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1. Announcements

This Spring’s Careers in English speaker series welcomes speakers from a wide range of interesting career fields. Mark your calendars for the following: March 9th: Marketing and Communications; March 18th: Traditional Publishing; March 25th: Online and Web Publishing; April 20th: Law. All speakers will be in the Linda Joseph Nichols Reading Room, JR 319, from 12:30-1:30 p.m. Watch for flyers, and save the dates!

Cheryl Spector invites faculty and staff to participate in a facilitated discussion of David Levithan’s Every Day, the 2015-2016 Freshman Common Reading at CSUN. For details or to RSVP for one of the discussions, see http://www.csun.edu/undergraduate-studies/academic-first-year-experiences/events/facultystaff-book-discussions-every-day. (Free copies of the book are available on request to Cheryl, while supplies last.)

CSUN Graduate Student Awards applications are available now and we ask that if you have any outstanding graduate students to encourage them to apply for the following awards: Association of Retired Faculty Memorial Award. The purpose of the award is to recognize and provide financial support to graduate students for excellent scholarship and creative activity. The award will support a project that is part of a master’s program. Award criteria include a project description, two faculty letters of recommendation, and willingness to provide a brief presentation of the project at the ARF annual brunch. Nathan O. Freedman Memorial Award for Outstanding Graduate Student. The determining factors for the award are based on a record of distinguished scholarship, a minimum GPA of 3.5, and contributions to the field. The award recipient will be announced at Honors Convocation. The applications for these awards are available on the following website: http://www.csun.edu/research-graduate-studies/student-awards. The deadline is March 16 by 5:00 p.m.

2. Reminders

On March 6, 2015 at 2:30 p.m. in JR 319, Dr. Henry Oster will visit Dr. Linda Overman’s class to discuss his Holocaust experience. “Even in Hell, there is hope,” writes Dr. Henry Oster who was five years old when Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. His recently published book, The Kindness of the Hangman (Higgins Bay Press, 2014), tells this gripping tale of the 2,011 Jews who were rounded up by the Gestapo and deported from Cologne, Germany. Oster is one of only two people still alive to tell their story and was recently featured in The Los Angeles Times: “On Holocaust memorial day, a survivor remembers” at http://lat.ms/1EOqqrx. For more information, please contact Dr. Overman at linda.overman@csun.edu.

The CSUN Composition Book Fair will be held on March 9 & 10, 2015, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., in Sierra Tower 703. Join us as our textbook publishers showcase their newest composition materials. All faculty are welcome. Free books and food.

The Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature in the Madden Library at Fresno State is conducting a new conference on censorship. “Outlawed: The Naked Truth about Censored Literature for Young People,” held April 10-12, 2015, will feature some of children’s literature’s best and brightest stars: Jacqueline Woodson, Lesléa Newman, Matt de la Peña, Leonard Marcus, Margarita Engle, Michael Cart, plus nearly 35 panel presenters from across the United States and abroad. They will examine censorship in children’s literature from numerous angles. Sherman Alexie will kick off the conference with a presentation on April 9 at 7:30 in the Fresno State Satellite Student Union. For more information, please see their website at www.outlawed2015.com, or email jcrow@csufresno.edu or call the Center at 559-278-8116.

The Judge Julian Beck Learning-Centered Instructional Project grant deadline is Friday, March 13, 2015, by 4:00 p.m. Make sure you plan ahead as you’ll need signatures from your chair and from your dean’s office. Check out the faculty development website for more information: http://www.csun.edu/undergraduate-studies/faculty-development/faculty-development-grants.

Tethered by Letters 2015 Winter Literary Contest is calling for submissions in 3 categories. Tethered by Letters publishes writers with engaging stories, vivid characters, and fresh writing styles. All winners will be published in TBL’s Fall 2015 Quarterly Literary Journal. Finalists will receive free professional edits on their submission and be considered for later publication. Multiple entries and simultaneous submissions accepted. International submissions also welcome! $800 in total prizes. Visit http://www.tetheredbyletter.com for detailed guidelines. Deadline: February 28, 2015.

3. Opportunities

Positions are available to teach University 100 in Fall 2015. For more information, see http://www.csun.edu/undergraduate-studies/university-100/teaching-university-100. Please note that there are two announcements: one for University 100 with no specialization, and the other for University 100 for students who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing. The two positions have slightly different requirements. You can apply for either or both (depending on your own qualifications).

Will Greer’s Theatricum Botanicum is offering equity and non-equity Auditions, Professional Internships, and a Summer Intensive Shakespeare Seminar for acting, directing, design, and art management students. For more information, see http://www.theatricum.com.

4. Achievements

Noreen Lace, an alumna from our graduate program and a lecturer, has a short story, “Dad Shining,” forthcoming in Printers Row Journal, a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune.

Angeline Olliff, one of our graduate students and TAs, is a first place winner in the 19th Annual Student Research and Creative Works Symposium for her Oral Presentation “Encouraging the ‘Risks of Caring’: a Cognitive-Development Approach to Collaborative Learning in FYC Classroom.” She will be going to Sacramento to compete against other statewide winners this Spring.