Dr. Ed Malone has successfully navigated Missouri S&T's tenure and promotion process and been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Dr. Malone has worked hard for this recognition, as a scholar, a teacher, and as Director of Technical Communication. If you see Ed, shake his hand and congratulate him.
Recently in Faculty Category
I've just returned from the Department of English and Technical Communication's annual picnic. At the end of every spring semester, we gather to socialize, announce scholarship awards, give Academic Scholar's List certificates -- and eat.
Despite the afternoon's being chilly, windy, and rainy, over 50 people, students, faculty, spouses, children, parents, came to Lion's Club Park here in Rolla. It's especially nice to see young children at department picnics and also nice to meet the parents of some of our students.
Perhaps you will be able to join us next May.
Despite the afternoon's being chilly, windy, and rainy, over 50 people, students, faculty, spouses, children, parents, came to Lion's Club Park here in Rolla. It's especially nice to see young children at department picnics and also nice to meet the parents of some of our students.
Perhaps you will be able to join us next May.
Dr. Kate Drowne, Associate Professor of English and Technical Communication, was named Woman of the Year at the annual Woman of the Year luncheon on April 20. This Award is given annually by Missouri University of Science and Technology.
The program from the luncheon says that the "Woman of the Year Award is given to a female faculty member dedicated to student education and committed to diversity. . . . the Woman of the Year exemplifies the abilities and qualities that improve the campus climate for women."
As chair of the Department of English and Technical Communication, I'm proud of Dr. Drowne and delighted that she has received this well-deserved award. I am also proud that in the thirteen Woman of the Year Awards, members of this department have won three. Before Dr. Drowne, Dr. Elizabeth Cummins was the first Woman of the Year in 1997, and Dr. Kristine Swenson was Woman of the Year for 2006. I'm sure that more of our faculty will win Woman of the Year Awards in the years to come
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Drowne.
Dr. Kristine Swenson, Associate Professor of English and Technical Communication, has accepted the position of chair of the department. Dr. Swenson's duties will begin on July 1, 2009. Dr. Swenson's years of experience at Missouri S&T (UMR when she came here in 1998) make her well-qualified to handle the demanding job of administering the department.
During this academic year (fall 2008 - spring 2009) Dr. Swenson has been on research leave, pursuing her book project on the Kenealy sisters, Arabelle and Annesley. The sisters were trained in medicine, one as a doctor, the other a nurse. They were active feminists and popular writers. I was privileged to hear Dr. Swenson's presentation on this research at the 2007 Woman of the Year banquet. It's very promising.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Swenson as department chair.
During this academic year (fall 2008 - spring 2009) Dr. Swenson has been on research leave, pursuing her book project on the Kenealy sisters, Arabelle and Annesley. The sisters were trained in medicine, one as a doctor, the other a nurse. They were active feminists and popular writers. I was privileged to hear Dr. Swenson's presentation on this research at the 2007 Woman of the Year banquet. It's very promising.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Swenson as department chair.
With my own retirement drawing near, I wonder about the situation of retired colleagues, friends who began teaching here when I did and have had the good sense to retire before me. One of these is Michael Patrick, Associate Professor Emeritus of English. Mike retired nearly twenty years ago. When I asked for news for the department newsletter, Mike replied with a generous amount of new, more than would fit into Panoply. For the interest of those who know Mike, perhaps took classes with him, here is a slightly edited version of what he sent.
Currently, he and his wife, Sheena, live in Fairhope, Alabama. Mike has continued scholarly activities focused the book,??The Black West in Story and Song, written with his collaborator, Cecil Williams. The book??has had good reviews and has been selling??well. Cecil and Mike are planning a new edition by adding more people and??songs, but that is only in the preliminary planing stage.??
Mike writes, "Cecil, Keith??Conaway, and I did a session at the Missouri Folklore Society on the role of??Black Missourians in settling the West in Jefferson City in November, 2007.??We missed the 2008??MFS because of my dad's health. He died peacefully in sleep on December 29,??2008. He was 103.
"When my wife, Sheena, and I aren't at home enjoying the beauties, art, and??the writers and artists of Fairhope, we have been enjoying our??grandchildren, avoiding hurricanes, and traveling. Fairhope probably has??more writers, novelists, and poets than any other small town in the world??other than Oxford, MS. Winston Groom, John Sledge, Terry Cline, Judith??Richards, and from time to Fanny Flagg and Jimmy Buffett, are among the
writers who live here.
"Last spring we took a transatlantic cruise to Spain, Portugal, France, and??England, leaving from San Juan, PR. I have a photo of the cock fightingarena in San Juan that I should send to Jack Morgan. Then we went to her??niece's wedding in Glasgow and spent a week with Sheena's brother and??sister-in-law in Edinburgh. After that, we went to Ireland and spent a cold,??rainy week there. We're hoping to take a ??trip to Northern Europe this
summer.
"I'm still active in the Fairhope Unitarian Fellowship. I was president for??three terms and now I'm chairman of the board. During my last term as??president, we built a very beautiful Fellowship Hall.
"My wife says I've entered my second adolescence because I bought a replica??of a 1920??
Mercedes Benz Gazelle sports car. It's fun to have, especially in??the South in warm weather with the top down, ??and I've found it gives me??lots of exercise getting in and out of it."
The car in question is pictured at the right. It does look like a fun ride and good evidence that one can be retired without being retiring.
We do have Humanities at Missouri University of Science & Technology.While some may think of the Humanities as an ornament to educating engineers and scientists, the areas in Humanities - English, History, Philosophy, the Arts, Languages - are important areas of research in their own right. Scholars and creators in these areas create knowledge and experiences that benefit society beyond the bounds of the campus.
On March 18, the second event Celebrating Excellence in the Humanities will be held in St Pat's B in the Havener Center. The event starts at 2:00 and ends about 3:00. The scholars being celebrated are Michael Bruening, History and Political Science, Kate Drowne, English and Technical Communication, Eric Bryan, English and Technical Communication, and Audra Merfeld-Langston, Arts, Languages, and Philosophy.
Each scholar will speak briefly on his or her research, topics as diverse as the Reformation, the flapper in American culture, Old Norse mythology, and responses to globalization in rural France. Publications by other members of each department will be on display.
Members of the public, as well as the campus community, are welcome. See you there!
On March 18, the second event Celebrating Excellence in the Humanities will be held in St Pat's B in the Havener Center. The event starts at 2:00 and ends about 3:00. The scholars being celebrated are Michael Bruening, History and Political Science, Kate Drowne, English and Technical Communication, Eric Bryan, English and Technical Communication, and Audra Merfeld-Langston, Arts, Languages, and Philosophy.
Each scholar will speak briefly on his or her research, topics as diverse as the Reformation, the flapper in American culture, Old Norse mythology, and responses to globalization in rural France. Publications by other members of each department will be on display.
Members of the public, as well as the campus community, are welcome. See you there!
The title phrase comes from a poem Emily Dickinson wrote about suddenly encountering a snake while walking in tall grass. It's always resonated with me because I had the same experience more than once, encountering a variety of snakes, including rattlers, in the grasses of the Kansas Flint Hills.
"Zero at the bone" also seems appropriate to the week ending today. We've had some very cold temperatures accompanied by dangerous wind chills. At the same time, this week opened the spring semester here at Missouri S&T. Starting a new semester is somewhat like taking off in a jetliner: there are some jolts and shakes, a bit of nervousness, but also the excitement of beginning a new journey, of meeting new people.
Speaking for myself, the new semester is off to a good start. I'm teaching World Literature I, from the beginnings to the Renaissance. The beginnings go way back to Sumerian and Akkadian syllabary script inscribed on clay tablets, Gilgamesh, in other words. This is one of my favorite courses, so it's appropriate as the last course I expect to teach at S&T.
My retirement is scheduled for 1 July 2009, so this is not only my last semester to teach but also my last as chair. I hope to post more frequent entries here in these last few months, so come on back!
"Zero at the bone" also seems appropriate to the week ending today. We've had some very cold temperatures accompanied by dangerous wind chills. At the same time, this week opened the spring semester here at Missouri S&T. Starting a new semester is somewhat like taking off in a jetliner: there are some jolts and shakes, a bit of nervousness, but also the excitement of beginning a new journey, of meeting new people.
Speaking for myself, the new semester is off to a good start. I'm teaching World Literature I, from the beginnings to the Renaissance. The beginnings go way back to Sumerian and Akkadian syllabary script inscribed on clay tablets, Gilgamesh, in other words. This is one of my favorite courses, so it's appropriate as the last course I expect to teach at S&T.
My retirement is scheduled for 1 July 2009, so this is not only my last semester to teach but also my last as chair. I hope to post more frequent entries here in these last few months, so come on back!
Surely everyone knows by now that a series of economic catastrophes are shaking up our lives. Everyone I know has more questions than answers, and the answers seem to shift each day--or more often. The University of Missouri system faces serious budget cuts; the amount isn't known yet.
This post expresses strictly my own views, stating my attitude more than what I know, because what I know isn't much. The serious budget cuts that the University of Missouri system faces will affect the way each campus, each department, and each faculty member functions. The cuts will affect the educational process of students.
This post expresses strictly my own views, stating my attitude more than what I know, because what I know isn't much. The serious budget cuts that the University of Missouri system faces will affect the way each campus, each department, and each faculty member functions. The cuts will affect the educational process of students.
As chair of the Department of English and Technical Communication, my goal is to do all I can, and to support the department's faculty and staff to do all they can, to ensure that we come through this storm with the least possible damage. The quality of our courses, our degree programs, our research will remain as high as before the crises.
On October 4 this year, Dr. Trent Watts was a featured author at the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge, an all-day event in and around the outstanding 34-story Art Deco state capitol, where Huey Long was assassinated in 1935. The organizers of the festival invited Dr. Watts and a number of other authors, including novelists, poets, and non-fiction writers, to present panels at which they discussed their books before interested and enthusiastic public audiences. About 20,000 people came to hear the authors, watch cooking exhibitions, and listen to music ranging from zydeco and traditional fiddling to the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra. The event was very family-friendly, with lots of children's authors reading their books. The organizers of the festival also brought three contributors to White Masculinity in the Recent South, a collection of essays edited by Dr. Watts and published by Louisiana State University Press. These authors appeared on the panel with Dr. Watts. These contributors are Ted Ownby, Susan Donaldson, and Chip Arnold, outstanding scholars and writers. After their discussion and questions from the audience, Dr. Watts and his colleagues signed books.
The Louisiana Book Festival is only six years old, but it's already grown into one of the best events of its kind in the country. Everything about it was first-rate. The authors were picked up at the Baton Rouge airport in a limousine, which was a treat. The night before the event, the Louisiana Book Festival threw a party for the authors at the Louisiana State Library. A jazz ensemble played while they ate jambalaya, gumbo, shrimp, catfish, and lots of other good southern food.
On Saturday night Dr. Watts and his wife, Jennifer, skipped another author event to go out to dinner at a great Baton Rouge restaurant. Their driver (the event organizers thought of everything) was an LSU student. When Jennifer said that it was a shame they weren't going to be able to see the LSU campus, the driver insisted on giving us a nighttime tour. The campus is gorgeous, with magnificent old oaks everywhere. When Dr. Watts wanted to see Tiger Stadium, where LSU plays football the driver insisted that they stop to meet Mike the Tiger, the school mascot. He's a Bengal/Siberian mix who's well on his way to the 700 pounds he'll weigh when he's fully grown. Mike lives next to the stadium in a 15,000 (yes, 15,000) square foot enclosure, complete with a stream, a waterfall, and an Italianate tower.
Trent says, "I wish Missouri had an event like this one. It's a great opportunity to present one's work to the public. It's also a good place to meet other scholars. A fellow I met at the Friday night party has agreed to work with me on my next book project."
On October 17, Dr. Stacy Tintocalis gave a presentation on creative nonfiction to a group of students, townspeople, and faculty. Next semester (spring 2009), Dr. Tintocalis will teach an evening workshop in writing creative nonfiction. Her course will meet on Tuesday evenings from 6:00-9:00.
Dr. Tintocalis has an MFA from the University of Iowa and a PhD from the University of Missouri - Columbia. She has published both fiction and creative nonfiction.
So what is creative nonfiction? Here, in brief, is a definition based on my understanding of her talk yesterday. Creative nonfiction begins with the writer's experiences, but as opposed to a memoir, a diary, or a journal, seeks to find universal themes in the experience. In exploring a topic, the writer of creative nonfiction will do research of various kinds, from traditional library research to Web searches to talking with people. Creative nonfiction uses techniques such as dramatization and several points of view, but is neither fiction nor journalism.
If you are interested in enrolling in the course or simply want information about it, you may begin by contacting the department or me.
Dr. Tintocalis has an MFA from the University of Iowa and a PhD from the University of Missouri - Columbia. She has published both fiction and creative nonfiction.
So what is creative nonfiction? Here, in brief, is a definition based on my understanding of her talk yesterday. Creative nonfiction begins with the writer's experiences, but as opposed to a memoir, a diary, or a journal, seeks to find universal themes in the experience. In exploring a topic, the writer of creative nonfiction will do research of various kinds, from traditional library research to Web searches to talking with people. Creative nonfiction uses techniques such as dramatization and several points of view, but is neither fiction nor journalism.
If you are interested in enrolling in the course or simply want information about it, you may begin by contacting the department or me.
