Thursday's Notes

1. Announcements:

• The Dean’s Office in the College of Humanities will hold its annual “Celebration of Faculty Scholarship” reception from 2 to 5 p.m., in the Whitsett Room (SH 451), on Tuesday, May 16. The celebration will recognize scholarly and creative activities accomplished from July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2006. Forthcoming publications will be celebrated during next year’s celebration. Faculty may submit information about their achievements to tina.chewning@csun.edu. To have their work (e.g., publications, CDs, DVDs, visual art) displayed, faculty should bring it with them to the reception. Light refreshments will be served.
• Wings is accepting submissions of students’ papers from faculty. Papers may fall into such categories as argumentative/research, reflective, personal narrative, and in-class essays; annotated bibliographies; and anti-essays. Details about submitting papers were emailed to faculty on May 4. The deadline for submitting papers is Friday, May 26.
• Dr. Justine Su, of CSUN’s China Institute, has received requests from English professors in Shanghai who want to come to CSUN as visiting scholars for the Fall 2006 semester. Dr. Su wants to identify faculty members who are interested in serving as mentors. If you are interested, contact Sandra Stanley, chairperson of the English Department.
• The Faculty Development Center and Online Instruction are inviting departments and faculty members to participate in a summer pilot program to align course materials with learning outcomes. The program will enable faculty to validate learning outcomes, to identify student weakness, to enhance the quality of instruction through self-evaluation and branched remediation, to own the copyright to their course content, and to get paid royalties. For additional information, contact Randal Cummings at rcummings@csun.edu.

2. Reminders:

• The Office of the President is soliciting student success stories that President Koester can highlight during her commencement remarks. Faculty members should submit student success stories to the College of Humanities, which will vet and forward them to the president’s office by the deadline for receipt, Monday, May 15.
• Faculty should tell students that they can apply to receive departmental awards at the end of the Spring 2006 semester. Faculty can also nominate students for awards, including the Professor Mitchell Marcus Prize in English, the Annamarie Peterson Morley Award, the Mahlon Gaumer Award, and the George Morley/Annamarie Peterson Scholarship Award, which have cash prizes ranging from $500 to $1,000. Students’ applications, which are available in the English Department, must be submitted to the Department’s main office by 5 p.m. on Friday, May 5. Faculty should give Beth Wightman students’ papers that should be considered in Fall 2006 for the Oliver Evans Prize (for upper-division creative or critical prose) and the Eva Latif Award (for critical or creative writing on children’s literature).
• The Graduate Reading Series is announcing its final event for the Spring 2006 semester—readings by Ken Cran, Arjang Hedayatirad, Dan Murphy, Jeff Sosner, and Kim Young. The readings will take place in CSUN’s Noski Auditorium (at the corner of W. University Drive and Plummer Street) on Saturday, May 6th, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Your presence will help these students celebrate the completion of their theses.
• CIELO is requesting proposals for four types of grants for the 2006-2007 academic year: Faculty Curriculum Development Grants, Service-Learning Scholar Grants for Student Assistants, General Education/Liberal Studies Course Development Grants, and MOSAIC Mentoring Mini-Grants. Instructions and application forms have been placed in faculty members’ mailboxes. The deadline for submitting applications is Monday, May 8, 2006.
• The California State University is requesting that faculty and librarians submit proposals to advance information literacy among undergraduate and graduate students at the CSU’s. Information about the proposals, which have produced grants averaging from $5,000 to $15,000, was placed in campus mailboxes before spring break. The proposal deadline is 5 p.m. on Friday, May 26. Proposals must be emailed to paul.adalian@csuci.edu.
• The first alumni newsletter of the English Department can be viewed online at http://www.csun.edu/english/newsletter.html.
• The Office of Human Resources is accepting nominations for this year’s awards of excellence for staff members and administrators: the CSUN Award of Merit, the Team Award, and the Presidential Award. The awards have cash values ranging from $200 to $1,000. The nomination deadline is Wednesday, June 7. Information about the awards is available online at http://www-admn.csun.edu/hrs/comp/awards.

3. Faculty/Student Achievements:

• Scott Andrews presented his paper “Narrative Structure in Laura Tohe’s No Parole Today” at the Native American Literature Symposium, held April 6-9 in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.
• Joseph Thomas’s essay “‘a joint rolled in toilet paper’: Funkadelic’s Funky Soul” appears in the current issue of Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. To read the essay, go online to http://reconstruction.eserver.org/062/contents.shtml.
• Stephanie Satie was the featured solo performer at the American Jewish Theatre Conference, February 18-20, in Phoenix, Arizona. On April 23, Stephanie completed a special performance under the auspices of the California Council for the Humanities’ California Stories Initiative. Additionally, Stephanie participated in a post-performance discussion, which included Dr. Akiko Hirota, of CSUN’s Humanities Program and Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures.

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

Competitions and Fellowships

• Robert Chianese is recruiting faculty members to apply for a 2007-2008 Fulbright Scholar award. Information about the awards and the application process is available online at http://www.cies.org. Bob can be contacted at robert.chianese@csun.edu.

Lectures and Other Events

• On Monday, May 8, Dr. Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, a scholar in the area of queer Latino histories in the United States, will present “Gay Latino Histories/Dying to Be Done” in the Presentation Room in Oviatt Library, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Dr. Ramírez is a professor in the Department of Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Jobs and Opportunities

• CSUN’s Department of Business Law is announcing anticipated part-time faculty positions to teach Business Communications (Business 105) during the Spring 2007 semester. The application deadline is October 27, 2006. Inquiries and applications should be addressed to Kurt Saunders, Chair, Department of Business Law.

Compiled by Patricia D. Watkins, Associate Chair