English Department Newsletter, 24 April 2006

Faculty News

ARIELLE GREENBERG BYWATER: Arielle has been on tour for her second collection of poems, My Kafka Century. She recently read at the KGB Bar in NYC and at the Harvard Advocate in Cambridge, and has a few readings upcoming in Chicago: this Thursday, April 20 at 7 PM at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square (with Suzanne Buffam and Robyn Schiff); Sat, April 29 as part of the Nova Arts Fair at Ann Sather on Belmont at 4 PM (with new colleague Lisa Fishman); and as part of the Printer's Row Bookfair for the Legitimate Dangers anthology on Saturday, June 3. Arielle looks forward to seeing Columbia people out and about!
With a combination of joy and surprise Arielle also looks forward to her daughter, Willa, celebrating her first birthday soon.
TONY DEL VALLE: Tony's chapter, "'Successful' and 'Unsuccessful' Literacies of Two Puerto Rican Families in Chicago" appears in Latino Language and Literacy in Ethnolinguistic Chicago, edited by Marcia Farr, for Lawrence Erlbaum Press Associates.

Tony's also has entry in The Oxford Press Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States, edited by Suzanne Oboler and Deena J. Gonzalez for Oxford University Press.

AMY HAWKINS AND SUZANNE BLUM MALLEY: Suzanne Blum Malley and Amy Hawkins have returned from South Africa where they were working on arranging a j-session Sharing Cultures class in South Africa for 2007.

GARNETT KILBERG COHEN: Garnnet Kilberg Cohen's essay, "Out of Ohio: The Truth About the Truth," has been accepted by ANTIOCH REVIEW for its Fall 2006 special issue on Creative Nonfiction and Memoir. Also, she has been invited to judge a fiction contest by the Northwestern University graduate program in creative writing.

KILIAN MCCURRIE: Kilian's article, "A Literacy of Involvement: Bringing Together Service and Learning in Private Schools," will appear in the July issue of English Journal. Kilian also has a book chapter, "The Role of the National Writing Project in Closing the Gap Between Teacher Preparation and Teaching Writing in Secondary Schools," that will be published in Closing the Gap: English Educators Address the Tensions between Teacher Preparation and Teaching Writing in Secondary Schools. He will also present this May at biennial conference of Rhetoric Society of America in Memphis.

SARAH ODISHOO: Sarah's poem, "Flowering," has been accepted by "Chrysalis Reader" of the Swedenborg Foundation. On April 28th, she also will give a presentation titled "Goddess is a Verb"
at the Swedenborg Library located on Monroe Street,

DOUG REICHERT-POWELL: Doug traveled to Dayton, OH, March 16-18 to present "Notes from the Appalachian Underground" at the Appalachian Studies Association, and to San Antonio, TX, last weekend to present "Commercial Caverns and the Idea of Region" at the College English Association. Both are iterations of the writing he has done about his underground travels last summer.

The App. Studies Association meeting also included the unveiling of the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, an 1800-page reference work published by the University of Tennessee Press. Along with his colleagues, Dr. Anthony Harkins (Western Kentucky U.) and Dr. Katherine Ledford (Gardner-Webb C.), Doug edited the "Media" section, which is one of the volume's largest sections.

Doug also received word that his book manuscript, Critical Regionalism, was approved by the Board of Governors of the UNC Press, so revision is over, publication has begun, and the book should be out by this time next year.
BRENDAN RILEY: Brendan presented "Inventing Digital Rhetoric" at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Chicago, 22-25 March. He also traveled to Atlanta from 12-15 April for the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association annual conference. Aside from performing his duties as a member of the PCA board, Brendan also presented "Writing with Katamari: Rolling Interface" in the Electronic Communications area.

JONN SALOVAARA AND DAN GODSTON: Dan Godston and Jonn Salovaara developed a panel discussion on Encouraging Students to Explore Text-Image Interplay at the March 3 meeting of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan.
TONY TRIGILIO: Tony Trigilio's poem "Smuggled Video" was published in Eleventh Muse. The poem also was reviewed by Simon DeDeo on the Rhubarb is Susan blog (http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/2006/03/tony-trigilio-smuggled-video.html). Tony's poem "Evidence" was published in The Laurel Review.

He was one of the featured readers at Cafe Express, in Evanston, during the launch release party for the anthology Digerati: 20 Contemporary Poets in the Virtual World (Three Candles Press).


DAVID TRINIDAD: David was recently the judge for Beloit College's Lois Wilson Mackey Prize for Creative Writing.

David's poem, "Chatty Cathy Villanelle," is included in Framed: Poetry as Art, an exhibition in honor of National Poetry Month at the Hope Gallery in Bristol, Rhode Island. Poems in this show are displayed as framed works of art. Other poets in the show include Kim Addonizio, Mark Cox, Cornelius Eady, Tim Seibles, and Betsy Sholl.

Another of his poems, "Playing with Dolls," is reprinted in the March/April edition of Teachers & Writers magazine, at the beginning of an article by Jason Schneiderman called "Squaring the Circle: Understanding and Teaching the Sestina." Schneiderman then uses David's poem to explain how the sestina (one of the wackiest poetic forms) works.

David will be giving two poetry readings with Joan Larkin: April 28 at Cafe Express (hosted by Chris Green and sponsored by Rhino magazine) and May 3 at Marrakech Expresso (sponsored by Homolatte).

STAN WEST: Stan West has just been awarded the University of New Orleans' "Ambassador Award" for a Creative Nonfiction piece connected with his MFA in Creative Nonfiction and Expatriate Literature. The award carries a $500 prize. Stan, who will represent MFA candidates this summer in Montpellier, France, is expected to receive his MFA from UNO in January, 2007.

Stan also has been awarded the Chicago Bar Association's Herman Kogan Media Award in the Editorial/Commentary Category for a Creative Nonfiction column he wrote about his family's ordeal during the Katrina crisis called "Ahead of the Storm." The award will be presented May 4 at 11:30 a.m. by NBC weekend anchor Bob Sirott at the CBA Headquarters, 321 S. Plymouth. Stan won the same award in 2004 for a Wednesday Journal column recalling the 50-year-old hate crimes against Dr. Percy Julian, an Oak Park Black chemist who was firebombed. The $1,000 award was given as a scholarship to Columbia journalism student Tia Jones.

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Tech/Ped Corner

Communicating between Species

In Joe Haldeman's novel, The Forever War, humanity engages in a centuries-long interstellar conflict with a mysterious alien race. After millennia fighting these opaque beings from across the galaxy we're finally able to communicate with them. The leaders from both races open their communications by asking, "why did you attack us?"

Communicating with students can sometimes feel like bridging that species gap. While we can command (or try to command) their attention in the classroom, getting them to come to office hours or to email us when they have a question often feels like a losing battle. One solution might be to open more spaces for communal dialog. I'd like to recommend two avenues you may not be using, and remind you of a few 'oldies but goodies' you can use.

You're probably already:

providing your email address, office hours, and office phone number on your syllabus.

But have you also

provided these same pieces of information on your school web space?
provided these pieces of information as part of your OASIS profile (click "My Info" in the upper left corner of your OASIS portal)?

By doing so, you're making yourself hospitable to students who are willing to use these standard communication tools. You can expand that hospitality by opening more lines for communication. Here are two new tricks that I have been using lately.

Instant Messaging

The first is to give your students access to you via instant messaging. Even if you haven't used instant messaging before, you can download and sign up to use it pretty quickly. There are four primary clients people use to IM: AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo, MSN Messenger, and ICQ. In talking with students, I've found that most students use at least two of these. I've had good success with AIM and MSN--for each account, I have a couple students who contact me regularly using that venue, often to ask questions that I consider important but they have said wouldn't warrant an email.

You can get started by signing up for accounts with AIM, MSN, and/or ICQ, and then download Trillian, a free program that lets you log in and manage multiple IM clients. In other words, once you have your AIM, MSN, or ICQ accounts set up, Trillian can run all of them together. Thus, I have one MSN account I use with students, an AIM account I used with students, and a different MSN account I use with friends; I monitor all three simultaneously using Trillian.
Learn more at: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

I have also begun including my AIM, MSN, and Trillian userids in the contact info for my courses and in the signature of my email. This insures students know they can contact me via these channels.

Facebook

I just started using Facebook, so I haven't personally seen results with it yet, but I heard some interesting discussions about it at a conference I attended recently. In particular, these presentations pointed to the ways students often use facebook to keep track and communicate with friends in colleges around the country. Making yourself available through that venue can be another way to maintain an 'open door' for your students.

You can learn more about facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/

Communication Overload

Alas, now that you have these doors open, how do you keep students from overwhelming you with last minute worries, queries, and questions? Here are a few tips to manage these new venues:

Have a set policy about emails or other asynchronous communications. For instance, I tell my students not to expect responses to emails in less than 24 hours, and that I don't always check my email on weekends. Be up front about how responsive you will be.
Be consistent about how you respond--if you always respond to emails they send, you should always respond.
Feel free to ignore IMs. Sometimes that insistent window can feel like a ringing telephone but don't be fooled. It's not uncommon to stay logged in while you're away from the computer. You can also pop in for a moment to tell the person you don't have time to chat.

I hope these new channels will give you new contact points with your students. Ideally, they will give those timid students the impetus to reach out and say hello, perhaps preventing their confusion from becoming their very own Forever War.

See you next month!
Brendan

Department newsletter compiled by M. Killian McCurrie.