1. Announcements
The Academy of American Poets Prize Competition is now accepting submissions for the 2020 award. The winner will receive a cash prize from the Academy of American Poets and publication in the Northridge Review. One Honorable Mention will also be awarded. The AAP is also pleased to announce the Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award. Students 23 years-old or younger who have won the AAP prize will be considered for an additional $1000 award. To Enter: Submit one to three poems, accompanied by a cover sheet, to their Canvas site: ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS. Poems may be any length or style. Your name should not appear on the poems. Please include a cover sheet with your name, address, phone number, email address, and the titles of the poems you are submitting. All work must be typed and submitted in a single word doc. The cover sheets will be separated before being sent to the national judge. Submissions are judged anonymously. The winners will be announced in May. For more information please contact Leilani Hall at leilani.hall@csun.edu or Dorothy Barresi at dorothy.barresi@csun.edu.

As we continue our new reality, teaching remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Faculty Technology Center and Faculty Development is hosting several workshops to assist our transition to online teaching. For information on the upcoming workshops, please visit FacDev workshops.

Amber Norwood is working with Faculty Development as a resource for faculty who want a hand, a sounding board, or one-on-one chat about what’s happening in your classes, what could be happening, and how to make it happen. Feel free to email her at amber.norwood@csun.edu to chat or zoom.

2. Reminders

In order to limit the spread of COVID-19:

Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds especially after you have been in a public place, or after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing. If soap and water are not readily available, use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol. Cover all surfaces of your hands and rub them together until they feel dry. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.

Avoid close contact with people who are sick. Put distance between yourself and other people if COVID-19 is spreading in your community. This is especially important for people who are at higher risk of getting very sick.

For more scientific information, visit the Center of Disease Control & Prevention website.

3. Opportunities

Digital Humanities Advancement Grants (DHAG) support innovative, experimental, and/or computationally challenging projects at different stages throughout their lifecycles, from early start-up phases through implementation and sustainability. Experimentation, reuse, and extensibility are hallmarks of this program, leading to innovative work that can scale to enhance scholarly research, teaching, and public programming in the humanities. This program is offered twice per year. Proposals are welcome for digital initiatives in any area of the humanities. For more information, visit https://www.neh.gov/grants/odh/digital-humanities-advancement-grants.

The Office of Community Engagement is pleased to announce its 2020-2021 Grant Cycle. Grants are described below. They seek proposals for the following grant opportunities:

Pedagogical Grant – up to $2,500 per faculty member applicant;
Faculty Engaged Research or Creative Activity Grant – up to $1,500 per faculty applicant;
Seed Grant – up to $1,000 per faculty applicant;
Student Scholar Grant – up to $500 to pay a student scholar to support your teaching;
Travel Grant – up to $500 per faculty applicant.

Visit the Grant Opportunities page for more details. Application Deadline: April 20,2020 by 11:59 p.m. to the grant specific email address noted on each application and below.

4. Achievements

Stephanie Lim is the dramaturg with East West Players production of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, which had planned to run from March 12 to April 5 at the David Henry Hwang Theatre in Downtown LA (Little Tokyo), but which has been postponed until further notice in compliance with the City of Los Angeles guidelines regarding public gatherings. The musical takes a deep dive into history and the American Dream, via nine presidential assassination attempts. The production is directed by Snehal Desai and features a company (creatives, cast, crew, band, etc.) of artists of color. Congratulations Stephanie!

We commend our English Department faculty for the unprecedented and major adjustments they have made to move their courses online. Their untold hours of extra teaching, advising, and sometimes consoling students testify to their commitment to provide students with a first-rate education even in times of world crisis.