Chair: Kent Baxter
Notes compiled by: Kate Haake
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Announcements
Susana Marcelo has established a memorial scholarship in honor of the recently deceased Angeline Olliff, a beloved English Rhetoric and Composition alum. The Angeline Olliff Memorial Scholarship honors Angeline’s devotion to teaching and her numerous academic achievements, and is made possible through Susana’s generosity and initiative and the blessing of Angeline’s family. The award will be given in Spring 2018 to a Rhetoric and Composition graduate student or a Teaching Associate in any specialization (creative writing, literature, rhetoric and composition). Susana is guaranteeing the scholarship award at $200 minimum but anyone can contribute through the CSUN foundation. Credit Card Donations may be made at https://givenow.csun.edu/; checks made out to the CSUN Foundation, with the notation that they be directed to this award, may be sent to the English Department. Thank you, Susana.
The WhatEvery1Says Project (WE1S) is hiring up to two CSUN faculty members and ten CSUN students (undergraduate and graduate) to form the cohort for its first Summer Research Camp, which will take place from July 2 to August 5, 2018. Based at University of California, Santa Barbara, with core collaborators at CSUN and the University of Miami, WE1S was recently awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funding of $1.1 million. The project uses digital humanities methods to study public discourse about the humanities at large data scales and hopes to learn new things about how news media sources portray the humanities. For more information on the project, read the WE1S Prospectus (http://we1s.ucsb.edu/we1s-prospectus/). The 2018 Summer Research Camp will focus on the grant’s Year 1 priorities of data collection and initial evaluation and analysis, identifying intellectual contexts, and developing tools and methods. Appropriate training in digital humanities methods and tools will be offered as part of the research camp. Faculty will be paid summer salary up to $1,000 each for participation in the research camp. Students will be paid $15.50/hour for a maximum of 20 hours/week. For further details and information about how to apply, see the full advertisement at http://bit.ly/2Bp9Gi2 or contact WE1S Co-Director Scott Kleinman (scott.kleinman@csun.edu). Primary consideration will be given to applications received by February 26. So be quick.
U100 Faculty Position Announcements for fall 2018 have been posted at https://www.csun.edu/undergraduate-studies/university-100/teaching-university-100. The deadline for applications is Monday, March 26.
Emeritus faculty Bob Chianese invites us to participate in a discussion of how we can get new ideas and novel strategies for dealing with climate change from art. Yes, art. Art can change our ideas and visions about what we face as our transformed local and global climates force us to adapt to new realities. Eco-Artists and Earth-Artists have insights and solutions we need to consider. This is a fundraiser for Citizens for Responsible Oil and Gas (CFROG) at Patagonia with a modest ticket price so many can attend. For more information, go to http://www.cfrog.org/ecoart.
The 2018-2019 annual Instructionally Related Activities (IRA) fee request process is now open and (new this year) entirely online. If you receive funds from this program–or wish to–don’t miss the application deadline of March 9, no later than 5:00 p.m. The application and operating policies can be found at http://www.csun.edu/academic-resources-planning/about-instructionally-related-activities-ira-funding.
Free copies of next year’s Freshman Common Read, Becoming Nicole, are available to faculty and staff. Please request yours by email (to Susanna: susanna.eng@csun.edu); by phone (818-677-6535); or in person (SH 422, Undergraduate Studies on the Roof). The deal is: you get one free copy in exchange for your promise to speak about the book with at least one new CSUN freshman in fall 2018. Try it–you might have fun, never mind do some good in the world. Offer valid while supplies last.
This year’s Office of Community Engagement’s Annual Research and Service Learning Symposium will take place in the beautiful Grand Lobby of the Soyara, The Valley’s Performing Arts Center, on April 17th from 1:00pm to 5:30pm. This event provides CSUN students with the opportunity to showcase the incredible work they’ve done for their service learning projects and to compete for prizes of up to $500. All Service-Learning Faculty grantees from the 2017/18 academic year are required to nominate at least one student or student group to participate. And all Service Learning faculty are welcome to nominate their students as well. So, please do.
The CSU Fee Waiver module is currently available for Fall 2018 registration. For more information about this important benefit, please visit the Fee Waiver website.
CFA will be holding a Pensions and Benefits workshop on Thursday, March 8, from 12:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Sagebrush Room 100. Food, drink, and all materials will be provided.
Opportunities
The CSU Trustees’ Award For Outstanding Achievement recognizes students with demonstrated financial who have overcome adversity and shown attributes of merit including superior academic performance, significant personal achievements, and exemplary community service. The recipient who receives the highest score by the CSU Foundation scholarship selection committee is designated the Trustee Emeritus Ali C. Razi Scholar and will receive a $12,000 scholarship. Also distributed will be the Galinson Scholarship ($8,000), the Hampton Scholarship ($9,000), and the Reed Scholarship ($7,500). Most scholarships will be $6,000. Scholarship Eligibility Criteria include that the student have a minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA, be currently enrolled as a full-time equivalent undergraduate or graduate student in any major field at CSUN (and be planning to be full-time throughout next year), and have a completed 2018/19 FAFSA or CA Dream Act Application on file. For more information, and the application form, visit www.csun.edu/financialaid/csu-foundation. If you have a truly exceptional student in mind, please consider nominating her or him, and let Kent know when you do. But you need to act quickly, because the fast-approaching deadline is March 2, at 9:00 p.m.
Achievements
Dorothy Barresi’s forthcoming book, What We Did While We Made More Guns, and an interview with her on gun violence and extreme belief, is being featured this week on PBS NewsHour online. Here’s the link to the article, which includes the book’s title, and very powerful, poem: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/what-we-did-while-we-made-more-guns-confronts-the-violence-of-extreme-belief. Read it now!
Scott Kleinman‘s article “Modeling the Contested Relationship between Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi: Preliminary Evidence from a Machine-Learning Approach”, co-authored with Ryan Nichols, Edward Slingerland, Kristoffer Nielbo, Uffe Bergeton, and Carson Logan, was published in the Journal of Asian Studies. He also gave a workshop on “Markdown and GitHub (First Steps Toward learning Modern Digital Practices for Sustainable and Shareable Research)” at UC Santa Barbara, January 26. A recording of the workshop is available athttps://whatevery1says.github.io/workshops/markdown-and-github/index.html.