Welcome to Fall 2025, everyone!
Welcome back! I hope everyone had a restful summer. I have a few reminders for everyone. I also have announcements and accomplishments to share!
Reminders
Submitting syllabi and office hours
If you haven’t already, please do send your syllabi and office hours to Vanessa Mendoza.
English Department Canvas Majors and Minors Page
Please encourage your students to join the English Department’s Canvas English Majors and Minors Page, in which they can self-enroll by following this link. Please also consider joining yourself to receive the updates and information that our students receive.
Confidentiality in the Classroom
Please remember to log out of your classroom computer before you leave your classroom. When faculty leave computers on and open to Canvas pages, this may/can infringe on FERPA regulations for students. This also delays the next faculty member from logging into their course materials and preparing for their upcoming class. The quickest keystrokes to access the sign out menu is ctrl + alt + delete, but there are other methods as well.
Announcements
On September 16th, at 4:15, Dr. Peter Huk, from UC Santa Barbara, will be giving a zoom talk in Dr. Irene Clark’s Composition Studies class. His talk is concerned with helping students use AI ethically.
Here is the title: “Prompting Students to Engage in Ethical and Smart Uses of Generative AI.” Anyone who wishes to attend is welcome. Here is the link:
Please welcome the English department’s new TAs!
They are Dominick D’Auria, Ken Fales, Rebecca Hyde-Gonzales, Diego Molina, Cambri Morris, Alex Perez, and Matthew Wong. Of course, everyone can also say hello to Agnes, the sheep.
The department of Interdisciplinary Studies and Liberal Studies is pleased to announce that they have hired Matthew Coopilton for a tenure-track position in Interdisciplinary Studies.
Matthew Coopilton is currently the Presidential Sustainability Solutions Fellow at University of Southern California in the School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media and Games Division. Matthew is truly interdisciplinary with a PhD in Educational Psychology from USC Rossier School of Education, an MFA in game design, a Masters of Theological Studies from Notre Dame, and a BA in Religious Studies with a capstone in Creative from Brown University.
Matthew has an active research and teaching agenda in the fields of education/learning sciences, game and media studies, and sustainability/environmental studies. They combine these approaches to study how people learn to challenge systemic oppression in and through digital media and games, and how we can playfully prototype liberated and sustainable futures. They research and design climate justice and anti-racist learning activities featuring games and game design.
California State Assembly Oversight Hearing: California State University’s Artificial Intelligence-Empowered Initiative
Hello! Below is a link to the recording of the oversight hearing from Tuesday on the CSU and AI. It’s over 2+ hours long but very worth finding time to watch. Faculty, staff, and student concerns are all well represented and some of the line of questioning is pointed and thoughtful.
Enjoy and feel free to forward along to others that might enjoy this!—Professor Harrison
In Memoriam
It is with deep sadness that we share the passing of our colleague, Professor Sharron Kollmeyer Gerfen, on July 10, 2025. Professor Sharron Kollmeyer Gerfen was a dedicated teacher and scholar whose commitment to students and to the life of the department enriched our community in countless ways. They will be remembered with gratitude and respect.
Accomplishments
On July 18th, Professor Irene Clark presented a paper at the International Writing Across the Curriculum conference (IWAC) in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her paper was titled, “Imitation, Disciplinary Diversity, and Academic Integrity: insights from Neuroscience Research.”
Professor Colleen Tripp wrote a review of Kristin Allukian’s new book,
Slavery, Capitalism, and Women’s Literature: Economic Insights of American Women Writers, 1852-1869. Women’s Studies published her review in August 2025.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00497878.2025.2546137?src=exp-la
- The editors of Women’s Studies also solicited Professor Tripp for an article publication for their next issue; she will be publishing an article on surveillance capitalism and gender/sexuality in Ken Liu’s “The Perfect Match” and Alice Fuller’s “A Wife Manufactured to Order” for their journal.
