.edu/~gripact/03_Research/09_On-CampusCompetition.html.
• The proposal due date for the Judge Julian Beck Grant is Monday, March 6, 2006. Information and application packets are available at Faculty Development, Sierra Hall 438, ext. 6536, or online at http://www.csun.edu/~celtact/grants.html.
• Contact Cheryl Spector, Charles Hatfield, Beth Wightman, or any other Faculty Senator to put your name in nomination for president, vice president, secretary-treasurer, senator-at-large, and CSUN representative to the CSU Academic Senate. Nominations will be made at the February 16 meeting of the Faculty Senate. The Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate will also nominate faculty members for positions on some Senate Standing Committees. If you want to be nominated, complete the University Service Form and return it by February 15 to the Faculty Senate Office, Oviatt 10 (mail drop: 8221; email: heidiw@csun.edu). The Service Form is available at http://www.csun.edu/senate.
• The Office of Graduate Studies is announcing the 2006-2007 California Pre-Doctoral Program “to increase the diversity of the pool from which the California State University draws its faculty.” Applications, available at http://www.calstate.edu/predoc, are due in the Office of Graduate Studies by 5 p.m. on March 30, 2006. For additional information, contact Hedy L. Carpenter at (818) 677-2138.

3. Faculty/Student Achievements:

• Joseph Thomas has three entries published in the Encyclopedia of American Poetry(Greenwood P, 2005): “Children’s Poetry,” “John Ciardi,” and “Randall Jarrell.” Joseph’s “Playground Rhymes” appears in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (Oxford UP, 2005). Joseph also presented a paper, “Contemporary American Children’s Poetry and the ‘ School of Quietude,’” at this year’s MLA conference in Washington, DC.
• Rick Mitchell ’s essay “Up in Smoke: Cigars Hecho a Mano, Radical Storytelling in the Tabaquería, and the Processed Drama of Anna in the Tropics” appears on pages 5 to 24 of the current issue of Sargasso, a special volume on “Caribbean Theater and Cultural Performance.”
• Tony Arthur, whose biography of Upton Sinclair comes out in June, is quoted in several newspaper and magazine stories on the recent discovery of an old Sinclair letter concerning the Sacco/Vanzetti case, the subject of Sinclair’s novel Boston. Tony is quoted in the Los Angeles Times (Dec. 24); a Reuters article (Jan. 27) reproduced on CNN.COM and elsewhere—including Pakistan; an Editor & Publisher column (Feb. 1); and a forthcoming issue of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sontagzeitung. Tony will post these stories or links to them on his home page http://www.anthonyarthur.net.
• Leilani Hall will serve as Poet-in-Residence at this year’s Los Angeles Summer Writer’s Institute. She will also give a public reading at Mount St. Mary’s College.

4. New Items in the Thursday’s Notes file (ST 708) or on Bulletin Board (Outside 710)

Competitions and Fellowships

• Robert Boyers, director of the New York State Summer Writers Institute is announcing the availability of full tuition scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students to attend the 2006 sessions. Scholarships cover up to $1,000 for two-week workshops in poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction, and up to $2,000 for four-week workshops. Last year, fifteen scholarships were awarded. Faculty should recommend students by emailing students’ names and email addresses to Boyers at writersscholarship@skidmore.edu by March 3. Flyers announcing the program and providing further information are available at http://www.skidmore.edu/administration/osp/scholarship_announcement_flyer.pdf.
• The National Endowment for the Humanities is announcing “Summer Seminars and Institutes for College and University Teachers” for 2006. Answers to general questions about the program are available at (202) 606-8463 and sem-inst@neh.gov. Applications to the program must be postmarked by March 1, 2006. A flyer listing the topics and locations of individual seminars and institutes is located on the bulletin board outside ST 710.

Lectures and Other Events

• To address the issue of lawsuits against faculty members and universities for violations of American Disabilities Acts 504 and 508, the Center on Disabilities and the Faculty Development and Online Instruction programs are announcing two instructional sessions. The first session will be on Monday, February 13, from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. The second session will be on Tuesday, February 14, from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Both sessions are scheduled for the Whitsett Room, Sierra Hall 451. Among other topics, the sessions will cover recent lawsuits at the CSU, resources available for achieving ADA compliance in teaching, and definitions of accessible and usable course materials. To make a reservation, contact Kelly Kroeker at extension 6536 or kelly.kroeker@csun.edu.
• The Faculty Development program invites faculty to participate in the Spring 2006 Faculty Book Groups series. Faculty will discuss two books: Maryellen Weimer’s Learning-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice and Ann Colby and others’ Educating Citizens: Preparing America’s Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civil Responsibility. For more information, contact Kelly Kroeker at extension 6536 or kelly.kroeker@csun.edu.
• V-Day, a non-profit, chartered student organization at CSUN, is announcing a V-Day celebration and the organization’s first annual Divine Diva Benefit Dinner to honor women who are leaders in efforts to stop violence against women. The celebration and benefit will take place on February 26 at 7 p.m. in the Northridge Center on campus. For additional information, contact Courtney Norton, Director of Education/Awareness for CSUN’s V-Day 2006, at (818) 677-5111 or cennort4short@aol.com. The deadline for assured reservations is February 14.

Compiled by Patricia D. Watkins, Associate Chair