Thursday's Notes

1. Announcements:

• The English Department was deeply saddened to learn of the death of longtime instructor Michael DeGoes. A memorial service on campus is pending. Department Chair George Uba said, “Michael was a kind, good-hearted soul, with a ready smile and a desire to please others. We will miss him sorely, both as a colleague and as a friend. This is a terrible shock to all of us.”
• This year's reception for returning Honors Option students takes place Sept. 6, from 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. in Jerome Richfield 319. Honors Option advisor Beth Wightman writes, “The reception is a low-key affair--some food, some beverages, some introductions. Join your fellow honors students, this year's honors faculty and committee, and special guests next week to celebrate the beginning of another academic year.”
• Please note that the last day to add a class, drop a class, or the change the basis of grading through SOLAR has been moved from Sept. 14 to Sept. 17 to accommodate those students who will be observing the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashannah.
• Faculty Development and Online Instruction are offering a faculty workshop titled  "Moving Your Course Online" twice in September in the Online Instruction Lab in Oviatt Library 30. The first workshop is 2-3:30 p.m. on Sept. 18 and the second is 2-3:30 p.m. on Sept. 19. Participants will learn about best practices, strategies, and scenarios for converting the elements of a traditional course into online components. At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to: analyze available online tools; identify learning-centered pedagogical strategies for online courses; and foster and support student research through technology.

2. Reminders: 

• If you have not already done so, please put a copy of your course syllabi in Jennifer Lu’s box.  The syllabi will be filed in the notebooks in our Conference Room for reference by other faculty teaching similar courses in the future.
• Thursday’s Notes is also published weekly on our department webpage.  Please submit items for upcoming Thursday’s Notes to Scott Andrews, the Associate Chair, or to the Thursday’s Notes folder in Martha Alzamora’s office.

3. Faculty/Student/Staff Achievements:

• Scott Andrews was an invited “day writer” at the Native Voices Playwright Retreat this summer sponsored by the Autry National Center at the Museum of the American West.  Also, his poem titled “Afternoon in Albuquerque” appeared in the Summer 2007 edition of Avocet: A Journal of Nature Poems, which is edited by Pat Swenson and Nancy Taylor.
• Robert Chianese wrote a personal essay titled “Finding the right words for a friend who’s ill” that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Aug. 27.
• Irene Clark presented a paper titled "High Stakes Exams and Curricular Decisions" at the Writing Program Administrator's Conference in Tempe, Ariz., and a paper titled "Rhetorical Genre Theory and Literary Texts" at the fourth International Genre Conference in Tubarao, Brazil. She has signed a contract with Utah State University Press for a book titled Genres of Academic Writing: Theoretical Insights, Pedagogical Opportunities.
• Petra Dierkes-Thrun’s essay titled "'The Brutal Music and the Delicate Text'?: Aesthetic Intersections between Oscar Wilde's Symbolism and Richard Strauss's Modernism in Salome" has been accepted for publication by MLQ (Modern Language Quarterly).
• Sharron Kollmeyer’s poem titled “He appears as a dawn runner” appeared in the Summer 2007 edition of Avocet: A Journal of Nature Poems.
• Linda Rader Overman's creative nonfiction work titled "Legacy" will appear in the anthology Journalheads: Writers Speak Out on Journaling, published by Beaufort Books next year.  This summer she taught creative writing workshops, "Writing the Self in Photographs," for graduate students and faculty in the English Department of the College of Foreign Languages at Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China, June 6-8.

4. New Items in the Thursday’s Notes file (ST708) or on Bulletin Board (Outside 710)

Competitions and Fellowships 

• The Bellwether Prize for Fiction is soliciting submissions for its 2007-2008 competition.  Applicants must be U.S. citizens who have some publication record but who have not had a book published with sales of more than 10,000 copies. Submissions must be unpublished novel manuscripts at least 80,000 words long. First prize is $25,000 and guaranteed publication. For more information, visit http://www.bellwetherprize.org..
• U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein’s Los Angeles office is looking for college students for internship positions in the Spring and Summer sessions. Application forms and instructions are available at http://www.feinstein.senate.gov.

Compiled by Scott Andrews, Associate Chair

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