Thursday’s Notes, 53.2

Thursday’s Notes, 53.2 – 30 September 2021

1. Announcements

A few updates on the upcoming New Student Convocation program occurring today, Thursday, Sept. 30th at 6:00pm.

Event Information:

This virtual event will be celebrating our incoming student class with welcome messages from the University President, Associated Students President, and other campus administrators. This convocation will also feature a keynote address from Patrisse Cullors; co-author of the Freshmen Common Reading Book, When They Call You a Terrorist and Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Please visit the New Student Convocation website to RSVP for this event. Those who RSVP will receive a souvenir card of the event and a special gift while supplies last.  

Question & Answer Opportunity:

Also, a separate Question & Answer webinar with Patrisse Cullors will be occurring just prior to the convocation and will start at 5pm. 

To Register / RSVP for the Q&A session with Patrisse Cullors, please complete this registration form.

The form will ask for a few details about you (name, role/title on campus, etc.) and include a space for you to enter questions for the Patrisse to consider during this session. 

2. Opportunities

University Counseling Services (UCS) is pleased to partner with one of our local community agencies, San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center, Inc., to provide virtual trainings for our campus community on mental health, crisis response, and suicide education and prevention.  We want faculty and staff to have greater awareness and information about student mental health and well-being, feel better equipped to identify and interact with students who may be experiencing mental health issues or be in crisis, be more knowledgeable about resources, and how to connect students to resources.  We are asking for your assistance in sharing these resources.

Throughout the Fall 2021 semester, the following trainings will be provided twice per month:

  • Dr. Anne Eipe, Assistant Director/Clinical Coordinator at UCS, will be providing QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) training (through December) 
  • Mental health clinicians from San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center, Inc., will be providing Mental Health First Aid training (through November) 

What is the Difference Between QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) and Mental Health First Aid?

  • Length of program:  QPR is 1.5 to 2 hours of training while Mental Health First Aid involves a total of 8 hours (2 hours of self-paced pre-work and 6 hours of “class”). 
  • Breadth of topics covered:  QPR focuses specifically on suicide education and prevention while Mental Health First Aid is broader in scope and provides participants with training about mental health and substance use issues.

QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer): This is a 1.5 to 2 hour training on suicide education and prevention with the following goals and objectives: 

Mental Health First Aid:  This is 2 hours of self-paced pre-work and 6 hours of “class.”  It is a skills-based training that teaches participants about mental health and substance use issues with the following goals and objectives:

 

Please see the list of trainings, dates, and links below to sign up for these free trainings.  If you have any questions, please contact us at coun@csun.edu. 

3. Achievements and Recognition

In July, Scott Andrews participated in the American Indian Workshop’s annual conference, which this year had the theme of “The Sovereign Erotic.” AIW is an organization of European scholars who study American Indian art and literature; this year’s meeting would have been held in Cyprus, but it pivoted to Zoom because of the pandemic. Scott presented “Jouissistance: Jouissance, Survivance, and Native Eroticism” on a panel titled “Theorizing the Erotic.” The presentation examined the anti-colonial resistance in representations of erotic encounters by First Nations fiction writer Joshua Whitehead and poet Tenille Campbell.
 

CSUN English alums and faculty have written and produced a documentary film that was recently screened at the Catalina Film Festival. Crazy Cat Lady traces an army of dedicated volunteers who give selflessly of their time, monies and energies to try to mitigate the Los Angeles cat crisis. These are the “crazy cat ladies” (and men) of the City of Angels. Follow their road to film distribution on Instagram @crazycatladydoc

Lisa Riccomini
AFYE/U100 Faculty
MA, English Literature 2001
 
Garrett Clancy 
MA, English 2003
MFA, USC 1994
 
Amanda Harrison
English and Queer Studies, Lecturer
 
Charles Hatfield has been busy during his sabbatical! The newly published Keywords for Comics Studies, edited by Ramzi Fawaz, Shelley Streeby, and Deborah Elizabeth Whaley (NYU Press), contains a new essay by Charles, “Alternative.” This textbook is an excellent entryway to comics studies for undergraduate and graduate students (https://nyupress.org/9781479825431/keywords-for-comics-studies/).

Also, the newly published The Comics World: Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and Their Publics, edited by Benjamin Woo and Jeremy Stoll (UP of Mississippi), contains an interview between Charles and comics scholar and compositionist Franny Howes (https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-Comics-World). This anthology examines the production, circulation, and reception of comics (including their academic study) from social science perspectives.

Linda Rader Overman was interviewed for the Illumination/Carbon Radio blog about writing and creativity.  Her interview is titled “Writing is Breathing. An Interview with Linda Rader Overman.” It can be viewed at https://medium.com/illumination/writing-is-breathing-cb6f7156048a
 
Linda wishes to thank those of you who reached out following the sudden death of her daughter, Deva Marie Overman, 39, on August 22, 2021 in Boca Raton, Florida.  You can link here to a copy of the LA TIMES obituary due to be published on the following Sundays, Oct 3 & Oct 10. In it is scholarship information as well, if anyone is so inclined. You can find out more about the scholarship information by clicking here, choosing “General Scholarship,” and in the dropdown box that says “I would like to give this gift in the name of,” type in “Deva Marie Overman Scholarship Fund.”
 

Natalie van Gelder, current MA student, TA, and Sigma Tau Delta Vice President, has had a story accepted for publication in UC Davis’s literary magazine, Open Ceilings. She began this story in Kate Haake‘s class last year. She will also be featured in an interview for the magazine as well!

Until the next edition of TN, approximately two weeks from now–DS

Compiled by Danielle Spratt