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Chair: Kent Baxter
Notes compiled by: Kate Haake

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Announcements

If it’s mid-semester, it must be time to start thinking about Department Awards. This semester’s deadline is Friday, November 16, at four o’clock in the afternoon. Forms (when required) and application materials are available from and should be delivered to the English department office by then. More information is available from this year’s chair of the Amenities and Awards Committee (leilani.hall@csun.edu). The fall semester awards are:

  • the Linda Nichols Joseph English Merit Scholarship, up to four four awards of $2000 for excellence in English studies;
  • the Oliver W. Evans Writing Prize, two annual prizes annual prizes of $500 for the authors of the two best critical or creative pieces of prose submitted in an upper-division English course during the academic year;
  • the Eva Latif Writing Prize in Children’s Literature, an annual prize of $500 for the author of the best piece of writing, critical or creative, by a student on the subject of children’s literature;
  • the Philip E. Love English 205 Scholarship, a prize of $500 for the student whose achievements in the study of Business Communication are considered by the faculty as the most distinguished;
  • the Peterson Morley Award, an annual award of $1,000 for a student (either undergraduate or graduate) currently enrolled as an English major who plans to enter the teaching profession;
  • the Richard Lid and Helen Lodge Scholarship, an award of $500 for a graduate student enrolled in English and/or Secondary English Education, to help pay fees for graduate work;
  • the Thomas Matthew Magness Graduate Memorial Fund, to provide a $1,000 tuition remission for a first-semester graduate student in the English MA program.

Speaking of the Amenities Committee, have you made your annual contribution yet? These contributions go to fund food for department meetings, the holiday party, bonuses for the staff, retirement parties, and other niceties. The suggested donations are $40 for Assistant Professors, $50 for Associate, and $70 for Full. Checks made out to “Amenities” and/or cash should be given to Marlene.

The Kristeva Circle conference is coming up tomorrow, Friday 10/26, and Saturday 10/27. Generously co-sponsored by the College of Humanities, the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, the Departments of English, Gender and Women’s Studies, Chicana/o Studies, Art, Liberal Studies, Linguistics, Religious Studies, and Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, this exciting event will take be taking place at the USU East Conference Center. Here are some highlights you might not want to miss:

  • Keynote, “The Incandescence of Abjection: Horror, Borders, Subjectivity,” Mariana Ortega, Penn State
    Friday, October 26, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., Flintridge Room, East Conference Center
  • Breakfast and Conversation re: Bulgarian Spy Controversy
    Miglena Nikolchina (Sofia University) and Emilia Angelova (Concordia Univ.)
    Saturday, October 27, 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., Tujunga Room, East Conference Center
  • Keynote, “Unquiet Ghosts of the Forever War,” Anne McClintock, Princeton University
    Saturday, October 27, 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Flintridge Room, East Conference Center

All 3-6 year faculty, faculty eligible for promotion, Department Personnel Committee members, and College Personnel Committee members, are being asked to save November 8, for a one day training on using Interfolio’s ePIF for Retention, Tenure, and Promotion reviews. Sessions will be held to show faculty how to upload materials for their reviews, and sessions for reviewers (Dept. Chairs, DPC, CPC, Deans) on how to review ePIFs. Final times and locations for the sessions are forthcoming.

The CSU statewide academic senate (ASCSU) is currently going through a process to select the names of two to four members of the CSU faculty to send to the Governor for consideration to fill the position of CSU Faculty Trustee on the CSU Board of Trustees. For information on the CSU process to select these individuals, the position qualifications, the position requirements and what needs to be included in a nomination packet, view “What’s New” under http://www.calstate.edu/acadsen. This nomination process is now open at the campus level. CSUN will be using a self-nomination approach with all submitted nomination packets to be reviewed by the CSUN Faculty Senate Executive Committee. The deadline for submission of the nomination packets to the CSUN Faculty Senate Office is Monday, November 5, 2018. All nomination packets should be submitted electronically by sending them to: Nicole Wilson (nicole.wilson@csun.edu).

Achievements

On October 11th, Irene Clark gave a workshop on developing thesis proposals at the University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu China.