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COMBINED PROGRAM REVIEW
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
I. Description of the Program
a. Mission Statement
The mission of the Department of English at North Dakota State University, through its undergraduate and graduate programs, is to encourage the intellectual growth and personal development of its students; to prepare them for careers not only in education, but also in areas such as government, business, law, professional and technical communications, public relations, and theology; to provide them with the knowledge leading to advanced degrees in such fields as English, law, creative writing, religious studies, and education. In thus providing an opportunity for wide-ranging career choices, the department at all times emphasizes critical thinking and analytical and synthesizing practices as requisite tools and essential approach to the writing of papers, the presenting of oral reports, and the study of language and literature.
b. Overview
Currently, the department of English offers five degrees: a BA in English (Liberal Arts); a BS in English (Liberal Arts); A BA in English Education; a BS in English Education; and an MA in English, which has two active tracks (literature or composition). The department consists of four professors (Brown, Cosgrove, Krishnan, OConnor, Sullivan), two associate professors (Brooks, Shaw), and seven assistant professors (Aune, Birmingham, Helstern, A. Mara, M. Mara, Taggart, Totten) on tenure-track. Additionally, the department has one full-time instructor, four senior lecturers, eight full-time lecturers and two part-time lecturers. The department usually has approximately 20 active teaching assistantships and two to five adjunct lecturers picking up a class or two. It has one administrative assistant on a ten-month contract who shares office responsibilities with a full-time secretary in Modern languages. The departments annual report for 2005 gives the following enrollment numbers:
Undergraduate Graduate
# of majors: English BA 19 43
English Ed. BA 8
English BS 46
English Ed. BS 8
Total majors: 124
# of minors: 22
Total minors: 22
Total majors and minors: 146
The English department offices are on the third floor of Minard (Minard 320 and 322), but several of its lecturers have offices on the second floor of Minard and the third floor of South Engineering. The department has recently received permission and funding to develop a wireless lab and instrumented classroom in cooperation with ITS which will be devoted primarily to English classes and lab work. It is located in South Engineering 314.
The English Department Head will serve as the program representative for the review process. Contact information:
Dale Sullivan
Minard 322G
701.231.7144
dale.sullivan@ndsu.edu
c. Brief History
Over the past ten years, the English department has undergone radical change and is still in the process of change. The total number of English faculty with specializations in composition/rhetoric/technical communication increased from one to six between 1995 and 2006. There has been a general "shift" in the department's balance. In 1995 there were 10 faculty members in literature, 2 in composition, and 1 in linguistics. Beginning Fall 2006, there will be 8 in literature, 6 in composition-rhetoric, and none in linguistics. Below is a timeline marking the most important changes during this ten-year period.
1996, Revised M. A. degree to include three strands (it had been four): literature, writing, and language
2000, Revised the language option in the M. A. to linguistics and rhetoric
2000, Discontinued Oral Defense in M. A. program and instituted a portfolio review system in its place
Fall 2001, Conducted a survey to determine market for Ph. D. in English
2002, First draft of Ph. D. proposal written and approved internally at NDSU
Fall 2002, Approached Dean of AHSS and Provost about taking over the Center for Writers
2003, Promoted two lecturers to senior lecturer status
Summer 2003, Hired Dale Sullivan as Head of the Department
Fall 2003, Revised assessment instruments and program for English BA program
Spring 2004, Tom Riley and Dale Sullivan visited with English Department and College of Arts and Sciences from University of North Dakota regarding Ph. D. proposal
Summer 2004, Hired two external consultants, Martin Jacobi (Clemson) and Doug Hesse (Illinois State) to do external curriculum reviews
Summer 2004, Richard Shaw took over administration of Center for Writers
Fall 2004, Conducted first pilot program in vertical writing curriculum
Fall 2004, Dropped the English Minor in English Education because it was no longer feasible under No Child Left Behind
Fall 2004, Initiated wireless graduate programall TAs issued their own wireless laptops
Fall-Winter 2004-05, Revised the Ph. D. in English Studies proposal, changing it to a Ph. D. in Rhetoric, Writing & Culture
Spring 2005, Graduate Council at NDSU approved revision of Ph. D. proposal
Spring 2005, Promoted 2 lecturers to senior lecturer status, raising number of senior lecturers to 4
Fall 2005, Conducted second pilot program in vertical writing curriculum
Fall 2005, Discontinued accepting applicants for the Linguistics strand in our M. A. program because we lost Don Salting, our linguist
Fall 2005, Gained Faculty Senate approval to institute a vertical writing program in general education
Fall 2005, Pushed back start date for vertical writing curriculum to Fall 2007
Fall 2005, Were notified of NDSU administrations decision to take Ph. D. in Rhetoric, Writing & Culture to the State Board of Higher Education in December
Fall 2004 and Spring 2005, Revised entire English curriculum
Fall 2005 and Spring 2006, The revised English curriculum passed Academic Affairs and University Senate
Fall 2005 and Spring 2006, Proposed and secured permission and funding to build a wireless lab and instrumented classroom for English instruction
Spring 2006, Documented the BS in English for the first time
Spring 2006, Ph. D. approval processes initiated: SBHE stage 1; stage 2; original unanimous approval among presidents; objection by UND president in March. Proposal presently on hold.
These changes have re-positioned the NDSU English department in the university and in the profession nationally. What used to be primarily a service department with a small number of majors and a successful Masters program is now poised to become a leader in reshaping general education writing and writing across the curriculum, a program with added appeal and career opportunities for undergraduates, and a regional center and potentially a national competitor among Ph. D. programs in rhetoric and writing.
d. Goals
Short Term Goals
Secure final approval of the Ph. D. program in Rhetoric, Writing & Culture
Develop full catalogue description and handbook for the new Ph. D. program
Enhance library resources
Revise departmental website
Find release time for an alumni director and newsletter editor
Develop a department advisory board
Recruit public school teachers for grad classes
Recruit high school students directly
Establish a 3/2 teaching load for tenure-track (instead of a 3/3 load)
Establish a 4/3 teaching load for lecturers (instead of a 4/4 load)
Increase office staff: at least two full time or 2 (we presently have one 10-month office administrator and share a full-time office secretary with Modern Languages)
Give administrative releases for undergrad director, grad director, upper-division writing
Raise more scholarship money
Long Term Goals
Increase field experience and co-op program and participation
Increase participation in Governors School
Double the number of English majors
Find funding and permission to build a second wireless lab or classroom
Increase office space, especially for lecturers and teaching assistants
Create a Community Literacy Center
Garner funding to give administrative assistantships for some GTAs
e. Strengths and Needs
The English department has many strengths, including collegiality among faculty and staff, willingness to work together for the common good, innovative thinking and planning in curriculum development and technology, service to the college and university, our ability to give individual attention to our students, and the relative success of our students in the graduate program, both in placement with flagship Ph. D. programs and in winning awards. Our writing and assessment programs are informed by current theory and practice, and we have expertise among the faculty in areas of British, Irish, American and World literatures, cultural studies, rhetoric, composition, and technical communication. When compared with other English departments, the percentage of our faculty with expertise in writing, composition, and technical communication is high, and we are, therefore, in a strong position to make advances in that area. We also have strength in travel writing, American cultural studies, and Native American literature. We have developed a departmental culture that expects scholarly success in research and publication, and production has been going up as teaching loads come down.
On the other hand, our faculty is small for an English department in a university the size of NDSU (we are smaller than the English departments at MSUM and Concordia). We staff many of our classes with lecturers, who do an excellent job of teaching but are not expected to give service to the department or the university. As our programs grow, we need more faculty members to help carry the service load involved with an innovative department and with active and growing graduate programs. We have identifiable needs for faculty in English education and technical communication. Our faculty members have a 3-3 teaching load, and their salaries are below national averages. All tenure and tenure-track faculty have been expected to teach at least two service-writing classes a year. As a result, our faculty members are not able to devote adequate time to research and writing in their fields of research. We need a reduced teaching load and release from the obligation of teaching such a high percentage of service-writing courses. Many English programs will not permit tenured and tenure-track faculty to teach these classes because faculty members are considered too expensive for such a luxury. Here, however, they are used to defray the cost of an effective writing program at the expense of their professional development as researchers and scholars and at the expense of the departments commitment to its own areas of expertise. Other members of the department, besides tenured and tenure-track faculty, are also overburdened and under compensated. The teaching assistants who enter our MA program receive only $8,100 and tuition waivers for teaching 4 classes. Our lecturers teach a 4-4 load, and although their salaries have gone up in the last couple years, they are still quite low (high 20s and low 30s). We have only one 10-month administrative assistant and share a secretary with Modern Languages. As with other programs, we are cramped for space: many of our lecturers share office space, and our teaching assistants are crammed several to an office, making student consultations difficult. We do not have as many majors in our program as would be expected of a university this size, so we need to increase enrollment in our degree programs. To do that, we need to teach a wider variety of classes, especially those that attract students and prepare them for careers after they graduate, and this need, of course, points to our need to hire more faculty.
f. Changes Implemented
The last program review report contained seven recommendations. In summary, the first recommended increasing support staff and operating budget; the second recommended that office space be increased to facilitate teacher-student interaction; the third recommended developing a clear vision and objectives for the graduate program; the fourth recommended that assessment reports and student evaluation reports be kept and updated regularly; the fifth recommended that faculty increase scholarly publication and grant writing, and that the library resources be increased; the sixth recommended that teaching responsibilities of our teaching assistants be reduced; and the seventh recommended that the department set long-term goals taking into account impending faculty retirements.
The problem of inadequate support staff referenced in the first recommendation has not been remedied. Instead, the problem has become even more difficult. We still share one full-time secretary and a ten-month office manager with Modern Languages, but now the work load is heavier: we now host one regional conference each year and another regional conference every two years, and the office staff supports these conferences. We now have considerably more computers and printers to be set up, updated, and monitored. The department is making major changes in policies and curriculum, and once again the staff is taxed keeping track of changes and doing paper work. Finally, the Distance and Continuing Education has recently divested itself of the tasks of writing contracts, monitoring attendance, and keeping track of the payroll for DCE classes, and that work has been passed on to the office staff without increased compensation or hours.
Office space continues to be a problem; however, we did divide one teaching assistants bay into two small offices for faculty, so that now all of our faculty have at least a small private space with a window. The teaching assistants were moved into the old, internal offices that belonged to the faculty. There was no increase in square footage. We have, however, developed a laptop program for our teaching assistants so that each now has a laptop and can meet with students for conferences in any wireless environment around campus, thus alleviating the conferencing problem.
The department has re-written its Ph. D. proposal and now has clearly defined objectives for both M. A. tracks and the Ph. D. Although many of our graduate students are getting through the program more rapidly now, they still teach two composition sections a semester as teaching assistants. Comparing data from the previous program review, improvement has been made in the time needed to complete an M. A. degree from an average of 4.85 years to 3.0 years. A fuller discussion is available in section III of this report.
The department is now a leader in assessment. Three years ago, the assessment committee rewrote its assessment plan, instituted a portfolio system, and began evaluating the portfolios for different outcomes each year. These reports are available on the departments intranet. The head of the department keeps the summaries of student evaluations in his office, and each teachers summary sheet is now filed in her or his personnel file in the office.
Although we have not kept numbers to compare scholarly production, we have developed a climate in which tenured and tenure-track faculty are expected to publish in refereed journals regularly and to give papers at national and international conferences. A survey of the last three annual reports indicates that production is increasing: in 2003, the English department published nine refereed articles, book chapters, and proceedings; in 2004, there were 12; and in 2005, there were 21, not to mention one book and two special issues of professional journals. The presidents professional development grant has helped our faculty travel to professional conferences. Although our faculty members continue to write grant proposals, we have not been very successful in getting grants. This failure is not surprising, given the very limited sources of funding for research in the Humanities and especially in English.
No headway has been made in reducing the load on teaching assistants. They still teach four sections a year; however, we have now been given permission to raise the stipend for our graduate students who have graduate degrees already to $12,000 for 9 months instead of $8,100. This raise anticipates the approval of our Ph. D. And, finally, the department has met in retreat and in regular departmental meetings to set long-term goals. Although we do not have a list of how we want to fill faculty lines when they become vacant, we have a strong sense of direction, and we understand that our path to success in the future is to increase our composition, rhetoric, and technical communication expertise while maintaining a strong presence in literary and cultural studies.
II. Comments on Data Bases
A. Students Served. The English department offers very cost-effective programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The total number of student credit hours (SCH) produced by English in the past three years has be 16,804 (03-04), 18,078 (04-05), and 17,170 (05-06). English produced almost 5,500 more SCHs than Communication and almost 5,000 more than Sociology/Anthropology, our nearest competitors in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (AHSS). The total number of SCHs went down last year because the pilot program on the vertical writing curriculum went into effect. As a result, a number of students took only one English composition class in the year, and the total number of writing sections was lower. We used savings from this lower enrollment to give our lecturers opportunities for professional development. Several lecturers had a one-course release to study writing in the disciplines and to develop new material.
B. Cost of Program. The ratio of SCH to full-time equivalency faculty(FTEF) generated by the department in its delivery of service and programmatic courses for the past three years has remained economical. The total cost per SCH appears to have increased markedly in the last year, moving up to $75 from $58 and $61 in the two previous years. This increase is a result of a change in the way the department has been funded. Prior to this year, several of our lecturers did not have lines in the budget. Their salaries were paid out of a contingency fund given to the department by the Provost to help defray first-year writing expenses. That contingency fund did not appear in our total salaries cost in those years. However, last year the Provost broke out several lines and transferred money into our budget, increasing it by approximately $250,000. A similar jump (from an SCH cost of $66 in 04-05 to $90 in 05-06) occurred with the communication department for the same reason. That higher budget, combined with a slightly lower SCH count increased our cost per SCH to $75, a more accurate representation of our real costs. Nevertheless, even with that increase, only three departments in AHSS have a lower cost per SCH, ranging from $63 (Sociology/Anthro), to $69 (Criminal Justice), to $70 (Art). Based on the our budget faculty FTE of 20.12, our actual faculty FTE output of 24.12 shows that we are still producing student credit hours at a higher rate than our budget would predict.
C. Student Evaluations. The most recent student evaluations of instruction (SROI) for the English department compared to level, the college, and the university are shown in the following table. The table selects questions 2 and 4 from the SROI forms (rating of the instructor as teacher and rating the quality of the course).
Table 1: English Department SROI Scores
QuestionEnglish
Scores Level ScoresCollege Scores University
Scores100-200 level: Teacher as Instructor4.1364.1344.3034.146100-200 level: Quality of Course3.9193.9094.0823.970300-400 level: Teacher as Instructor4.1364.1014.3034.146300-400 level: Quality of Course3.9193.9114.0823.970600-700 level: Teacher as Instructor4.1364.7684.3034.146300-400 level: Quality of Course3.9194.6434.0823.970
As this table shows, the English department quality of instruction as measured by student evaluations does not show significant variation from level, college, or university means in the undergraduate curriculum. The only score that approaches significance at the undergraduate level is in the departments comparison with the college at the 300-400 level, in the teacher as instructor question. Englishs score of 4.136, though very close to level and university scores is noticeably lower than the college score of 4.303. Whereas most departments do not offer required service courses at the junior level, English offers service writing coursessuch as Business and Professional Writing, Writing in the Technical Professions, and Writing in the Sciencesfor other departments students. Required service courses almost always score lower than elective courses within the major.
The table also shows that, although our scores at the graduate level approximate our scores at the undergraduate level, we are significantly below mean scores when compared by level. We do not have a clear explanation for this departure from the norm at this time, but we suspect it may have something to do with the English departments shift in the last couple years toward placing more emphasis on the composition option in the M. A. program. Although students may still choose to emphasize literature, and many do, several are beginning to shift in the middle of their M. A. program to composition. The students sense of uncertain identity may help explain their reactions to instruction. It might also be pointed out that our faculty members have had a 3/3 teaching load for the past several years, teaching two classes of composition each year as part of that load. This teaching load is heavier than other departments that offer graduate degrees. Preparation and research for graduate courses is time consuming, and our faculty members do not have as much time to devote to these classes as their colleagues in other departments.
D. External Funding. Although our faculty members have been actively involved in writing proposals, we have not been as successful as some others in getting external funding. When Don Salting was here as our linguist, he submitted NSF proposals every year, but was never funded. Betsy Birmingham was part of the ADVANCE proposal writing team, which came very close to being funded this year.
Despite these frustrations, three of our facultyMark Aune, Linda Helstern, and Gary Tottenand one of our lecturersJulie Sandlandhave been successful in bringing in external funding through the Remele Fellowship. Mark Aune was awarded the Remele Fellowship, $5,000, for 2006-07. Linda Helstern was awarded the Remele Fellowship, $5,000, for 2006-07. Gary Totten was awarded the Remele Fellowship, $5,000, for 2005-06. Julie Sandland was awarded the Remele Fellowship, $5,000, for 2004-05.
We do believe, however, that with the emergence of the new vertical writing across the disciplines program and our eagerly awaited Ph. D., we will be better placed to be competitive in our search for external funding. However, with increased opportunities, we also need to cultivate confidence in our grant-writing abilities and to find time to research and write grants.
E. Success of Graduates. It is commonly believed that getting a degree in English, unless it is an English Education degree, is not likely to help a student enter professional life upon graduation. However, our graduates have done very well. Below is a list of our most recent graduates and what they did after graduation. Appendix H gives more extensive data on our graduates. It is a report of a survey conducted during the summer of 2006.
Table 2: Graduates of Undergraduate English Degrees
NameDegreeCompletedCurrent StatusRachel SinnessBA2006Law School UNDKathryn DunlapBA2006Graduate student at NDSUPriebe, AlisaBA2006Working for insurance company and looking into MFA programsSeth ArcherBA2005Graduate student at NDSUClinton LarsenBA2004looking for work before beginning graduate studies in fall 2006Kyle GareyBA2004a communications specialist in the Air ForceJamie SkrochBA2004technical writer applying to master's programs in tech writingSarah BrownBA2004graduate student in tech comm at Iowa StateCarly HearnBA2004Graduate student at NDSUKylee WilliamsonBA2004graduate school in FrenchLuc ChinwongBA2004 Graduate student at NDSUMarilee MartinBALaw School Twin CitiesCorey DegnerBS Engl EDEnglish teacher, North High School, Omaha, NEKate EvensonBS Engl EDM. Ed Candidate - English teacher Horizon Middle School, MoorheadLee PalmerBS Engl EDEnglish teacher, Alternative High School, MoorheadJesse ArmstrongBS Engl EDEnglish teacher, Fargo North High SchoolDeborah DavyBS Engl EDEnglish teacher, West Fargo Middle SchoolMeghan PotterBS Engl EDEnglish teacher & coach. Edina, MNRoss EichleBS Engl EDEnglish teacher, Champlin Park H.S., MNBeth Grenz EckerBS Engl ED2003NDSU MA Candidate: English TA; teaches in international distance learning high school programMelissa VosenBS Engl ED2003Doctoral Student, English Lecturer, Technical WriterTerri EganBS Engl EDEnglish teacher, Kindred High SchoolShadd PeihlBS Engl EDEnglish teacher, Aakers Business College, Bismark; complete MFA; free lance writerSteve TiedmanBS Engl EDEnglish teacher, Discovery Jr. High, FargoCrystal RidlBS Engl EDEnglish teacher - Discovery Jr. High, FargoJill Schroeder AndersonBS Engl EDEnglish teacher - Shanley High School, Fargo
III. Graduate Program
A. Description, Philosophy, Goals. The English Department offers a Master of Arts degree with options in literature or composition and rhetoric. We anticipate offering a PhD in Rhetoric, Writing and Culture by autumn 2007 but will not include it in the description of the current program. We take our initial goal from the language of the Morrill Act that founded NDSU: to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life. With this in mind, we strive to make graduate education available to residents of the immediate geographical area as well as students from across the globe. In the program, we help students to refine research, writing, and critical thinking skills while at the same time acquiring new ones. This endeavor is supported by small class sizes, a supportive, attentive faculty, opportunities to present material at department seminars or local and regional conferences, and occasional opportunities to research and publish with faculty members. Our masters degrees have provided students with the skills and abilities that have enabled them to take positions in technical and professional writing, project management, education, government, law, public relations, theology, and business. Increasing numbers of students have chosen to pursue their studies beyond the M.A. in PhD programs across the nation in such fields as composition and rhetoric, literature, creative writing, linguistics, religious studies, and education. See figure 1 below for specific programs and positions.
B. Successes. Since the last program review in 1998 the graduate program has had several notable successes and innovations. The amount of time students are taking to complete the program has dropped from nearly five years down to three. The number of students accepted into doctoral programs has nearly tripled and the number of students leaving the program has dropped considerably. Nearly all our students are attending professional conferences and presenting their work. The Graduate Teaching Assistant Organization has become very active, organizing conferences and workshops aimed at helping to professionalize themselves. The department has also initiated a program that provides free wireless laptop computers to graduate teaching assistants to aid in the incorporation of technology into their research and teaching.
C. Financial Support. Nearly all graduate students admitted into the MA program full-time are offered teaching assistantships. These positions give them a tuition waiver, a stipend of about $8,000 per year and require that they teach two courses per semester. After two years of an assistantship, graduate students may apply for a teaching fellowship which provides a tuition waiver, a stipend of about $12,000 per year, limited benefits, and requires that they teach three courses per semester. The department also offers several scholarships of varying amounts and occasionally provides travel grants to students attending out-of-town conferences. Thanks to the efforts of Kevin Brooks, the department was awarded a grant that enables it to provide wireless laptop computers free of charge to all Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) and Graduate Teaching Fellows (GTFs).
D. Recruitment. Graduate students are recruited largely from the undergraduate programs in the Tri-College. We also receive several applications a year from undergraduates from northern Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana. We have been receiving an increasing number of applicants from overseas, India and Pakistan in particular. The department relies on word-of-mouth in the area and displays at regional job and graduate school fairs. An initiative was begun in the spring of 2006 to overhaul the graduate material on the department webpage to facilitate recruitment. We have also been utilizing email and regular mail announcements to reach regional public school teachers. We have also shifted the meeting times of most graduate courses to enable public school teachers to take them. We further plan to increase our visibility at regional English teachers conferences and meetings as a means of generating interest in our graduate program.
E. Retention, Support, Mentoring. The department has always provided strong mentoring relationships with graduate students. We have also begun to add units on professionalization in our core courses. These units help students to understand the nature of the academy, the state of the job market, the importance of conference participation and publication, and the role of active research and critical thinking. Faculty have also begun requiring students to participate in local and national conferences as part of their coursework. One of the results of this work has been a dramatic increase in graduate student participation in national and local conferences including the Red River Conference on World Literature, the Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing, and the Midwest Writing Center Association Conference. Most impressive is the Red River Graduate Student Conference, an academic conference organized entirely by graduate students. Attendance at the RRGSC has doubled each of the three years it has been held.
Faculty have increasingly been collaborating with graduate students on research projects, conference presentations, and publications. This has occurred both inside and outside the classroom.
F. Graduate Student Teaching. The department has on average twenty Graduate Teaching Assistants each of whom teach two sections of English 110 (College Composition I) or English 120 (College Composition II) per semester. Each GTA participates in a two-week session of workshops each August before classes begin. During their first year of teaching, each GTA takes English 760 (TA Strategies), taught by the Writing Program Administrator (WPA). This course covers fundamental theoretical and applied approaches to the teaching of composition. It concludes with the assembling of a portfolio of teaching materials that becomes the foundation for each students professional teaching portfolio. The WPA observes each GTA twice in the first semester and his/her advisor observes the GTA at least once per semester beyond the first. All GTAs and GTFs are also issued wireless laptop computers, free of charge, to aid in their teaching. In addition to strong SROI scores on the part of GTAs and GTFs, English Department graduate students have won the Colleges graduate student teaching award every year it has been offered.
G. Action Taken on Recommendations from 1998 Self-Study. The department has worked hard to clarify its expectations for the graduate students. Revisions of the graduate student handbook, regular informational meetings conducted by the Graduate Committee, and active faculty mentoring have helped students to complete their programs much more quickly. This has been aided by the institution of a portfolio review process rather than a comprehensive examination. By assembling a portfolio of course work, students demonstrate their skills and abilities in a way that enables faculty to provide prompt and constructive feedback. This feedback can be directly related to the challenges of researching, writing, and revising papers and theses.
Comparing data from the previous program review, improvement has been made in the time needed to complete a degree from an average of 4.85 years to 3.0 years. Our completion and acceptance rates have also improved. We also seem to have improved our retention rate. More students are staying in the program or transferring to other programs. The 1998 numbers do not provide complete admissions numbers, so it is difficult to compare pure admission/retention/graduation numbers. The numbers do suggest that the total number of active, full-time graduate students has remained steady at around 22 for the past ten years.
We have not been able to reduce the teaching load for GTAs and GTFs; nor have we been able to increase significantly their remuneration. We do feel that increased training, mentoring, professionalization, and access to technology have helped graduate students be more efficient teachers. We continue to work to reduce the teaching load on graduate students and increase their pay. MA teaching assistants stipend was raised from $8,000 to $8,100 in Fall 05. We were granted permission to give our doctoral students a $12,000 stipend beginning Fall 06, if they have a graduate degree already in hand.
Table 3: Graduates of English Department MA
NameYear StartedYear FinishedCurrent StatusHunt, FlorenceFall 1999Fall 2002unknownDelval, DaynaFall 1999Fall 2002Teaching ESL at NDSU and MSUMWeets, TamaraFall 1999Sum 2004teaching at ConcordiaFoye, RonaldFall 1999transferred to New MexicoCrowley, Kimberly Fall 2000Fall 2003enrolled in PhD in literature at UNDSjurseth, KimberlySpr 2000Fall 2005technical writer & project manager at Sundog Dahlberg, NaomiFall 2000Spr 2006 exampassed exam, has not finished paperKim, Mirim Fall 2000Fall 2003enrolled in MA of Divinity in KoreaWatkin, Amy (Hanstad)Fall 2000Fall 2002enrolled in PhD in literature @ UND & teaches at ConcordiaFisher, ShawnFall 2000Spr 2005unknownYoung, TinaSpr 2001passed exam, has not finished paperGilles, LauraFall 2001activeCayley, Mary JoFall 2001left programPriebe, SybilFall 2001Spr 2005tenure-track at NDSCS at WahpetonMalsam, EmilyFall 2001Sum 2004teaching @ Yosemite Community College, Modesto, CAEhrenberg, KateyFall 2001Sum 2005academic advisor at Walden UnivThomas, SusanFall 2002Sum 2005PhD program in literature at University of Kansas Abhijeet RaoFall 2002Fall 2005PhD program in Comp/Rhet at Iowa State U.Harveland, MariLouFall 2001Sum2005examPassed exam, has not finished paper Shenk, ConorFall 2001left program for MFA at MSUMFaimen, KendraSpr 2002Spr 2005technical writerDisrud, StephenFall 2002Spr 2006 examPhD program in literature at U of NebraskaSchmitz, CodiFall 2002transferred to Mayville State for teachingLundberg, MarciaFall 2002Sum 2005technical writer Strandberg, HollyFall 2002part-timeEastvold, BethanyFall 2002Spr 2005working in IrelandNorby, KrisAnnFall 2002Sum 2005enrolled in PhD in literature at Kent State Kittelson, NancyFall 2002active TAHuenneke, JaneFall 2002inactiveKern, JoshuaSpr 2003activeCameron, KellyFall 2003Spr 2006 examPhD program in rhetoric and composition at Texas ChristianSeguela, LaureFall 2003Sm 2006 examactive TAHernandez, JoshuaFall 2003Spr 2006 examwrites for Texas Lutheran U Director of Annual GivingCaballero, MarianaFall 2003active TAMcKenzie, JenniferFall 2003active TFGodel, AliciaFall 2003left to pursue BA in secondary Ed at Valley City StatePeltier, MiaSpr 2003left program for degree in linguisticsKvanvig, DanielleFall 2004active TAMuzzy, KelliSpr 2004active TAChinwongs, LucFall 2004active TAEcker, ElizabethFall 2004active TAHearn, CarlyFall 2004 active TAVosen, MelissaSpr 2004Spr 2006 examPhD in rhetoric & composition at Florida StatePortmann, RondaFall 2004active TAJaenicki, BrentFall 2004left programMondry, TerryFall 2004Left programButtke, DarrenFall 2004active TAJohansen, Marsha Fall 2004active part-timeTomanek, MichaelFall 2005active TAWald, RachelFall 2005left to pursue teaching degree at Dickinson State Garaas-Johnson, CraigFall 2005active TAJost, ElizabethFall 2005temporarily left program to raise familyWilkening, BrianneFall 2005active TAForness, MichelleSum 2005activeWarner, MatthewFall 2005active TAGaraas-Johnson, KristinFall 2005active TA
Fall 1999 to Spring 2006 Graduate Student Data
Students Admitted 56
Completed Degrees 17
Still Active 26
Part-time 2
Left program 3
Transferred 5
Accepted to PhD Programs 8
Average Time of Completion 3.0 years
Total Graduates Placed 15
Placement Rate 88%
Fall 1995 to Spring 1998 Graduate Student Data (from 1998 Program Review)
Students Admitted 56 (Fall 1990 Fall 1997)
Completed Degrees 7
Still Active 36
Part-time 14
Left program 12
Transferred 1
Accepted to PhD Programs 3
Average Time of Completion 4.85 years
Total Graduates Placed 7
Placement Rate 100%
IV. Quality of Program
Based on our self-study, we believe that the program in English at North Dakota State University is a good program already, and that it is in the process of improving. Its quality is reflected in the facultys scholarship, teaching, and service; in the graduate and undergraduate degree assessment studies and student feedback; in our innovative uses of technology; and in our positioning, not only within the university, but also within the profession of English Studies and the geographical region.
A. Quality reflected in faculty performance. As earlier sections of this report and the appended annual report (Appendix A) indicate, English faculty members have accelerated the rate of publication in recent years and have sought higher-profile venues. Of particular note is our facultys success in winning Remele Fellowhips (four in the last three years). The department encourages this focus on scholarship through its faculty seminar series, a forum in which faculty read work in progress or newly completed work to other faculty members, and through encouragement to take professional development leaves. In recent years, Elizabeth Birmingham, Bob OConnor, and Amy Taggart have taken professional development leaves for a semester. Mark Aune is on professional development leave this semester (fall 2006). Current production rates are now within range of production rates in Ph. D. granting departments in English.
Our earlier analysis of SROI scores shows that our faculty continue to rate high in the university, despite the high percentage of our classes being required general-education classes. Of particular note has been department members reception of teaching awards: 2005, Jo Cavins, College Teaching; 2004, Bill Cosgrove, Outstanding Educator; 2004, Betsy Birmingham, College Teaching. The department encourages excellence in teaching in a number of ways. First, the First-year-writing program offers workshops at the beginning of the academic year and invites participation in assessing student work at the end of each semester. The Cosgrove Seminar series offers presentations that describe innovative pedagogy. Our teaching assistants take a graduate class in strategies for teaching first-year English, and others enter into mentoring relationships to learn how to teach other classes. Furthermore, we have instituted a peer-review program both among lecturers and among faculty. This program requires all of our teachers to share their teaching materials and to invite peers to observe their classes. The hope is to encourage mutual support among our teachers.
The English faculty, despite carrying a 3-3 load, are actively engaged in service to the profession, department, college, university, and community. As the appended annual report shows, several of our faculty members review articles for professional journals; others hold offices in national organizations; and others plan regional conferences. The department committees meet regularly and carry out a number of essential functions. We are at a stage in our facultys maturity when several are coming up for tenure or expecting to come up for tenure in the near future. As a result, the PTE committee has been very busy. Our full revision of the curriculum put a heavy load on the Curriculum Committee; our move to a vertical writing curriculum has generated considerable work for the vertical writing work group; the graduate committee has been actively engaged in consolidating records, writing and revising the handbook, and establishing policy. For a more thorough account of the facultys service, please see the appended annual report.
B. Quality reflected in assessment studies and student feedback. The English department has taken the mandate to assess its programs seriously, using both direct and indirect approaches. We have appended our most recent assessment report for the undergraduate degree program, as required by the template, but that report is representative of only a small portion of the assessment work that goes on in the department. The first-year-writing program conducts assessment work every semester and produces an annual report, and plans are already in place for assessing the writing in the disciplines classes that will be part of the vertical writing curriculum.
We rely most heavily on direct assessment. Typically, the assessment committees focus on a couple learning outcome objectives each year and analyze data (student writing samples) to ascertain whether or not our students are learning what we purport to be teaching. Through these studies, we have found that our students are strong in general literary studies, but that they are not particularly sophisticated in literary criticism or rhetorical theory. We also see need for improvement in professionalization and project management; nevertheless, overall, our direct methods of assessment indicate that our faculty are focusing on departmental objectives and that we are becoming more effective in achieving them across our curriculum.
We also use indirect assessment. The SROI forms for every first-year writing class include extra questions that ask for student feedback based on objectives for these classes. We also conducted a survey of our recent graduates during the summer of 2006. The results of that survey are in Appendix H. This survey shows that our alumni are confident in areas that he department emphasized in its traditional curriculum. They indicate by large percentages that they learned a great deal about British and American literature in general. However, the report also indicates that our students are not very confident about their abilities in newly added areas rhetoric, electronic communication, and critical awareness. Furthermore, we have found that, by their own judgment, they are comparatively weak in areas of professional communication and project management, areas that we have not yet officially added to our undergraduate curriculum but that we hope to add in the near future.
So, then, whether by direct or indirect measures, we recognize that we have strengths in our traditional literary curriculum, but that we are still in need of improvement in newer areas of emphasis.
C. Quality reflected in the departments innovative use of technology. It may seem unlikely that the English department in a university would pride itself on its use of technology; nevertheless, despite the justifiable stereotypes of English faculty as technophobes, the department has made considerable progress in adopting new technologies and finding appropriate ways to integrate its use in day-to-day departmental activities and in instruction.
In daily activity, the department has moved from one in which we relied heavily on office staff to perform secretarial services to a department in which faculty are expected to perform the majority of their own secretarial work. We now expect faculty to have taught themselves or to have taken classes to gain proficiency in word processing, email, email attachments, file storage and retrieval, and web and database searches. We also expect that they will learn added computer skills as needed in their specialties, whether that means graphics applications, web authoring applications, or audio and video editing. As a result of our teaching staffs increased self-reliance through technology, our office staff spends their time more efficiently in administrative, faculty, and student support.
Besides current expectations of technological skills in our faculty, we have attempting to digitize documents and to increase electronic communication. We have built a password-protected departmental intranet, where we store reports, minutes, documents in progress, governing documents, and so on. Instead of struggling to retrieve hardcopy documents and instead of keeping many administrative documents in inaccessible files, we now give access to these files to everyone on staff through our intranet. It is now expected that official departmental announcements will be made by email. To facilitate discussion within the department, we have created a department-wide listserv and several special-purpose listservs, including one for the faculty and senior lecturers, one for the lecturers, one for the graduate students, one for the undergraduates, and one for the vertical writing program. It is now common to supplement our biweekly faculty meetings with ongoing discussion over the faculty listserv.
In teaching, the majority of our faculty and lecturers use Blackboard as a learning system, or they create their own class websites. Many use PowerPoint in an attempt to enhance class lectures, and they are far enough along in that technology to recognize that a PowerPoint presentations can hinder student engagement and participation if not carefully designed and adapted. Also in teaching, we now offer several online classes, most through continuing education. These classes include first-year and third-year writing courses, introduction to literature and science fiction. In support of teaching, we have developed web archived materials for first-year English and for the vertical writing program. We have also instituted a laptop program for our teaching assistants, so that they are better equipped for teaching and conferencing. Finally, our investment in designing and finding funds for a new wireless lab to be used primarily by English teachers and students shows that we are not content to settle for state of the art technologies and practices. We expect to use that lab to develop innovative ways to deliver instruction and to cultivate student performance and identity.
D. Quality reflected in the departments position. Three years ago, the English department was given permission to take over the Center for Writers (CFW) on Campus. That move was the first indication that the English department was going to expand its presence on campus. Already an important presence because of its work with first-year writing, general education, and the honors program, it is now poised to influence and serve the university by leading writing across the discipline and writing in the disciplines. With the CFW in place to support writers, the department proposed a revision of the universitys general education writing requirement. Beginning fall 2007, all students a NDSU will be expected to take a 300-level writing class to supplement their first-year writing class. Coincidently, we hope to show other departments that they can use portfolios of student writing in their assessment programs. English, therefore, is an important presence and leader in the undergraduate mission of the University.
On the other hand, although the department has had a successful Masters degree for several years and our faculty have been active in the universitys graduate committees, it has been left behind because its proposed Ph.D., despite repeated revision to ensure that it does not overlap with UNDs Ph.D. in English, has not yet been approved. This uncertaintynot knowing whether or not we will become a Ph.D. granting departmenthas complicated our planning in other areas, such as hiring and curriculum design. In order to have a strong presence in the Universitys graduate program, we believe that we need to have a Ph.D. so that we are not considered second class participants.
Our position in the profession of English studies is important to our continued growth. Colleagues in other English departments across the nation tend to define a departments position in the profession based on the degrees it offers. Some programs are known for having excellent undergraduate or MA programs; others for their PhD programs. Some are known as flagship programs in certain specialties; others for excellence as regional programs. The English department at NDSU has had a presence in the field in such specialties as travel literature, Native American Studies, and computers and writing. With recent hires in technical communication and Irish studies, there is potential for recognition in other areas as well. We hope, however, to make our presence more clearly felt in the profession with the approval of the Ph.D. in Rhetoric, Writing & Culture. This degree, we believe, has the potential to put our program on the map of composition, professional and technical communication Ph.D. programs, but positioned so as to indicate that our traditional emphasis on the liberal arts will remain an integral part of the programs mission.
Finally, and related to our position in the profession, is our position regionally. Being located in Fargo, ND, has many advantages. The city is growing in high technology and science sectors, creating opportunities for our students to find work as science writers and editors and as technical communicators. Already four or of our doctoral students have research assistantships with the ConnectND software development team as technical writers. Other high-tech opportunities are likely to come from IBM, Navteq, and Sundog. Furthermore, the Fargo-Moorhead area is an educational center. Several of our English Education students have found jobs as teachers in the city and region. Our graduate program provides opportunities for public school teachers and for those in the city who wish to continue their education by pursuing advanced degrees. Our location as a border city with Minnesota makes us appealing for a large number of regional students. We fully expect that our Ph.D. program will draw students from Minnesota, South Dakota, and other states in the region.
Our self-study has led us to appreciate the hard work that has gone into making the English department a strong institutional presence in the past. It has also helped us to realize that changes on the horizon point to needed resources, such as a larger, more specialized faculty, a lower teaching load, more office support. We believe that we are positioned to assume our position as a leader in the undergraduate program and a full participant in the graduate school at North Dakota State University.
V. Appendices
Appendix A
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT ANNUAL REPORT, 2005-06
I. Goals and Accomplishments for Current Year
The academic year 2005-06 was one of substantial change in the English department. We submitted a complete curriculum revision at the beginning of the academic year, we conducted a successful search to fill two vacant faculty positions, we revised our Bachelor of Arts degree schedule and documented our Bachelor of Science degree, we rewrote our promotion and tenure guidelines from the bottom up, we revised all catalogue copy, we further developed the vertical writing curriculum, we began gathering material for our self-study (the report is to be written this summer), and we even wrote a first draft of catalogue copy for our expected Ph.D. in Rhetoric, Writing & Culture. With the cooperation of Dean Riley and Provost Schnell, who allowed us to use our salary savings, we have been able to design a wireless lab and instrumented classroom in South Engineering 314. Also with salary savings, we were able to put in place a re-training program for our lecturers to prepare them to teach more effectively in the vertical writing program.
We have several goals for the coming year: initiating the Ph.D. program, working to assure the tenuring of two faculty, undergoing our ten-year review, learning to use our new lab in SE 314, and implementing the new vertical writing requirement that becomes effective fall 2007.
A. Instruction and Student Success
The English department prides itself on being a leader in education in the University. This year, its faculty and lecturers participated in university-sponsored programs like the CCLP (learning communities) and problem-based learning. It led the way in developing writing-in-the-discipline courses, and many of our teachers made use of cutting-edge developments in instructional technology. We have an excellent training program for our Teaching Assistants, and scores on SROIs are high. Our excellence in teaching has been recognized by the College of AHSS and Graduate School this year: Melissa Vosen won the teaching award for graduate students.
1. Teaching initiatives.
CCLP Participation. This was our third year of participation in CCLP, and more of our teachers participated this year than the first two years (Linda Fricker, Jo Cavins, Maureen Scott, Kaye Temanson, Deona McEnery, David Martinson, Louise Hall, and Elizabeth Ecker). This program has run out of its Bush Grant funds, so we will no longer offer CCLP sections of writing classes.
Writing and Reading Partners. Amy Rupiper Taggart once again coordinated Writing Partners, a program that links college student writers with elementary school writers. This year 20 sections of writing participated, and approximately 800 students at Ben Franklin were involved.
Writing in the Disciplines. This year we were able to get three 300-level writing courses (Engl 321, Engl 324, Engl 358) approved for the new General Education vertical writing requirement which takes effect Fall 2007. We offered a pilot section of English 324, Writing in the Sciences, for the first time. We also offered a pilot program for participating colleges in which students with high enough scores were released from English 110. With salary savings, we granted a one-course release to our most senior lecturers in exchange for their upgrading their professional profile in anticipation of teaching WID classes. Four attended the national Conference on College Composition and Communication (a first for all of them), and six attended a summer school graduate class on WID, in which we explored WID theory and practice over the past century. These lecturers are now much more fully informed about WID, and part of their professionalization expectations is that they will contribute to building a common WID resources website. Work is in progress on that site presently.
Service Learning. Several of our teachers (about five to seven a semester) require service-learning participation from their students. Most of these classes are first-year writing classes, but Amy Taggart also requires it in her upper-division writing classes as well.
Field Experience. Although we do not believe it is time for us to push for a full-blown internship or co-op program, Amy Taggart is now routinely assigned as the faculty member responsible for the field experience course at both the graduate and undergraduate level. Students are beginning to use this class more extensively. For instance, one graduate student worked with the YWCA to write a history of the local organization, and she received field-experience credit. Others are working in the community as writers and researchers and signing up for this class. We plan to use it to mentor advanced graduate students to teach 300-level writing classes. Two have signed up for that experience this summer.
Distance and Continuing Education. The English department expanded the number of classes offered through the Department of Continuing Education, including sections of English 110, 120, 220, 320, 321, and 333. We had expected to continue adding classes to this list at a rate of one or two a year, hoping to eventually make it possible for someone to finish the major on line; however, the new arrangements, which now require staff in the English office to monitor enrollments, send out contracts, figure continuing changes in pay as students drop, and submit paper work every two weeks, have caused us to reconsider whether or not we can expand or even maintain or current level of involvement due to the increased work this arrangement has added to our already overtaxed staff.
2. Incorporation of technology into courses and programs.
Use of educational software and websites. Almost all of our writing teachers, whether lecturers, TAs or faculty, use the web in their classes, mostly taking advantage of BlackBoard educational software.
Use of PowerPoint. Unfortunately, the use of PowerPoint is proliferating in our classes. Although this program can be an effective aid to teaching if used imaginatively and in moderation, many novice users succumb to the temptation to use it for nothing more than to list the speakers outline on a series of slides. Fortunately, some teachers continue to resist its use altogether, while others are gaining enough proficiency and understanding to use it effectively.
Laptops for TAs. As you know, Kevin Brooks wrote a grant and was funded to buy laptops for each of our Teaching Assistants a couple years ago. These laptops have proven to be effective aids in student conferences and in class interactions. The department continues to try to buy laptops to replace ailing laptops whenever we can find a little extra, unencumbered money.
New wireless lab. In May of 2005, we began exploring the possibility of developing a wireless lab and instrumented classroom combination. We wanted to experiment with a new teaching environment, one in which tables and chairs could be easily rearranged for different learning experiences and in which laptop computers could be networked with one another and linked to the internet. We have been fortunate in gaining tech fee support and in gaining permission to use some salary savings in order to have South Engineering 314 transformed into this new environment. Work is in progress this summer, and the room will be ready by Fall; however, we were not able to schedule classes in it until Spring 2007.
3. Advising efforts.
This is the second year Eunice Johnston has been our adviser for first-year and second-year students. She also keeps our list of majors and assigns students to advisers when they are not in the first two years. This arrangement is much better than the old system. We plan to expand this arrangement next year so that Debra Peterson will be the adviser for third and fourth year students.
This past year, all senior faculty continued to advise graduate and undergraduate students, averaging about 10 students each. Rick Shaw advised nearly all of the English Education majors. Most untenured, tenure-track faculty served only on graduate committees, but we are beginning to assign them to be academic advisers for graduate students as well. We have developed a better record-keeping system so that we know who is working with whom now.
4. Curriculum development, including new programs, deletion of programs, administrative changes.
Last academic year we worked internally to revise the entire English curriculum, including the undergraduate and graduate degrees and course offerings. We submitted the revised curriculum very early in September. The AHSS Curriculum Committee and the College approved the entire revision early in fall semester. However, the academic affairs committee was much slower in the approval process. Approvals were still being sent to the Senate as late as the last Senate meeting in May. We think all of the changes have now been approved.
At the beginning of the spring semester, we discovered that we technically have a BS degree in English and that some students have graduated with it over the years, despite the departments never having documented it. The faculty decided to document the degree and to revise both it and the BA degree, revising the list of core courses and survey courses, and adding a cultural diversity requirement. Both degrees are now identical, except the BA requires two years of a foreign language and the BS requires a minor, but not the foreign language. The College Curriculum Committee held these program changes up almost long enough to keep us from meeting the Registrars deadline for such changes, but they finally approved the changes.
We began work on writing the handbook and catalogue description for the PhD in Rhetoric Writing and Culture, hoping that it would be approved in time for students to begin work in fall 2006. When the proposal was pulled back from the State Board in mid spring, we left off working on the description and handbook, but we have made considerable progress on the catalogue description.
5. Accreditation and other reviews.
North Central came to NDSU this year and, as we all know, their review was very positive. During their visit, they asked to see assessment reports from around campus. The English department was able to produce thorough recent reports, helping with others to demonstrate that assessment is an active and ongoing process at NDSU.
We were notified early in fall semester that we would undergo our ten-year review in 2006-07. The department has been busy trying to assemble materials for the self-study report due September 1, 2006.
6. Activities in student recruitment/retention, enrollment management, and other student activities.
As department head, I met regularly with prospective students and their parents when they came to campus. Although we have not had any planned recruitment activities or mailings, enrollment in the English majors is going up quite rapidly, at least in comparison to the flat line over several preceding years. Although we have not interviewed the new majors, it seems likely that this increase can be attributed to our revision of the majors, our increased emphasis in writing, and our new and energetic faculty members enthusiasm and teaching excellence.
7. Employment of Graduates
The University, College, and English Department do not track our graduates, so my information is spotty. Graduates from our English and English Education degrees find employment in a variety of careers. Sharli Ziebarth, for instance, is mortgage processor in Billings, MT; Kristie Sullivan teaches 9th and 12th grade English in Grand Forks. Three of our graduates, whom we know of, are going on to graduate school, one to law school.
Similarly our graduate students do a variety of things once they complete their studies. Alisa Priebe works as a receptionist at Warner and Company Insurance, Josh Hernandez is director of giving at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, TX. Kelly Cameron is going to TCU for PhD work and Melissa Vosen plans to stay here to pursue our degree in Rhetoric, Writing & Culture. One of our international graduate students is returning to France.
8. Senior professors teaching first-year students and transfer students.
Presently all tenure-track and tenured faculty teach first year writing courses or service writing courses like Business and Professional Writing or Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The courses required of our majors when they begin their studies, English 271 and 275, are taught by faculty, and our 200-level American and British literature survey courses are as well. Most of our faculty teach two service-writing sections a year.
9. Summer school activities.
For summer school 2006, we offered one section of 110, College Composition I, two sections of 120, College Composition II, one section of 220, one each of 220, 320, 331, 322, 323, 345, 482, 682, and 758. DCE also offered two sections of 320,
B. Research/ Scholarship
Department faculty, lecturers, and graduate students have been busy writing articles and giving papers. Although in the past we have tended to focus on regional rather than on national venues, faculty members have now begun to shift their efforts toward national venues.
Members of the English department either publish or had accepted for publication 3 books, and they edited 2 special issues of national academic journals. They published or had accepted for publication 22 refereed articles or chapters, 8 invited publications, and 12 other publications ranging from encyclopedia entries to short stories to poems. They gave 21 presentations at national or regional professional conferences. Publication and presentations are listed below.
Fellowships
Garry Totten held a Larry Remele fellowship for 2005-06.
Books and Edited Journal Issues
Helstern, Linda. Louis Owens. No.168. Boise: Boise State University Western Writers Series, 2005.
Rupiper Taggart, Amy. Co-Guest Editor of Special Issue on Rewriting the Community Writing Course. Reflections : A Journal of Writing, Service-Learning and Community Literacy 5 (Spring 2006). (With H. Brooke Hessler).
Salter, John. A Trout in the Sea of Cortez. Counterpoint/Perseus Press. Forthcoming.
Sullivan, Dale L. Guest Editor of Special Issue on Conversations about Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian and Rhetorician. The Journal of Communication and Religion. 28.2 (November 2005).
Totten, Gary, ed. Memorial Boxes and Guarded Interiors: Edith Wharton and Material Culture. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2007 (forthcoming).
Refereed Publications (Chapters, Proceedings, Articles)
Aune, Mark. Elephants, Englishmen and India: Early Modern Travel Writing and the Pre-Colonial Moment Early Modern Literary Studies , 11.1 (May 2005) HYPERLINK "http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/11-1/auneelep.htm" http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/11-1/auneelep.htm.
Birmingham, Elizabeth. The Case of Marion Mahony Griffin and the Gendered Nature of Discourse in Architectural History. Womens Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 35.2 (March 2006): 87-123.
Birmingham, Elizabeth. Shifting Discipline in Womens Studies: Studies of Masculinities, Pornographies, and Sexualities. Review essay. NWSA Journal 18.2 (2006): 189-96.
Birmingham, Elizabeth. Modernity and the Renegotiation of Gendered Space. Review essay. NWSA Journal 19.1 (2007): (Forthcoming: 15 ms pp)
Brooks, Kevin. Changing the Ground of Graduate Education: Wireless Laptops bring Stability, not Mobility, to Graduate Teaching Assistants. Going Wireless: A Critical Exploration of Wireless and Mobile Technologies for Composition Teachers and Scholars. Forthcoming: Creskill NJ: Hampton Press.
Brooks, Kevin with Michael Tomanek, Matthew Warner, Rachel Wald, Brianne Wilkening "What's Going On? Listening to Music, Composing Videos" Computers and Composition Online; late fall or spring 2007 publication.
Brown, Muriel. "'Sarazins' in 'King Horn' and Chaucer's "Man of Law's Tale.'" Proceedings of the 13th Annual Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature, 13-21.
Helstern, Linda.My Antonia and the Making of the Great Race. Western American Literature. Forthcoming.
Krishnan, R. S. Exotic Travels and Traveling Exotics: Satire and Nationalism in
Goldsmith and Hamilton. Lamar Journal of the Humanities. 30:1 (Spring 2005): 5-15.
Krishnan, R.S. Paradigm Lost: Mediation, Narration, and Vision in V. S. Naipauls A Bend in the River. Atlantic Literary Review. 6: 1-2 (Jan-March/Apr.-June) 2005: pages NA.
Nichols, Cindy. Uppity Subalterns and Brazen Compositionists: Confronting Labor Abuses with Theory, Rhetoric, and the Potent Personal.Gypsy Scholars, Migrant Teachers and the Global Academic Proletariat. Eds. Rudy Teeuwen and Steffen Hantke Rodopi. Press. Forthcoming.
OConnor, Robert. Baz Luhrmans Moulin Rouge: Orpheus Again Descending. Lamar Journal of the Humanities (Forthcoming 2006).
OConnor, Robert. Strategy in Philip K. Dicks The Game-players of Titan: Competing in the Rigged Game. Games Science Fiction Writers Play. Lublin, Poland: Maria Curie-Sklodowskiej UP, Forthcoming 2006.
Peterson, D.K. Rev. of Film Genre III edited by Keith Grant. Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies 4 (March 2006). .
Rupiper Taggart, Amy. Stasis and the Reflective Practitioner: Experienced Teacher-Scholars Sustain Community Pedagogy. Reflections: Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy 5 (Spring 2006): 153-. (With H. Brooke Hessler).
Rupiper Taggart, Amy. Pentadic Critique for Assessing and Sustaining Service-Learning Programs. Reflections: A Journal of Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy. Special Issue on Professional Writing and Service-Learning. Eds. Jim Dubinsky and Melody Bowdon. 2005.
Sullivan, Dale L. Reading Dietrich Bonhoeffers Life Together in the Contexts of Monastic Literature and The Communion of Saints. The Journal of Communication and Religion 28.2 (November 2005): 188-205.
Totten, Gary. Dreiser and the Writing Market: New Letters on the Publication History of Jennie Gerhardt. Dreiser Studies 36.2 (Summer 2005): 28-48.
Totten, Gary. American Seen: The Road and the Look of American Culture in Theodore Dreisers A Hoosier Holiday. American Literary Realism (forthcoming).
Totten, Gary. Introduction: Edith Wharton and Material Culture. Memorial Boxes and Guarded Interiors: Edith Wharton and Material Culture. Ed. Gary Totten. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2007. 27 manuscript pages (forthcoming)
Totten, Gary. The Machine in the Home: Women and Technology in The Fruit of the Tree. Memorial Boxes and Guarded Interiors: Edith Wharton and Material Culture. Ed. Gary Totten. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2007. 35 manuscript pages (forthcoming).
Invited Publications
Aune, Mark. Review Essay (invited) published Early Modern European Travel Writing After Orientalism Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies, 5.2 (Fall 2005): 120-38.
Aune, Mark. Review (invited) published of Cosmographical Glasses: Geographic Discourse, Gender, and Elizabethan Fiction by Constance C. Relihan, Renaissance Quarterly, 58.4 (Winter 2005): 1435-36.
Birmingham, Elizabeth. Marion Mahony and the Magic of America: Visiting the Text. Wright Angles 31.3 (Fall 2005): 3-8. Featured cover article of special issue on Marion Mahony Griffin.
Brooks, Kevin. National Culture and the First-Year English Curriculum: An Historical Study of Composition in Canadian Universities. Composition in Canada. Eds. Roger Graves and Heather Graves. In Press, Winnipeg: Inkshed, 2006. Reprint of American Review of Canadian Studies article, a 2002 publication.
Helstern, Linda. Dark River. Encyclopedia of Native North American Literature. New York: Facts on File. In press.
Helstern, Linda. The Light People. Encyclopedia of Native North American Literature. New York: Facts on File. In press.
Krishnan, R. S. Review of Neil Ten Kortenaar, Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdies Midnights Children. International Fiction Review. Forthcoming.
Sullivan, Dale L. Mediating Controversial Technology: The Case of Monsantos Attempt to Introduce Genetically Modified Wheat in North Dakota. Hermes. Forthcoming 2006.
Other Publications
Hanson, K. C. Gulf (a story). Ginosko. Forthcoming.
Martinson, David. Hinges (a poem). Un-Named Anthology. Ed. J. Bradley. Copper Canyon Press. Forthcoming.
Nichols, Cindy. To Rozanne. Painted Bride Quarterly. Rutgers University. Forthcoming.
Nichols, Cindy. Ex Voto. Karamu. 19:2 (2005): 28.
Nichols, Cindy. "Pedagogy and the Secret Syllabus" and "Dear B (Lines)." Writing on the Edge 15:2 (2005): 59-66.
Rupiper Taggart, Amy. CCCC 2005 Conference Review of Chairs AddressWho Owns Writing? Across the Disciplines (March 24, 2005). Online available
Rupiper Taggart, Amy. CCCC 2005 Conference Review of Session D01Across the Drafts: Responding to Student WritingA Longitudinal Perspective. Across the Disciplines (March 24, 2005). Online available
Rupiper Taggart, Amy. Langston Hughes. The Modern Age, 1914-2000: A Biographical Dictionary. Ed. Joe Nordgren. (Accepted for collection; collection in development).
Rupiper Taggart, Amy. Maya Angelou. The Modern Age, 1914-2000: A Biographical Dictionary. Ed. Joe Nordgren. (Accepted for collection; collection in development).
Rupiper Taggart, Amy. Toni Morrison. The Modern Age, 1914-2000: A Biographical Dictionary. Ed. Joe Nordgren. (Accepted for collection; collection in development).
Salter, John. Captain America (a story). Meridian. U of Virginia. Spring 2006.
Dale Sullivan. Technical Communicators as Facilitators of Negotiation in Controversial Technology Transfer Cases. 2005 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference Proceedings. 353-358.
Conference Papers
Aune, Mark. Teaching Travel Literature: the Graphic Novel and the Visual Other, Modern Language Association convention, 27-30 December 2005, Washington, DC.
Aune, Mark. British Shakespeare and American Shakespeare: Stage Beauty and the Formalist/Realist Transition, Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies conference, 1-4 December 2005, San Antonio, TX.
Birmingham, Elizabeth. Assessing the Impact of a Learning Community: an Academic/Student Services Collaboration. The Collaboration, Bloomington, MN, February 2005 (with Kathy Enger, Jennifer Krueger, and Bill Slanger)
Brooks, Kevin. Chipping the Ice off the Institutional Windshield: Coalition Building and Resistance to a Vertical Writing Curriculum. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Chicago IL, March 23-25, 2006.
Brooks, Kevin. Multimodal Composing, Bad Things Are Good, and Copyright Instruction: A Look at Composing Music Videos with PowerPoint. [With Michael Tomanek, Matthew Warner, and Brianne Wilkening.] Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing, North Dakota State University April 7 & 8, 2006.
Brooks, Kevin. Changing the Ground of Graduate Education: Wireless Laptops Bring Stability, not Mobility, to Graduate Teaching Assistants. Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing, Minnesota State University, Mankato, April 14-15, 2005.
Brooks, Kevin. Scott McClouds Big Triangle and New Media Composition. Computers and Writing National Conference, Stanford University, Palo Alto CA June 16-19, 2005.
Brown, Muriel, Sarazins in Chaucers Man of Laws Tale and the Middle English King Horn. Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature, University of Minnesota, Morris, April 15, 2005.
Cavins, Jo Wana. I Suppose Thats Your Lecturer There in the Woodchipper? Conference on College Composition and Communication. Chicago, March 26, 2006.
Helstern, Linda. The Smoking Gun Pipe: Detecting the Mystery in Stephen Graham Jones The Bird Is Gone: A Monograph Manifesto. Native American Literature Symposium. Mystic Lake, Minnesota. April 2005.
Helstern, Linda. Scaling the Human in the Poetry of Gary Snyder. Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. Eugene, Oregon. June 2005.
Helstern, Linda. The Past Is Another Country: Gerald Vizenors Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57. Western Literature Association. Los Angeles, California. October 2005.
Helstern, Linda. "Beyond Aesthetic Victimry: Disability and Race in William S. Yellow Robe's Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers and Gerald Vizenor's Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57" Native American iterature Symposium. Pleasant, MI. April 2006.
OConnor, Robert. Strategy in Philip K. Dicks The Game-players of Titan: Competing in the Rigged Game. Conference of the Science Fiction Research Association, Las Vegas, 24 June 2005.
Rupiper Taggart, Amy. And You Were with the Little Guy? Reinventing First Year Writing. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Chicago, IL. March 2006.
Rupiper Taggart, Amy. Advocates for Sustainability: Service-Learning Advisory Boards and Cross-College Consortia. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Service Learning Special Interest Group. San Francisco, CA. March 2005.
Sullivan, Dale L. Paulo Freires Basis for Intervention in Public Life. 12th Biennial Conference of The Rhetoric Society of America. Memphis, May 27, 2006.
Sullivan, Dale L. You Dont Need That: Secret Meetings and Doctored Contracts. 2006 Conference on College Composition and Communication. Chicago, March 26, 2006.
Sullivan, Dale L. Researchers Role in Creating Public Awareness. 32nd Annual Council for Programs in Scientific and Technical Communication Conference. Lubbock, TX, October 21, 2005.
Sullivan, Dale L. Technical Communicators as Facilitators of Negotiation in Controversial Technology Transfer Cases, 2005 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference. Limerick, Ireland, July 12, 2005.
Totten, Gary, Technologies of Uplift: Race and Beauty in Whartons Twilight Sleep, Modern Language Association Conference, Washington, DC, Dec. 27-30, 2005
C. Outreach
Because of their active involvement and service, members of the English department at NDSU are a significant presence in their professional organizations, the University, and the community.
1. Professional, University, College, and Community Service.
Faculty and Lecturers in the English Department serve on several University and College committees and hold offices in national professional organizations. A list of service appears below.
Editors
Amy Rupiper Taggart co-edited with Brooke Hessler a special issue on Rewriting the Community Writing Course. Reflections : A Journal of Writing, Service-Learning and Community Literacy 5 (Spring 2006).
Dale Sullivan edited a special issue on Conversations about Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian and Rhetorician. The Journal of Communication and Religion. 28.2 (November 2005).
Referee Readers/Editorial Board Service/Professional Review
Elizabeth Birmingham. Manuscript Reviewer, The Boundaries of Her Body: The Troubling History of Womens Rights in America by Debran Rowland. Boston: Allyn-Bacon Longman.
Elizabeth Birmingham. Manuscript Reviewer, Fight Like a Girl by Megan Seeley, New York University Press.
Elizabeth Birmingham. Site search team for National Womens Studies Association Journals new home.
Elizabeth Birmingham. Reviewer, NWSA Journal (National Womens Studies Association).
Elizabeth Birmingham. Reviewer, Problem Based Learning Clearinghouse, University of Delaware.
Linda Helstern. Editorial Board, Boise State University Western Writers Series.
Linda Helstern. Manuscript reviewer, PMLA (Publications of the Modern Language Association).
Linda Helstern. Manuscript reviewer, Studies in American Indian Literatures.
Dale Sullivan. Manuscript reviewer, Quarterly Journal of Speech.
Dale Sullivan. Manuscript reviewer, Rhetoric Society Quarterly.
Dale Sullivan. Manuscript reviewer, Technical Communication Quarterly.
Dale Sullivan. Manuscript reviewer, Journal of Communication and Religion.
Gary Totten. Executive Committee, MLA Discussion Group on Travel Literature, (2005-2010)
Gary Totten. Editorial Review Board, College Literature, 2001-present
Conference Planners
Kevin Brooks. Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing Conference, Spring 2006.
Officers of Professional Organizations
Mark Aune was Vice president of MLA Travel Literature Discussion Group.
Elizabeth Birmingham. Board of Directors, NWSA Journal (National Womens Studies Association).
Kevin Brooks. Links Editor, WAC Clearinghouse.
Kevin Brooks. Chair of Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing.
University Service
Elizabeth Birmingham. Advisory Board for Student Affairs.
Elizabeth Birmingham. General Education Committee (University Senate Committee); Assessment subcommittee (Chair);Humanities, Fine Arts, and Communications subcommittee (Chair).
Elizabeth Birmingham. Faculty Development Committee (University Senate Committee).
Elizabeth Birmingham. Bush Grant, CCLPLearning Community Program, (assessment team).
Elizabeth Birmingham. WISMETWomen in Science, Math, Engineering, and Technology.
Elizabeth Birmingham. ADVANCE TeamNSF grant research and writing team (Submitted 3.75 million dollar grant July 23).
Elizabeth Birmingham. Womens Studies Advisory Board.
Elizabeth Birmingham. Tapestry of Diverse Talents award committee.
Elizabeth Birmingham. Fulbright Program selection committee (Chair).
Elizabeth Birmingham. NSEP Scholarship (National Security Education Program) selection committee.
Elizabeth Birmingham. Rhodes Scholarship interview committee.
Kevin Brooks. University Senate, College Representative.
Kevin Brooks. Technology Fee Advisory Committee.
Kevin Brooks. Ad hoc Wireless Task Force Committee.
Kevin Brooks. IT Governance Review Team. Reviewed and refined CIO Mobergs plan for NDSU IT governance.
Muriel Brown. Member of the Arts and Humanities Summit Committee, sponsored by the North Dakota University System.
Linda Helstern. Coordinator, NDSU Regional Studies Lecture 2005-06.
Robert OConnor. Program Review Committee member.
Robert OConnor. Anime Club Faculty Advisor.
Debra Peterson. Member, Black History Month Planning Committee.
Amy Rupiper Taggart. Member of the campus service learning advisory committee.
Amy Rupiper Taggart. Member of quad-college consortium (MSUM, NDSU, Concordia, UND) for community service-learning (this committee seems to be lying fallow)
Amy Rupiper Taggart. Faculty Advisor, Harvest Field, student organization. (Fall 2003-present).
Amy Rupiper Taggart. Presenter. Best Practices in Service-Learning. NDSU Service-Learning Faculty Development Workshop. Fargo, ND. October 2005. (Invited).
Dale Sullivan. Member. North Dakota Humanities Summit Planning Committee.
Gary Totten. TOCAR Committee.
Community Service and Outreach
Mark Aune. Grandmas Chase Race 7 May 2005.
Mark Aune. Fargo Marathon 14 May 2005.
Mark Aune. HCMC Monster Dash 5K 29 October 2005.
Mark Aune. Participated in marathon reading of Don Quixote 17 November 2005.
Mark Aune. 4th Annual Run Through SU 5K 27 August 2005.
Kevin Brooks. Coach: Red River Soccer and Fargo Parks T-Ball.
Kevin Brooks. Board Member, Fargo Theatre.
Muriel Brown. Literacy Committee of Delta Kappa Gamma.
Linda Helstern. Board of Directors, Heritage Hjemmkomst Interpretive Center, Moorhead, Minnesota.
Cindy Nichols and David Martinson continue to work with Poetry on Wheels for metro bus system.
Cindy Nichols and Maureen Scott participated this spring in the North Dakota Reads initiative (part of the NEH's "We the People" grant program).
Robert OConnor. Guide for the Detroit Lake Birding Festival.
Robert OConnor. Guide for the Prairie-Pothole Birding Festival (Carrington, ND).
Robert OConnor. Fargo/Moorhead Christmas Bird Count Coordinator.
Debra Peterson. Member, Film Selection Committees: Animation, Experimental Films, and Narrative Shorts. Fargo Film Festival, Fargo, ND.
Amy Rupiper Taggart. Member, Advisory Board, Write to Succeed, Inc.
Amy Rupiper Taggart. Member, Board of Directors, March of Dimes; Member, Communications Committee, March of Dimes.
2. Alumni Events and Other Community Related Events
None
3. Fund-raising accomplishments.
Mrs. Vogel added $2,000 to the Vogel endowment for the English department Vogel scholarship fund.
The English Department Fund at the University Foundation has increased its holdings from about $400 in the summer of 2003 to $2,400 in 2004 to $4,000 in 2005 and 2006. We have used money from this account to support department picnics, to support summer research stipends for two faculty in the summer of 2005, to support an instructor in a summer stipend to encourage completion of the dissertation in the summer of 2006, and to supplement the departments scholarships.
4. Other Outreach Activities.
D. Special Initiatives
1. Cultural Diversity.
We have been working since September 2005 to bring a visiting scholar from China. Arrangements for Yan Qius year in residence (06-07) have now been completed, excepting the issuance of a visa. Although our initial contact with the Sisseton-Whapeton tribe did not develop into a working relationship, we continue to maintain contact through John Peabody, and we hope to rekindle more active contact in the near future.
2. Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity.
We conducted a search for two faculty members and were committed to increasing representation of women or minorities on our faculty. The two lines being filled had been held by two men. The new hires were one man and one women, increasing the number of women on the tenure-track faculty by one.
3. Cooperative programming/interdisciplinary efforts/ inter-institutional activities.
The English department took the lead in pushing through a change in the General Education writing requirements. The changes become effective Fall 2007.
The English department began to develop discipline-specific writing courses: Dale Sullivan taught English 324 (Writing in the Sciences); Betsy Birmingham is working with the School of Architecture to develop a writing course for them, and Kevin Brooks is doing the same with the School of Pharmacy. Both efforts were funded by Instructional Development grants.
We began putting our 300-level writing classes through the General Education Approval process. So far 321, 324, 358 have been approved.
We held a pedagogical luncheon in March to help faculty understand the new classes and to encourage them to think about developing writing-intensive classes in their own majors.
The department sponsored six department seminars in 2005-06. All members of the University are encouraged to come, and they are publicly announced.
4. International activities.
Dale Sullivan gave a paper at the International Professional Communication Conference in Ireland in July and began networking more thoroughly with international programs in technical communication.
Dale Sullivan is publishing a paper in Hermes, an international but predominantly European Journal, later this year.
Dale Sullivan taught at the Maastricht Center for Transatlantic Studies during April 2006.
Dale Sullivan has been invited to be a co-editor of a book on technical communication programs. This would be a second edition of an earlier book, and this edition would feature several programs in other countries and programs in the US that emphasize international technical communication.
5. Economic development-none
6. Assessment.
We used the assessment plan we developed two years ago to assess our English LA major. This was the third time we used this plan. We have discovered some interesting things about our program, and these discoveries have helped us in our curriculum review process. We have decided to modify our assessment plan as well to make it less cumbersome. See the assessment report in Appendix B. The first-year writing program also did extensive assessment of student portfolios. See Appendix C for details.
7. Addressing institutional purposes.
The department continues its commitment to General Education, especially providing courses in the Humanities and practical writing. The Center for Writers now serves undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. We are taking the lead in developing a culture in which writing is valued campus wide, working first with the vertical writing program but hoping to add on a larger writing across the curriculum program.
8. College/Unit Planning Functions/Activities/Accomplishments.
E. Other Goals
II. The Future
During our faculty meetings this year, we focused primarily on curriculum revision, but we spent a good portion of our time discussing our vision for the future of the department and its degree programs. We are hamstrung in this effort, because we do not yet know if the Ph. D. program will be approved. If it is approved, then the English department wants to focus on English Studies at the BA level, keep our MA as is, but emphasize literature more prominently, and concentrate on rhetoric and writing at the Ph. D. level, using our vertical writing curriculum and its service to the University as our lab experience for the Ph. D. students. If the Ph. D. is not approved, we may decide to develop a major in writing and an MS in technical writing. This year, we have been operating under the hopeful assumption that the Ph. D. in Rhetoric, Writing & Culture will be approved, but we have had to be tentative in our planning because much hinges on the fate of the Ph. D.
A. Future Plans, Challenges, Strengths
We have five major goals for the coming year. First, we expect the PhD to be approved early in the academic year, so we want to develop catalogue copy and begin work on a student handbook, and to fully implement the degree. We already have four students, who have masters degrees, enrolled in our graduate program anticipating the degrees approval. We also have four others with advanced degrees who would have enrolled had the degree been approved. We expect three of the four to enroll next year when the degree is approved. Interest in the degree is widespread, and we are getting inquiries regionally and nationally. We are convinced that this degree will fill an important niche in the upper Midwest.
Second, Betsy Birmingham and Gary Totten go up for next year. Both have very strong profiles, so we expect success, but their success in getting tenure is perhaps the departments primary goal for the year.
Third, our department goes through its ten-year review next year. The self-study report is to be compiled this summer, and we expect that the review will be helpful in identifying weaknesses and strengths.
Our fourth goal is to begin to use the new lab in SE 314. Our first semester in which we will be able to do that fully will be Spring 2007. We also want to use it to develop workshops for local high school teachers. Whether or not we will get that far for next summer is debatable, but we hope to move in that direction.
Finally, we want to have the entire vertical writing program in place for fall 2007. So far, we have managed to get three classes approved by the General Education Committee. We have four or five more that are fully developed that need to go through the approval process, and we have two that are in development. Besides getting all of these classes developed and approved, we need to be sure that we have qualified instructors for the classes.
Although there are several challenges facing the English department, it is also a department with many strengths that should contribute to its continued success. First is the departments collegiality. The faculty and lecturers support each other and want to see the department as a whole prosper. Second, we have made very good hires in the last six years. These new hires come from strong programs, and have already shown evidence of being productive scholars and excellent teachers. Finally, we have a very strong record of offering a successful graduate program, the MA. The experience and excellence of that program chart a course for us as we move into the next phase of our development.
B. Assessment and Mission
Overall, the English department is a healthy department with energetic and collegial faculty, committed and gifted lecturers, good graduate students and TAs. We continue to see our mission as grounded firmly in the Humanities and Liberal Arts, seeking first to educate, that is to lead students out of themselves into better versions of themselves, and secondly to impart practical and employable skills. As an English department in a land-grant institution, a special responsibility to cultivate the Humanities rests on us, but we cant seek that goal exclusive of economic realities. Along with cultivating literary and ethical sensibilities through the study of literature, we also seek ways to stimulate civic engagement and rhetorical effectiveness among our students and among the universitys students at large.
To insure that we carry out our mission successfully, the English department is actively engaged in assessment. We assess our undergraduate majors and our first-year writing program extensively. We also assess the graduate program, and we are making plans to assess the upper division writing program. Please see reports in the appendices for more detail on our assessment efforts.
Appendix B: Assessment Report
Assessment of English Liberal Arts Curriculum
Introduction:
This report, for the academic year 2004-2005, describes the English departments assessment of two of its seven learning outcomes for English majors in our liberal arts program. We focused on the two outcomes that we had not assessed last year, Outcomes 3 and 7. The English Departments Assessment Committee (Elizabeth Birmingham, Eunice Johnston, Debra Peterson, Richard Shaw, and Dale Sullivan) invited other interested teaching faculty to take part in the assessment this year. Seven readers took part in our portfolio assessment and six took part in the following discussion: Elizabeth Birmingham, Kevin Brooks, Eunice Johnston, Cindy Nichols, Debra Peterson, Amy Rupiper-Taggart, and Gary Totten. Although we seven undertook the review of thirteen capstone portfolios and the compilation of this report, we will share and discuss our recommendations with all of the faculty involved in teaching liberal arts majors.
This report describes:
which program outcomes we assessed;
how we assessed those outcomes;
what we learned about our program from this assessment; and
how we will act upon the information collected in this assessment.
Which outcomes we assessed:
This year, we worked to assess our programs effectiveness at meeting two outcomes:
Outcome three: English majors will be able to conduct research effectively using a variety of research strategies and sources and documenting their sources according to standard guidelines.
Outcome seven: English majors will develop professionalism exhibited in such qualities as self-direction, cooperation, civility, reliability, and care in editing and presenting a final product.
What we did to assess these outcomes: (Instruments and scales)
We collected data on student learning through several direct measures:
student capstone portfolios.
a survey of faculty perceptions of our senior English majors research skills.
student capstone projects.
mentor evaluations of capstone projects.
student attendance in the capstone course itself.
We also included one indirect measure of student learning: student self-evaluation of the capstone project.
Outcome three: To evaluate our students ability to conduct research effectively using a variety of research strategies . . . we employed a rubric to generate a single holistic score for research competency as demonstrated in the capstone portfolio (which includes the senior project). (See Table 2 for results of the portfolio assessment.)
In addition, we used a 19-item inventory asking English teaching faculty about the research skills of their undergraduate senior majors. For this survey, we used two similar 5-point scales:
0=none or 0=absent
1=few or 1=sub-par
2=some or 2=adequate
3=most or 3=good/very good
4=all or 4=excellent
Questions and results maybe found in Appendix B, table 1.
Outcome seven: To assess outcome seven (students professionalism) we looked at four things, all of which were assessed using a similar five-point scale:
faculty evaluation of student professional behavior during the capstone mentoring process (0-4 scale w/ 4 high). (See Table 3)
student self-evaluation of professional behavior (0-4 scale w/ 4 high).
student attendance in the capstone course itself
professional standards as exhibited in the final portfolio and capstone project and project planning documents.
What we did to assess these outcomes: (Methods)
All six readers read 5-6 portfolios each, assigning a single number for each of the two outcomes. Three readers read every portfolio. If all three readers were within a single point, the numbers were averaged; if two readers were two points or more away from a third, that third score was omitted. There was only one instance of this occurring, out of 70 different readings; this equals an inter-reader reliability rating of 98.6%. Moreover, there was only a .8 difference in total spread for the average ratings of all readers for outcome 3, and a 1.0 total spread for outcome seven, suggesting a high level of agreement across all readers for the entire sample.
In addition to reading the portfolios and meeting for one two and a half hour session to discuss our assessment, we compiled faculty mentor evaluations of the professional skills exhibited in students capstone projects and interactions with their mentors. Finally, we looked at records of student class attendance during their capstone experience, both as a measure of professional behavior and reliability and to consider whether there is a relationship between class attendance and success in meeting departmental outcomes.
What we learned:
In this sample, about 3/5 of the students demonstrated adequate mastery of research strategies, and 3/4 of the students displayed adequate professional skills; this is still shy of our goal to have 100% of our graduates at adequate levels for all outcomes. (These numbers are very similar to those we have seen in previous assessments.) In addition, we discovered the following specific things concerning the two outcomes we assessed:
Outcome three: Overall, our students portfolios demonstrated that they possessed adequate skills in conducting effective research (8 of 13, or 61%) scored at least a 2 from their readers, with an average score of 2.1. However, on the 19 question inventory which asked faculty about specific student information literacy skills and habits, only on 8 of 19 questions did faculty rate more than some of their students adequate, and tellingly, on questions such as I would categorize the research skills of my senior English undergraduate majors as the faculty mean was 1.5 (between sub-par and adequate). Other concerns were the ability to conceptualize and formulate good research questions, which received a 1.6, and the ability to understand how information is produced, organized and disseminated (1.33). (Table 1)
Outcome seven: As a group, the assessment committee found our students professionalism stronger than their research skills. Ten of 13 were ranked adequate or above by portfolio readers (76%), and 10 of 13 were ranked adequate or above by mentors. A total of 4 students were rated sub-par by either the committee or their mentors; two students were rated sub-par by both. As a group, the class was not quite adequate in terms of regular attendance (1.8; see Appendix E table 1); however, it was clear that a large group of students almost never missed class, with half of the class accounting for only 11% of the absences, and the other half of the class accounting for 89% of the absences.
Relationship between class attendance and academic success: There seems to be a compelling relationship between class attendance, success in the course, and success in meeting programmatic outcomes. The six students who missed a total of six classes (combined) had an average GPA in the course of 3.66 (an A-). They also were ranked more highly in every indicator we used. The faculty ranked the high attenders an average of 2.88 (nearly good/very good) for outcome three (research), and 3.0 (good/very good) for outcome seven (professionalism). Their faculty mentors gave them an average of 4.0 (excellent) for professionalism and an attendance rating of 3.16.
In contrast, the low attenders (students who missed a total of 46 classesa whopping 7.6X the number missed by the high attenders) had an average grade for the course of 1.71 (a C-). Although we may believe that students who dont attend class can be successful on their own, these students also were less able to meet the program outcomes. As a group, they were 1.46 points lower than their high attending peers in meeting outcome three (research); faculty ranked their work 1.42 (significantly below adequate). Their work was just below adequate for outcome seven (professionalism) at 1.95. Their faculty mentors gave them a collective 1.5, which is also significantly below adequate, and their collective attendance rating was .85, which is below sub-par, and is, by any measure unacceptable for senior students who wish to be academically successful. (See Appendix E, tables 1 &2 to see this information in tabular form.) It is interesting, although probably not significant, that these low attenders were also less able than their peers to assess their own performance with accuracy, as a group rating themselves 7 points higher than their mentors rated them. In contrast, the high attenders were actually more critical of themselves than their mentors were, with the six of them rating themselves 5 points lower than their mentors had.
So although our average student is between adequate and good in meeting outcomes 3 (2.10) and 7 (2.43), receives a mentor evaluation for professionalism in the same range (2.5), and receives an average grade in the Capstone course of a B- (2.6), we really have few students in our program who perform to the average; we have high achieving students whose work is consistently good-excellent, and low performing students, whose work is between sub-par and adequate on our scalesa well-curve, rather than a bell-curve. In this sample, these differences clearly related to class attendance. Whether the low attenders performed poorly because they did not attend class, or whether they did not attend class because they performed poorly (or were not able to accurately assess their own performances) is less clear.
What we will do next:
As a result of this assessment, our committee plans to share and discuss this report with the rest of the faculty and develop strategies to better help our students meet the learning outcomes our department has set. We specifically think the following issues are important to the discussion:
Assign more research, and make certain that we are not just assigning and evaluating the products of this research, but intervening in the research process to help students design research, find, evaluate, and use sources, use them honestly, and cite them appropriately. We do not want to assume that students have these skills. For example, our assignments might introduce these skills at the 200-level, reinforce them at the 300-level, and require all students to display mastery equivalent to adequate (or 2) at the 400-level. We have begun assembling some resources to help with this task.
Form a working group that formalizes the relationship between assessment and curriculum by bringing together interested members of the departments assessment and curriculum committees (and inviting other faculty and senior lecturers to participate). The group reading portfolios was in agreement that we would all do thisand the next step should be for Birmingham, Peterson, and Totten co-chairs/chairs of the two committees, to convene a meeting in early fall to set up reading and tasks for the working group. This group will begin examining our curriculum as a whole, rather than as individual courses, attempting to chart the places we hope to have the concepts that form our learning outcomes introduced, reinforced, and mastered.
Develop and propose a departmental attendance policy. The relationship between attendance and success is so strong in our program that we need to develop a uniform attendance policy, as well as making certain that our faculty set a good example by fully using every class period. We need to develop a culture that expects regular class attendance and that makes every class worth attending.
Build community among students and between students and faculty through providing extra-curricular opportunities for interaction and professionalization. We have a real opportunity, because of a new Intro to English Studies course, a dedicated lab space for English courses, an active English Club, and a more professional approach to advising, to begin building a community of English majors and acculturating our students to the notion of disciplinary professionalism. We wondered whether attendance problems might be related to students feeling a lack of responsibility to a community of peers and teachers. We would like to use our working group to think about the kinds of extra-curricular learning and community building opportunities that would enrich our students experiences as English majors.
Revise outcomes? Although we recently revised our outcomes, as a group, we found that outcome seven was packed full of abstract indicators and very challenging to use as a single assessment statement with our portfolio review. We would suggest minimally unlinking the document editing and design from the other professional behaviors. Outcome three, though easier to employ, would probably be more successful if it more directly related to information literacy (not unlike Gen Ed outcome 6). This will require discussion.
Teaching assignments and assessment. In addition, we would like to continue encouraging those teaching 167, 271, 275, 358, and 457those assessment point courses that our students all taketo continue their active involvement in the assessment process. This involvement and meeting among the teachers of these core courses was very useful for beginning discussion of curricular mapping.
Next years assessment
Undertaking this assessment of student learning was interesting and informative to the committee. We hope that our insights encourage the faculty to begin to think about the ways in which our individual classes form an overall program of study for our studentsa program that is our only way to articulate to students our goals for their learning. Next years assessment will focus on assessing outcomes 1 and 2. We anticipate a larger sample of student work (19 students are enrolled in the capstone course) and would like to involve even more of the faculty in this important process.
Submitted by the English department All-volunteer Assessment Team on behalf of the Assessment Committee:
Elizabeth Birmingham (Chair)
Kevin Brooks
Eunice Johnston
Cindy Nichols
Debra Peterson
Amy Rupiper-Taggart
Gary Totten
Table 1: Faculty Evaluation of Students Information Literacy Skills
Student Research Skills and Practices: Senior Majors (N=10)
10. Given the information literacy standards defined before question #5, I would say that my senior English majors are information literate.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.802420Some2.00.7513. I would categorize the research skills of my senior English undergraduate majors as:Valid NExcellent
(4)Good/VG
(3)Adequate
(2)Sub-par
(1)Absent (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.800440?1.5.5316. My senior English majors are able to conceptualize and formulate good research questions.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.1000721Some1.6.6919. My senior English majors display time management skills by meeting course requirements within deadlines.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.803410Some2.25.7022 My senior English majors display sound critical thinking skills.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.803410Some2.25.7025. My senior English majors apply analysis and original thought to existing information to create new information.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.801520Some1.875.6428. My senior English majors are comfortable using computer technology for information gathering and data manipulation.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.803410Some2.25.7031. My senior English majors understand how information is produced, organized and disseminated.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.900441?1.33.7034. My senior English majors understand how information is organized into disciplines and subject fields.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.800710Some1.875.3537. My senior English majors understand how professionals working in our area of study use information.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.901530Some1.77.6440. My senior English majors confer with my colleagues and me to identify information resources and processes used in the field.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.801610Some2.00.5343. My senior English majors students understand that research is a non-linear process and approach it as such.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.801430Some1.75.7046. My senior English majors know that critical theories and research methodologies vary and apply the theory or method appropriate to the task.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.800350Few1.375.5149. My senior English majors know how to find high-quality information using traditional print library resources.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.802231Few1.6251.052. My senior English majors know how to evaluate and select high quality information from library subscription databases.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.801430Some1.75.7055. My senior English majors students know how evaluate and select high quality information from the Internet.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.800620Some1.75.4658. My senior English majors can discriminate between scholarly and non-scholarly information resources.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.804400Most2.5.5361. My senior English majors consistently cite materials using an appropriate citation style.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.902430Some2.215.7864. My senior English majors are actively, intellectually engaged in class and their participation drives the discourse.Valid NAll
(4)Most
(3)Some
(2)Few
(1)None (0)ModeMeanSTDSr.805300Most2.625.51
Table 2: Portfolio Assessment Values
Outcome three: English majors will be able to conduct research effectively using a variety of research strategies and sources and documenting their sources according to standard guidelines.
Reader 1.Reader 2.Reader 3.Reader 4.Reader 5.Reader 6.Reader 7.Average ScorePortfolio 1.
2322.67Portfolio 2.
2222Portfolio 3.
2121.67Portfolio 4.
3222.33Portfolio 5.
4433.66Portfolio 6.
1211.33Portfolio 7.
2222Portfolio 8.
2222Portfolio 9.
3323.33Portfolio 10.
1111Portfolio 11.
4444Portfolio 12.
1211.33Portfolio 13.
00Average for this reader
22.12.62.21.82.41.82.10
Table 3.: Professionalism and the Capstone Project
1. Please rate professionalism (such qualities as self-directedness, cooperativeness, civility, reliability, carefulness in editing and presenting a final product).
Mentor assessmentStudent self-assessmentdifferenceAverage ScorePortfolio 1.
2______2Portfolio 2.
43-13.5Portfolio 3.
3303Portfolio 4.
43-13.5Portfolio 5.
4404Portfolio 6.
2______2Portfolio 7.
23+12.5Portfolio 8.
4404Portfolio 9.
42-23Portfolio 10.
13+22Portfolio 11.
4404Portfolio 12.
13+22Portfolio 13.
____________Total for class
3532Mode for class
43___2Mean for class
2.913.2___2.95Standard Deviation
1.24.63___.83
Appendix C: Faculty Roster, Last Three Years
NameRank% Admin
ApptUG hours taughtGrad hours taught$ in External FundingRefereed PublicationsPapers at Prof MeetingsAune, MarkAssist42 12$5,0001 + 2 forthcoming8Birmingham, ElizabethAssist39653Brooks, KevinAssoc20%3391 + 3 forthcoming6Brown, MurielAssoc45923Cavins, JoSr. Lecturer851Helstern, Linda (2 yrs)Assist33$6,5001 book + 6 encyclopedia articles6Krishnan,
R. S.Full100%183 articles, 2 reviews, 1 forthcomingMara, Andrew
(new F 2006)AssistMara,
Miriam
(new F 2006)AssistNichols, CindySr. Lecturer 736 poems; 2 papers4OConnor, RobertFull42623Peterson, DebraInstructor6031 + 3 encyclopedia articles4Rupiper Taggart, AmyAssist4 + 1 edited journal issue5Shaw, RichardAssoc66% 18 for educ.Sullivan,
DaleFull66%2763 + 1 edited journal issue + 3 forthcoming7Totten, Gary (2 yrs)Assist309$5,0003 + 4 forthcoming + 1 edited book4
Appendix D: Faculty Vitae
CURRICULUM VITAE
M. G. Aune
Department of English 21 Broadway South, Apt. 509
North Dakota State University Fargo, ND 58103
320D Minard Hall Home Phone: 701.232.4369
Fargo, North Dakota 58105 Office Phone: 701.231.7176
email: HYPERLINK "mailto:m.aune@ndsu.edu" m.aune@ndsu.edu website: http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/maune
Current Position
Assistant Professor Department of English, North Dakota State University
Education
2002 Ph.D. Wayne State University
1991 MA, English Literature, New York University
1989 BA, English, Michigan State University
Academic Awards
2006 2007 Remele Fellowship
2005 Department of English Summer Stipend
2004 2005 Department of English Vogel Teaching Award
2005 Nominated for NEH Summer Stipend
2002 2005 Presidents Travel Fund Award
2003 NDSU Faculty Instructional Development Grant
Teaching Experience
2002 - 2005 Courses taught, North Dakota State University
English 780 Renaissance Studies, English 760 Introduction to Graduate Scholarship, English 482/682 Renaissance Literature, English 464/664 Comparative Literature, English 380 Shakespeare, English 271 Literary Analysis*, English 251 British Literature I*, English 110 College Composition I*, English 120 College Composition II*
*Computer intensive course
Publications
Teaching the Graphic Novel: Travel Literature and the Visual Other, accepted for publication in the MLA volume Approaches to Teaching the Graphic Novel, ed. Stephen Tabachnick.
From Robert Cecil to Richard Nixon: The Use of Richard III as Political Critique revised and resubmitted to Shakespeare Bulletin.
"Shakespearean Biography, Celebrity and the Popular Culture/Academic Culture Divide" under consideration at Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation.
Authorship, Ego, Advancement: The Coryate-Taylor Rivalry and Self-Fashioning Through Print under consideration at Texas Studies in Literature and Language.
Star Power: Al Pacino, Looking for Richard and the Cultural Capital of Shakespeare on Film Quarterly Review of Film and Video 23.4 forthcoming.
Miscellanies in the Classroom: Exploring the Ephemeral in Early Modern Literary Culture accepted for collection, Rethinking Ephemera in the Classroom, ed. Joshua Fisher.
Elephants, Englishmen and India: Early Modern Travel Writing and the Pre-Colonial Moment Early Modern Literary Studies, 11.1 (May 2005) < http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/11-1/auneelep.htm>.
Always a Work in Progress: Creating a Course Website for Introduction to Shakespeare, Sixteenth Century Journal 32.1 (Spring 2001): 127-33.
Websites
Bardology: A Shakespeare Studies Website,
A site designed to support undergraduate and graduate Shakespeare pedagogy and research.
Graduate Student Resources
A site designed to support student in Introduction to Graduate Scholarship and graduate students in general with scholarly and professional work.
Performance Reviews
With Kristina Caton, Measure for Measure, Globe Theatre Company, forthcoming in Early Modern Literary Studies.
With Elizabeth Ecker, Romeo & Juliet on the Plains, Summer 2005 forthcoming in Shakespeare Bulletin.
Book Reviews
Review Essay (invited) Early Modern European Travel Writing After Orientalism Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies, 5.2 (Fall 2005): 120-38.
Review (invited) of Cosmographical Glasses: Geographic Discourse, Gender, and Elizabethan Fiction by Constance C. Relihan, Renaissance Quarterly, 58.4 (Winter 2005): 1435-36.
Review (invited) of Visions of Persia: Mapping the Travels of Adam Olearius by Elio Brancaforte, Sixteenth Century Journal, 36.2 (Summer 2005): 575-76.
Review (invited) of Mandevilles Medieval Audiences: A Study of the Reception of the Book of Sir John Mandeville (1371-1550) by Rosemary Tzanaki, Sixteenth Century Journal, 35.4 (Winter 2004): 1124-26.
Presentations
Star Power: Al Pacino, Looking for Richard and the Cultural Capital of Shakespeare on Film, Shakespeare Association of America Conference, 13-15 April 2006, Philadelphia, PA.
Teaching Travel Literature: the Graphic Novel and the Visual Other, Modern Language Association convention, 27-30 December 2005, Washington, DC.
British Shakespeare and American Shakespeare: Stage Beauty and the Formalist/Realist Transition, Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies conference, 1-4 December 2005, San Antonio, TX.
Teaching Travel Writing: Genre and Context, Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies conference, 19 - 21 November 2004, Orlando, FL.
Devotional Travel and Secular Writing: Pilgrimage Narratives and the Rise of the Novel, International Society for Travel Writing biennial conference, 22 - 24 October 2004, Milwaukee, WI.
Elizabeth J. Birmingham
1418 6th Street South Fargo, North Dakota 58103 Elizabeth.Birmingham@ndsu.edu
Education:
Iowa State University, December 2000
PhD: Rhetoric and Professional Communication
Specialization: Architectural history, theory, and criticism (32 credit emphasis)
Iowa State University, May 1994
M.A.: English, Creative Writing
Rosary College, Summa cum laude, May 1989
B.A.: English literature ; B. A. Honors: art history
Research:
Selected Publications:
I See Dead People: Archive, Crypt, and an Argument for the Researchers 6th Sense. Labor of Love: Research as a Lived Process. Eds. Elizabeth Rohan and Gesa Kirsch. Boston: Allyn-Bacon Longman, 2006. (Forthcoming)
Modernity and the Renegotiation of Gendered Space: A Review Essay. NWSA Journal 18.3 (2006): (Forthcoming: 18 pp)
The Case of Marion Mahony Griffin and the Gendered Nature of Discourse in Architectural History. Womens Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 35.1 (February 2006): 1-37.
Shifting Discipline in Womens Studies: Studies of Masculinities, Pornographies, and Sexualities. Review essay. NWSA Journal 18.1 (2005): (Forthcoming, 15 pp)
Marion Mahony and the Magic of America: Visiting the Text. Wright Angles 31.3 (2005): 3-8.
The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 by Emily Thompson. Review. The International Journal of Listening 18 (2004): 56-60.
An Alternative Network Architecture: Sexing the Moment of Complexity. JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 24.4 (2004): 1001-1024.
Marion Mahony, Architectural Attribution, and Millikin Place: Response to the Call for a Reinterpretation of Architectural History. Architectural Theory Review 9.2 (2004): 34-50.
Another Fine Mess: the Pregnant Body and the Discipline of the Line. WOE: Writing on the Edge 14.2 (Spring 2004): 95-109.
Policing the Architectural Canon: The Gendered Discourse of Architectural History. Professing Rhetoric. Eds. Fred Antczak, et al. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002. 97-105.
Re(per)forming War: Capturing Contemporary History in Two Film Versions of Shakespeares Henry V. Film and History 2000 CD-ROM Annual. Ed. Peter C. Rollins. 2001.
Fearing the Freak: How Talk TV Articulates Women and Class. Journal of Popular Film and Television 28.3 (2000): 133-139.
A New Way of Doing Business: Articulating the Economics of Composition. JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 19.4 (1999): 679-697. (co-authored)
Reframing the Ruins: Pruitt-Igoe, Structural Racism, and African American Rhetoric as a Space for Cultural Critique. Journal of Western Communication 63.3 (1999): 291-309.
Gender Differences in Teaching Assistant Response to Student Papers. Our Own Voice. Eds. Tina Good and Leanne Warshauer. Boston: Allyn-Bacon, 1999. 200-211.
Reinventing First-Year Composition at the Nations First Land Grant University: A Cautionary Tale. Writing Program Administration 21.1 (1997): 19-30. (co-authored)
Awards: selected
Faculty Development Grant. Architecture/English collaborative upper level writing course development. 2005
DCE Grant. On-line grants writing course. Division of Distance and Continuing Education. 2004
Faculty Development Grant. Upper level writing assessment and curriculum development. 2004
College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Outstanding Teacher Award, NDSU, May 2004
Last Lecture, Student-nominated lecturer, Division of Student Affairs, October 2003
Milka Bliznakov Prize, (Annual Prize for Research on Gender and Architecture), International Archive of Women in Architecture, November 2002
Samford University/Pew Foundation mini grant. Problem Based Learning/Peer Reviewed Teaching Portfolio, 2002
Community Project Awards. (Partnership with Fargo non-profits for grants writing intern program.) 2002
Bush Grant, Community of Caring Problem Solvers. co-PI (20+ others) on project for enhancing first-year experience through learning communities in leadership education, 2002
FIEL (Faculty Institute for Excellence in Learning) Advanced Fellowship. NDSU, 2002
Peer-Review of Teaching Fellow. NDSU, 2002
Best Fantasy Story of 1999, Editors of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, 2000
Haggard Dissertation Fellowship (Dissertation research), Iowa State University, 1998-1999
Rosann Berry Fellowship (Research in architectural history), Society of Architectural Historians, 1998
Fulbright Student Fellowship (Research fellowship), Australian National University, 1991-1992
Architectural Study Tour Scholarship (Research in architectural history), Society of Architectural Historians, May 1991
Teaching: Courses taught
English 110, English 120 (First year sequence)
English 320, Business and Professional Writing
English 358, Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences
English 454/654, Language Bias
English 457, Capstone Experience
English 458/658, Advanced Writing Workshop
English 459/659, Writing Grants and Proposals
English 755, Composition Theory
English 756, Composition Research
English 758, Topics in Writing and Rhetoric: Alternative Academic Discourse
Womens Studies 350, Perspectives in Womens Studies
Service: active committees for 2005-2006
United Way of Cass-Clay County. Program Review.
Fulbright Program Administrator (International Programs Directors maternity leave), 2005
National Capital Authority. Consultant. Canberra, Australia
Advisory Board for Student Affairs
General Education Committee
WISMET (Women in Science, Math, Engineering, and Technology)
Faculty Development Committee
Bush Grant, CCLPLearning Community Program (Assessment team)
ADVANCE Team for Improving Campus Climate for Women FacultyNSF grant research and writing team, 2003-05 (3.75 million dollar grant submitted July 23, 2005)
Rhodes Scholarship Interview Committee
NSEP Scholarship (National Security Education Program) selection committee
Tapestry of Diverse Talents Award Committee
Fulbright Recruitment, Mentoring and Interview Committee
English Department Assessment Committee, Chair.
Kevin Brooks, PhD
Associate Professor, Dept. of English, North Dakota State University
Education
Ph.D., Rhetoric and Professional Communication
Iowa State University, Ames IA, 1997
Professional Experience
Associate Professor (English), North Dakota State University.
August 2003-present.
Writing Program Administrator: August 2003-present.
Assistant Professor (English), North Dakota State University.
August 1997-2003
Undergraduate Classes: Composition I & II; Introduction to Writing Studies;
Intermediate Composition; Practical Writing; Technical Communication, Visual Culture and Language.
Undergrad/Grad: Advanced Writing Workshop, Electronic Communication.
Graduate Seminars: Textbook and Living Traditions of Rhetoric: A History;
Composition Theory; Computers and Composition, Rhetorics and Poetics of New Media (online)
Selected Publications (2002-2006)
Changing the Ground of Graduate Education: Wireless Laptops bring Stability, not Mobility, to Graduate Teaching Assistants. Going Wireless: A Critical Exploration of Wireless and Mobile Technologies for Composition Teachers and Scholars. Forthcoming: Creskill NJ: Hampton Press.
Remediation, Genre, and Motivation: Key Concepts for Teaching with Weblogs. [With Cindy Nichols and Sybil Priebe.] Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs. Ed. Laura Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman. University of Minnesota, 2004. HYPERLINK "http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/remediation_genre.html" http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/remediation_genre.html
The McLuhan Retrieval Reviewed. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy 9.1 (2004). http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/9.1/binder.html?reviews/brooks/index.htm
National Culture and the First-Year English Curriculum: An Historical Study of Composition in Canadian Universities. American Review of Canadian Studies. 34 (2002): 673-94.
Compositions Abolitionist Debate: A Tool for Change. Composition Studies. 30.2 (2002): 27-42.
Developing Doctoral Programs in the Corporate University: New Models. With Kathleen Blake Yancey and Mark Zachry. Profession 2002. 89-103.
Reading, Writing, and Teaching Creative Hypertext: A Genre-based Pedagogy. Pedagogy 2.3 (2002): 337-56.
Silence, Talk, and Speaking Out: Language Use and Class on the Upper Great Plains. North Dakota Quarterly 69.1 (2002): 63-76.
Awards and Grants
(with Dale Sullivan) NDSU Technology Fee Advisory Committee Grant, Fall 2005. For developing a wireless, flexible classroom space for hybrid instruction.
(with Amy Taggart) NDSU Foundation Library Grant, Fall 2005. For video material to support English 110 and 120 themes of literacy and leadership.
NDSU Instructional Development Grant, Spring 2005. For developing a junior-level writing course for Pharmacy, Nursing and Allied Sciences students.
(with Mark Aune) NDSU Technology Fee Advisory Committee Grant, Spring 2004. For developing a wireless network (including laptops) for Graduate Teaching Assistants in English.
NDSU Instructional Development Grant, Spring 2003. For revising First-year Writing Curriculum at NDSU.
Mart and Lois Vogel Outstanding Teacher Award, NDSU English Department, 2002.
NCTE Grant-In-Aid, Fall 2000. For Cultivating the Red River Valley: A History of English Studies in Four Institutions of Higher Education.
NDSU Instructional Development Grant, Spring 2000. For developing an upper-level course, Electronic Communications.
NDSU Research and Consulting Committee Grant-In-Aid, 1999-2000. For research on the history of composition in North Dakota.
Informal Workshops and Presentations
Podcasting: Course Content, Delivery Methods, and Assignments. Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing. North Dakota State University. April 8, 2006.
Faculty Development in and Through Writing and Learning Communities, Electronic Portfolios, and Social Computing. Rochester Institute of Technology, Feb. 21st 2005.
Engaging Students with Writing Assignments. Nov. 18 2003 and February 27, 2004, North Dakota State University.
Surfing and IM-ing: Impact of the Internet on Rural Youth. Co-presenter with James Ross (ITS, NDSU). Ministry to Rural and Small-Town Youth Conference, June 10, 2002. Moorhead MN.
Exploring Electronic Literature. Fargo-Moorhead Communiversity, February 2002.
Integrating Advanced Writing Courses into a Traditional Curriculum - The NDSU Experience. Conference of College Composition and Communication. Chicago, March 20, 2002.
Professional Activities and Active Committees
Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing, Conference Coordinator, 2004, 2006.
English Department Search Committee Chair, 2005-06.
ITS Strategic Plan Review Team, NDSU Committee, 2005-06.
First-Year English Committee Chair, 2003-present.
Computer Resource Committee Chair, 1998-present.
Vertical Writing Curriculum Committee Member, 2003-present.
University Senate, College Representative, 2003-06
University Senate Executive Committee, 2004-05
Technology Fees Advisory Committee, University Committee, Member, 2000-present.
College Curriculum Committee, NDSU, Member, 1998-2001.
Red River Conference on World Literature Coordinator, 2001-03.
Regional Studies Lecture Coordinator, 2001-04.
Curriculum Vitae
Muriel Brown
Address and phone: Home:
Department of English 1318-18th Ave. S.
North Dakota State University Moorhead, MN 56560
Fargo, ND 58105 (218) 233-6844
(701) 231-7144
Education:
1971 Ph.D. University of Nebraska
1960 M. A. University of Nebraska
1958 B. A. Dakota Wesleyan University (Magna Cum Laude)
Professional experience:
2002- Associate Professor, North Dakota State University
1997-2002 Chair of Department of English, North Dakota State University
1991-2002 Associate Professor, North Dakota State University
1974-1991 Lecturer and Assistant Professor, North Dakota State University
1970, 1974 Moorhead State University (Minnesotapart-time)
1959-1964, 1965-1967, Instructor, University of Nebraska
1958-1959, 1964-1965, Teaching Assistant, University of Nebraska
Professional Publications (selected):
Sarazins in Chaucers Man of Laws Tale and the Middle English King Horn. Proceedings of the 13th Annual Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature. April 2005. (Forthcoming).
Gentilesse in Chaucers Wife of Baths Tale. Proceedings of the 11th Annual Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature. April 2003: 82-89.
Whats Hunting Got to Do with the Green Knight?: Bercilak, the Green Knight, and Sir Gawain. Proceedings of the Fifth Dakotas/Nebraska Conference on Earlier British Literature July 1997 (published Summer 1999): 82-88.
For . . . she was not undergrowe: Chaucers Prioress Revisited. Selected Papers Presented to the Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota, 1989-1993.
Opal Lee Popkes Zuma Chowts Cave: Two Cultures in Conflict. Nebraska English Journal 38.2 (1993): 103-14.
Growth and Development of the Artist: Willa Cathers My Antonia. Midwest Quarterly.
Fall 1992: 93-107.
Professional Papers (selected):
Sarazins in Chaucers Man of Laws Tale and the Medieval English King Horn, Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature, University of Minnesota, Morris, Minnesota, April 2005.
Havelok the Dane: The Growth and Development of an Ideal King, Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, April 17, 2004.
Gentilesse in Chaucers Wife of Baths Tale. Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature. Minot State University, Minot, North Dakota, April 4, 2003.
Hunting and the Courtly Love Tradition: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Andreas Capellanus, Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota, October 24, 1997.*
Whats Hunting Got to Do with the Green Knight?: Bercilak, the Green Knight, and Sir Gawain, Fifth Dakotas/Nebraska Conference on Earlier British Literature, Jamestown College, Jamestown, North Dakota, April 25, 1997.
Reversing Gender Roles in Dorothy Canfield Fishers The Home-Maker, Ninth Annual Midlands Conference on Language and Literature, Omaha, Nebraska, March 15-16, 1996.*
The Worth of Labour and Pleye: Point of View in Chaucers Merchants Tale. Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota, Winnipeg, Manitoba, October 25, 1996.*
Whiles that I Live I Shall Be Obasiaunt: Gawain and the Transforming Power of Obedience [in Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell]. Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota, Minot, North Dakota, November 4, 1995.*
Philippe de Mezieres Order of the Passion, Chaucers Knights Tale and the Hundred Years War. 30th International Conference on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 4, 1995.
University Committees (selected):
Coordinating Committee, NDUS Arts and Humanities Summit: 2003-2006
University Senate: 1995-1998, 1987-1990
University Senate Executive Committee: 1995-1997
College Committees (selected):
AHSS Dean Evaluation Committee, 2004
Promotion, Tenure, and Evaluation Committee 1996-1997, 2006-
Student Progress Committee 1987-1990, 1991-1997
Career Day Committee 1986-1996, chair 1989-1996
H&SS Faculty/Lecturer Recognition Committee 1994
H&SS Awards Committee 1992
Department Committees (selected):
Promotion, Tenure and Evaluation Committee 2003-
Curriculum Committee 2002-2005
Graduate Committee 1991-1997, chair 1991-1994
First Year English Committee 1987-1997
University Advisory Council to the FEC (1994, initiator; chair 1996-1997)
PTE member for Communications Department promotion 1993, Modern Languages 2003, History 2005
Professional Service (selected):
President-Elect and President, Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota, 1989-1991
Professional Honors:
Humanities and Social Sciences Outstanding Service Award 1995
English Department Vogel Teaching Award 1979
Jo Wana Cavins
North Dakota State University, jo.cavins@ndsu.nodak.edu, 701-231-8768
EMPLOYMENT
English Department, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota
Senior lecturer, August 2005-present. Lecturer, full time, September 1982-2005,
Teach four classes each semester
English instructor for NDSUs Caring Community of Leaders and Problem Solvers (CCLP), Fall 2004-present
Department committees:
Teaching Evaluation, 1988-91, 2004 to present.
First Year English, 1993-96, 2001-04.
Computer Resources, 2001-04.
Vertical Curriculum, 2005-present.
Summer adviser during new student orientation 1997-1999
Helped develop Introduction to Literature: English 130 as a team-taught course.
With Julie Bergman, wrote the application for General Education approval for English 130 (now 220).
Courses taught in the NDSU English Department during the past academic year include the following:
English 320: Practical Writing. Emphasizes business communication, including letter of application resume, proposal report, recommendation report, and instructions.
English 220: Introduction to Literature. Emphasizes vocabulary and practice of reading and discussing short fiction, poetry, novels, and drama.
English 215: Writing for Work. Emphasis business and work writing, including letters, short reports, resume, memo.
English 110: College Composition I. Writing assignment genres range from personal narrative to informative essay requiring research.
English 120: College Composition II. Writing assignment genres emphasize use of library and field research, persuasion and argumentation.
I will teach English 215: Business Writing for the first time spring 2005.
Other classes taught at NDSU:
Distance and Continuing Education,
English 220: Introduction to Literature, fall 2005, spring 2006
University 199: Skills for Freshman Success, fall 1997, fall 2001, fall 2005
Course introduces students to the NDSU campus, computers, and library; reinforces study skills and encourages students to become active in campus life.
Includes supervising a junior or senior student mentor.
University Studies 489: Capstone Experience, fall 2002, spring 2003, fall 2004
Guided graduating seniors through writing a reflective paper required in last semester before graduation.
EDUCATION
1979-1982 Enrolled in Doctoral Program at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Passed MA qualifying exam, summer 1980. Completed sufficient course work for MA but because I had enrolled directly in the doctoral program, did not complete Plan B papers to earn the MA.
1979 Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education, English major. University of Evansville,
Evansville, Indiana. Graduated with honors. Named Outstanding Senior English Major.
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND AWARDS
College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award, 2005
National Council of Teachers of English, member
Delta Kappa Gamma International, an organization for key women educators
Membership by invitation since May 1999.
Editor of Beta Bits newsletter 2000-2004.
Co-secretary 2004 to present.
State membership committee, 2005 to present.
PUBLICATIONS and PRESENTATIONS
I Suppose Thats Your Lecturer in the Woodchipper. Panel member for Going Through the Woodchipper in Fargo. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Chicago, March 2006.
Fricker, Linda and Jo Wana Cavins. CCLP English 110/120 NDSU 2005-2006. Published on
campus for instructors and students in the NDSU Learning Community: Caring Community of
Leaders and Problem-solvers.
Linda Fricker, Jo Wana Cavins, and Maureen Scott, English Department Workshop on CCLP
electronic portfolios, spring 2005
Linda Fricker, Jo Wana Cavins, and Maureen Scott, Delta Kappa Gamma summer workshop
session on CCLP service-learning project, summer 2005
Shaw, Richard M., Julie Bergman, Jo Wana Cavins, Linda Cravens Fricker. Our Lives, Our Worlds. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, July 2000.
Shaw, Richard M., Julie Bergman, Jo Wana Cavins, Linda Cravens Fricker. Ourselves and Our Lives. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing, 1997, revised edition 1998.
Ourselves and Our World. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing, 1997, revised edition 1998. (Custom published texts for first-year composition classes at NDSU, fall 1997-Spring 2000.)
Fricker, Linda Cravens, and Jo Wana Cavins. Writing, Reading, and Reasoning, 3rd ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing, 1998.
Claire Legowski, Jo Wana Cavins, Richard M. Shaw. Perspectives: Writing Reading, and
Reasoning. HarperCollins Custom Books, 1995.
Paragraphing and Introductions and Conclusions chapters of Perspectives on Writing and Reading by Claire Legowski and Helen Correll. HarperCollins Custom Books, 1993.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Conference on College Composition and Communication, spring 2006, attendee
Best Teaching Practices for Enhanced Learning, fall 2005, attendee
Karl Smith Workshops on Problem-based learning, spring 2005, participant
Faculty development book group on Richard J. Lights Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds, fall 2004
Completed online course on Human Participants Protection Education for Research Teams, October 2004
On-line Professional Development course: Multiple Intelligences, spring 2004
On-line Professional Development course: Student Portfolios, spring 2003
FIEL Fellow for Bush Problem-Based Learning Project, NDSU, 2002-03
NDSU Conference on World Literature/Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing, 2002, moderator
Creating a Coherent Professional Writing Curriculum summer 2001, attendee
PBL workshops, NDSU, Summer and Fall 2001, participant
Prentice Hall Symposium on Education, Minneapolis, MN, November 1996, attendee
Attended week-long NDSU English Department Macintosh Workshop, summer 1991
LINDA MARIE FRICKER
Linda.Fricker@ndsu.nodak.edu
EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE
English Department, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota
Lecturer, full time, August 1987-present
Currently serve on the following department committees:
-Peer Review of Teaching committee (replaced TEC), August 2004-present
-First Year English committee
English Coordinator for NDSUs Caring Community of Leaders and Problem Solvers (CCLP), Fall 2004-present
Courses taught in the NDSU English Department during the past academic year:
-English 321: Writing for Engineers
-English 320: Practical Writing
-English 110: College Composition I
-English 120: College Composition II
University Studies, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota
Lecturer, part-time, Fall semesters 1997-1999, 2001-2002, 2004
AHSS Coordinator for University 199: Skills for Academic Success, Fall 2005
Continuing Education, Moorhead State University, Moorhead, Minnesota
Adjunct Instructor, January 1999-May 2001
English Department, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois
Instructor, full time, August 1986-May 1987
Assistant to Director of Freshman English, part time, May 1985-May 1986
Ph.D. Teaching Assistant, August 1983-May 1985, including Summer 1984
University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota
Teaching Assistant, August 1981-May 1983; including Summer 1982
Westmar College, LeMars, Iowa
President of the Associated Students of Westmar College, May 1979-May 1980
Editor, The Gleam, weekly student newspaper, January 1978-May 1979.
Layout Editor, September 1979-May 1980; Copy Editor, September 1977-January 1978
EDUCATION
Certificate of Advanced Study (awarded for 30 hours beyond Masters; considered equal to ABD) May 1986, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois
Major: English; Emphasis: Composition Studies
Master of Arts degree, August 1983, University of South Dakota, Vermillion
Major: English; Emphasis: Composition Studies
Minor areas: Shakespeare, Renaissance Literature
Thesis: Writing Across the Curriculum: Teaching the Writing Process Through Computer Assisted Instruction
Bachelor of Arts degree, May 1980, Westmar College, LeMars, Iowa
Major Fields of Study: English, with Journalism emphasis, and Sociology
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION
Delta Kappa Gamma International, an organization for key women educators
Membership by invitation since May 1996; Treasurer 2002-present
Chair of Communications Committee, 1997-1998; Secretary 1998-2002
PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS
Fricker, Linda , and Jo Wana Cavins. CCLP English 110/120, 2005-06. NDSU, 2005.
Shaw, Richard M., Julie Bergman, Jo Wana Cavins, Linda Cravens Fricker. Our Lives, Our Worlds. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, July 2000
Shaw, Richard M., Julie Bergman, Jo Wana Cavins, Linda Cravens Fricker. Ourselves and Our Lives. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing, 1997, revised edition 1998
Shaw, Richard M., Julie Bergman, Jo Wana Cavins, Linda Cravens Fricker. Ourselves and Our World. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing, 1997, revised edition 1998
Fricker, Linda , and Jo Wana Cavins. Writing, Reading, and Reasoning, 3rd ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing, 1998
Presented with Sheree Kornkven and Nancy Lilliberg, Electronic Portfolios GWPAC Conference, NDSU, April 2006
Presented with Jo Cavins and Maureen Scott, Service Learning English Department Seminar, NDSU, April 2005
Presented with Jo Cavins and Maureen Scott, Electronic Portfolios Delta Kappa Gamma State Convention, Wahpeton, ND, June 2005
Presented with Eunice Johnston and Claire Legowski, Educational Technology in the Classroom English Department Seminar, NDSU, March 1997
VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES
Faculty Greeter, Dinan Hall, Residence Life Move-In Day, NDSU, August 2003-present
Leader, Girl Scouts of America, Fall 2000-present
HONORS AND AWARDS
Whos Who Among American College Teachers, 2005, 2002
Nominated for Carnegie Professor the Year, 2004
College Service Award, May 2005
Apple Polisher Award, Bison Ambassadors, NDSU, February 2002
Nominated by Dr. Sudhir Mehta to receive Gunkelman award, NDSU, May 2000
Named FIEL Fellow for Bush Problem-Based Learning Project, NDSU, May 2000
Vogel Award for Teaching Excellence. English Department, NDSU, May 1996
Outstanding Graduate Student in the English Department, USD, Spring 1983
Archer B. Gilfillan Creative Writing Award: Poetry, USD, Spring 1983
English Department Writing Award: Nonfiction, Westmar College, Spring 1980
H.H. Kalas Award (for student leadership), Westmar College, Spring 1979
Whos Who Among College Students, Westmar College, Fall 1979
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND ACTIVITIES
Regularly attend university pedagogical lunches
Completed IRB training, NDSU, October 2004
Participant in PBL workshops, NDSU, Summer and Fall 2001
Attended Prentice Hall Symposium on Education, Minneapolis, MN, November 1996
Attended 13th Annual Conference on Distance Learning, Madison, WI, August 1996
Recipient of internal grant for creating multimedia instructional module, sponsored by ITS and PPRC, NDSU, Fall 1996; designed Power Point presentation Creating a Document
Participant in Bush Fellowship Faculty Writing Workshop, NDSU; workshop with 20 faculty across campus, June 1992. Follow up sessions November 1992 and February 1993
Linda Lizut Helstern _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
507 Eleventh Street South, Apt. 301, Fargo, North Dakota 58103 701-367-2789 HYPERLINK mailto:Linda.Helstern@ndsu.edu Linda.Helstern@ndsu.edu
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in English, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
1995 M.A. in English, University of New Mexico
1970 B.A. in English with honors, magna cum laude, Hamline University
Dissertation: Trickster Chaos: Old Stories and New Science in the Postindian Novel
College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Dissertation 2001-02.
Additional Study
North Dakota State University, 2004-05. (Ojibwe Language.)
Berkeley Summer Research Seminars in the Humanities: American Identities.
University of California, Berkeley, 1997. (Native American Studies/American Studies.)
American Studies Institute. University of California, Berkeley, 1995. (Native American Studies.)
Art of the Wild. University of California, Davis, 1993 and 1994. (Creative Writing.)
Traditional Pueblo Pottery Making. 1992. Dolores Lewis Garcia and Emma Lewis Mitchell.
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale 1984-85. (Museum Studies.)
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2004, English, North Dakota State University, Assistant Professor
2003-04, English, University of Texas-Pan American, Assistant Professor/Graduate Faculty
2002-03, English, University of Texas-Pan American, Lecturer
2002, Womens Studies, SIU, Carbondale, Lecturer
1991-2002, College of Engineering, SIU, Carbondale, Assistant to the Dean, External Affairs
1998-99, English, SIU, Carbondale. Adjunct Instructor
1986-91, College of Engineering, SIU, Carbondale, Public Information Specialist
1982-86, Coal Research Center, SIU, Carbondale, Corporate Development Assistant
1979-81, Shawnee Health Service, and Development Corporation, Carbondale, Project Developer
PUBLCIATIONS
Books
Louis Owens. Western Writers Series 168. Boise: Boise State University, 2005.
Journals
My ntonia and the Making of the Great Race. Western American Literature. (Forthcoming.)
Who the Hell Is Donna Green? Southwestern American Literature 28.2 (Spring 2003): 15-20.
Bad Breath: Gerald Vizenors Lacanian Fable. Studies in Short Fiction 36.4 (1999): 131-41. Pub. 2002.
Mixedbloods: Stereotypes and Inversion in The Yogi of Cockroach Court. South Dakota Review 40.2 (Summer 2002): 132-39.
Indians, Woodcraft, and the Construction of White Masculinity: The Boyhood of Nick Adams. Hemingway Review 20.1 (Fall 2000): 61-78.
"Gerald Vizenor: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism." Studies in American Indian Literatures 11.1 (Spring 1999): 30-80.
"The Man Who Killed the Deer: Stories within Stories." Studies in Frank Waters 20 (1998): 73-87.
"Nightland and the Mythic West." Studies in American Indian Literatures 10.2 (Summer 1998): 61-78.
"Blue Smoke and Mirrors: Griever's Buddhist Heart." Studies in American Indian Literatures 9.1 (Spring 1997): 33-47.
Chapters in Professional Books
Re-storying the West: Race, Gender, and Genre in Nightland. Louis Owens: Tribute to a Native Writer. Ed. Jacquelyn Kilpatrick. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. 119-38.
Mixedbloods: Stereotypes and Inversion in The Yogi of Cockroach Court. Rekindling the Inner Light: The Frank Waters Centennial. Ed. Barbara Waters. Taos: The Frank Waters Foundation, 2003. 152-62.
"Sycorax Video Style: Kamau Brathwaite's Middle Passages." African Images: Recent Studies in Text and Cinema. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2000. 139-152.
"Gerald Vizenor's Griever: An American Monkey King in China: A Cross-Cultural Re-Membering." Loosening the Seams: Interpretations of Gerald Vizenor. Ed. A. Robert Lee. Bowling Green: Popular Press, 2000. 136-54.
Encyclopedia Articles
Kimberly Blaeser, Gordon Henry, Jr., Carter Revard, & Ray A. Young Bear. Encyclopedia of Multiethni American Literature. New York: Greenwood Press, 2005.
Dark River & The Light People. Encyclopedia of Native North American Literature. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
Book Reviews
In such journals as the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Studies in American Indian Literatures, Rocky Mountain Review, Great Plains Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Western American Literature since 1996.
Creative Works
Poems, song cycle, essay, slide films, and documentary television since 1975.
PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS
Since 1995, I have made 35 presentations at such conferences as the Modern Language Association, Western Literature Association, Native American Literature Symposium, Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, and Twentieth Century Literature Conference, as well as such special conferences as the Hemingway and Frank Waters Centennials; I have also organized and chaired numerous sessions.
SELECTED HONORS AND AWARDS
Larry Remele Memorial Fellowship, North Dakota Humanities Council, 2006-07.
SIUC College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Dissertation Award 2001-02.
Runner Up, J. Golden Taylor Award, Western Literature Association, 2000; Honorable Mention, 1997.
Alan M. Cohn Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in English, SIUC, 1998.
AEGIS/SIUC Department of English Literary Criticism and Creative Nonfiction Awards, 1997-98.
Phi Kappa Phi, 1997.
Nominee, Illinois Arts Council Literary Arts Award in poetry, 1997.
Finalist, Book: Snake Nation Press, 1995; Bluestem Award, 1994. Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1993.
Honorable Mention, Poem: Borderlands/Texas Poetry Review, 1995; San Francisco Bay Guardian, 1994.
Competitive Residency Fellowship, Vallecitos (New Mexico) Retreat/Witter Bynner Foundation, 1994.
Residency Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, 1975.
Selected Biographical Listings: Whos Who in the World, Whos Who in America, Whos Who of American Women, Whos Who of American Education, Whos Who in the Midwest.
GRANTS
NDSU Regional Studies Lecture 2005-06, North Dakota Humanities Council, 2005.
GTE Focus Grant, Minority Engineering Youth Program, 1992.
Southern Illinois Interpretive Folktales Project, Illinois Humanities Council, 1982.
Coal Miners Respiratory Disease Program, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1980 and 1981.
SELECTED UNIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
NDSU English Department Graduate Committee and SOAR Committee (interim chair, fall 2005), 2004-present.
Coordinator, NDSU Regional Studies Lecture, 2005-06.
Editorial Board, Boise State University Western Writers Series.
Manuscript evaluations for the University of Oklahoma Press, PMLA, Western American Literature, and SAIL.
Board of Directors, Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center, Moorhead, Minnesota, 2005-present.Andrew Flood Mara
Department of English, Minard Hall 320
North Dakota State University
Fargo, ND 58105
Andrew.Mara@ndsu.edu (701) 231-7146
Education
Ph.D. Rhetoric and Writing, University of New Mexico, 2003
M.A. English, The Pennsylvania State University, 1996
B.A. Literature with Honors, Minor in Music, The University of Redlands 1993
Academic Positions
Assistant Professor of English, North Dakota State University, Fall 2006-Present
Assistant Professor of English, Bowling Green State University, 2003-2006
Teaching Assistant in English, The University of New Mexico, 1996-2001
Teaching Assistant in English, The Pennsylvania State University, 1995-1996
Publications
Using Charettes as a Technical Writing Process/Genre, Technical Communication Quarterly, Spring 2006
Reinventing Audience through Distance, accepted for collection Composing and Revising the Professional-Technical Writing Program, Parlor Press, forthcoming 2006. (with Dr. Jude Edminster)
Balancing Acts: Tenure-Track Faculty in Learning Communities, Academe (July-August 2005), 44-49. (With Drs. Paul Cesarini, Joseph Chao, Andrew Hershberger, Dan Madigan, and Hassan Rajaei)
Genre, Rhetorical Interpretation, and the Open Case: Teaching the Analytical Report," IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications, 42 (March 1999), 20-31. (With Dr. Richard Johnson-Sheehan)
"Selling Possibilities: Hypertext, Freedom, and Direction," Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 12 (October 1998), 455-71. (With Dr. Lisa Craig)
Professional Conference Presentations
Invited
Cityblogging Digital Techniques Learning Community, Bowling Green State University, January 2006.
CityBlogging the Classroom, VR@RL Conference on New Media Rhetoric, July 2006.
Facing the New Normal, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, May 2004.
Refereed Papers and Presentations
"Publish or Perish and the Ripple Effect: Lessons From a Research and Teaching Faculty Learning Community," Lilly Conference on College Teaching, Miami, OH, November 2005.
Promoting Student Success with Digital Tools: Remediating Access, Conference on College
Composition and Communication, San Francisco, March 2005.
Digital Studio as Method: Bridging the Digital Divide in Technologies,
Cultures, and Institutions, Conference for CPTSC, West Lafayette, IN, October 2004.
Richard Lanhams Critique of the Humanities: The Hyperbole of Possibility in Hypertext, Conference on College Composition and Communication, New York, NY, March 2003.
"Using the Internet to Make the University Self-Study a More Open Practice," Conference on College Composition and Communication, Atlanta, GA, March 1999.
"A Transcendental Struggle with Moral Sentiment: Ralph Waldo Emerson's Letter to President Van Buren Regarding the Cherokee Removal," Southwest Symposium, March 1997.
"Navajo (P)Reservations: The Borders of Navajo Medical Interventions," SUNY Stony Brook
Connecting the Catchphrases Graduate Student Conference, March 1995.
"'One Arguing Voice': Louise Erdrich's Fragment Narrative and the Chippewa Oral Tradition,"
Central New York Conference on Language and Literature, SUNY Cortland, NY, Oct. 1995.
University Classes Taught
Graduate Courses
Bowling Green State University
English 640: Technical Writing Accounting 649: Writing for Accountants
English 642: Technical Editing English 580: Writing Process for Online Documents
Undergraduate-Graduate Courses
Bowling Green State University
English 580/487: Scientific Rhetoric and Writing
Undergraduate Courses
Bowling Green State University
English 488: Advanced Technical Writing English 486: Writing Process for Online Documents
English 389: Professional Editing English 388: Introduction to Technical Communication
University of New Mexico
English 290: Intro. to Professional Writing English 219: Technical Writing
English 102:* Analytic and Arg. Writing English 101: Expository Writing, 1996-1997
Pennsylvania State University
English 15: Analytical and Arg. Writing, Am Studies 100: Intro. to American Studies
Grants
OLNDigital Literacy and Communication Studio ($20,000 funded Co-PI) 2004-05
BGSU Learning Community Facilitator Development Grant ($3,000 funded) 2005-06
BGSU Research Learning Community Grant, ($500 funded) 2004-05
BGSU Research Learning Community Grant, ($500 funded) 2003-04
UNM Research Projects and Travel Grant ($500 funded), 2000, 2001
Graduate Professional Student Grant ($700 funded), 2001, 2002
English Department Travel Grant ($200 funded) 2002
Miriam OKane Mara
Department of English 210 N Eleventh St #102
Minard Hall 320 Fargo, ND 58102
North Dakota State University 419-957-3052
Fargo, ND 58105
Education
Ph.D. English, University of New Mexico, 2003.
M.A. English, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1998.
B.A. International Studies, Jacksonville University, Summa Cum Laude, 1989.
Professional
Assistant Professor: North Dakota State University.
Assistant Professor: Ohio Northern University, 2003-2006.
Instructor/Teaching Assistant: University of New Mexico, 1998-2003.
Faculty Consultant: Advanced Placement Reading, Educational Testing Service, Summer 2002 & 2003.
Publications
A Famine Of Preference: Anorexia in Contemporary Irish Literature. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, full manuscript under review.
Reading the Landscape for Clues: Environment in Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Murmurs That Come out of the Earth ed Christine Cusick, under review.
(Re)producing Identity & Creating Famine in Nuala OFaolains My Dream of You. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, forthcoming.
University Commons: A Place to Take an Educational Stand, Works and Days, under review (Written with Dr. Andrew Mara).
The Geography of Body: Borders in Edna OBriens Down By the River and Colum McCanns Sisters. Having Our Own Field Day: Essays on the Irish Canon, Ed. Helen Thompson. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006.
Sucking the Empire Dry: Colonial Critique in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Dickens Studies Annual Vol 32, New York: AMS Press, 2002. 233-246.
Professional Conference Presentations
Liquids I Can Eat Stephen Dedalus Channels Female Anorexia Grian Conference. New York. April, 2006.
Pathologies of Femininity: Cancer Crossing the Borders of the Body in OBrien and OFaolain Session Organizer. American Conference on Irish Studies. South Bend, Indiana. April 15, 2005.
Starving and Feasting in Nuala OFaolain and James Joyce Bloomsday 100: 19th International James Joyce Symposium, Dublin, Ireland. June 15, 2004.
Anorexia: Food and Control in Edna OBriens Fiction. The Irish Renaissance Cultural Festival, Albuquerque, NM. October, 2001.
Roddy Doyles own Bird Girl: An Eco-Critical Reading of Paddy Clarke Ha, Ha, Ha. Southwest Symposium, Albuquerque, NM. April, 2001.
The Schizophrenia of Narrators in Wilkie Collinss The Woman in White. Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States, Los Angeles, CA. October 22, 2000.
Epiphany or Rebirth: Evaluating the Bird Girl in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Miami Joyce Conference, Miami, FL. February 7, 2000.
The Trope of Silence in John Montague and Seamus Heaney. American Conference on Irish Studies Roanoke, VA. May 17, 1999.
Invited Presentations
Symposium Series: A Pharmacists Right to Choose, Ohio Northern University, 2005
Class-based Ethos in the Denial of Patients Rights
Lecture to Pennsylvania State University Department of English, 2003
Facing the New Normal
Lecture to Irish-American Society: Albuquerque, NM. October 11, 2002
Anorexia, Food, and Space in Contemporary Irish Literature
University Courses Taught
Ohio Northern University:
English 432: Studies in Comparative Literature
English 430: Readings in English-Language Literature Post-colonial Literature.
English 324: Victorian Literature English 263: Womens Literature
English 262: African Literature English 219: Non-Western Literature
English 214: British Literature II English 204: Great Works
English 111: Writing 2 English 110: Writing 1
University of New Mexico: As a Teaching Assistant I had the sole responsibility for classroom instruction of these courses (excluding English 537, which was team taught).
English 537: Teaching Composition English 295: Survey of Later British Literature
English 220: Advanced Expository Writing English 219: Technical Writing
English 102: Argumentative Writing English 101: Expository Writing
First Year Learning Community Linked Writing Course
Other Teaching
GRE Preparatory Class, University of New Mexico, Special Programs, Summer 2000.
Fantasy Quest: Tolkiens Lord of the Rings, Duke University: Talent Identification Program, 1999.
Writing With Power, Duke University: Talent Identification Program, 1999.
Grants and Academic Honors
Faculty Development Grant: College of Arts and Sciences, ONU. $1300. Summer, 2005
Faculty Development Grant: College of Arts and Sciences, ONU. $1000. Summer, 2004.
Phi Beta Delta, Honor Society for International Scholars, Ohio Northern University, 2004.
Research, Projects, and Travel Grant: Office of Graduate Studies, UNM. Under $500. Fall, 2000.
Research, Projects, and Travel Grant: Office of Graduate Studies, UNM. Under $500. Spring, 2000.
Phi Kappa Phi.
Sigma Tau Delta, International English Honor Society.
Pi Sigma Alpha, National Political Science Honor Society.
Social Sciences Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, Jacksonville University, 1989.
University Scholarship, Jacksonville University, 1985-1989.
Cynthia Nichols
219 16th St. N.Moorhead, MN 56560 HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/cinichol.htm" http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/cinichol.htm
Education
1980, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA. B.A. Honors, English Literature.
1984, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA. M.F.A., Poetry. Thesis: The Stars of Jupiters Darling. Teaching Assistantship (Competitive) in Introduction to Literature and American Autobiography.
Publications (partial)
Poems in Literary Magazines and Journals (National)
Forthcoming: Notes Toward Fearlessness. Quarter Past Eight. Winter, 2006.
To Rozanne. Painted Bride Quarterly. 75:3 (2006): 219.
Ex Voto. Karamu. 19:2 (2005): 28.
"Pedagogy and the Secret Syllabus" and "Dear B (Lines)." Writing on the Edge 15:2 (2005):
59-66.
Notes Toward Everything. Sentence : A Journal of Prose Poetics. Fall, 2004.
"Piano." Pif Magazine, June 2001.
Spot, Great Age of Shoes, Funny Language, Dear B, Dear B, P.S., Dear B (II). Cimarron
Review, Summer 2001, 79-90.
Above Highway 101 and Humboldt Bay and August Window. Cimarron Review. 1998: 88-95.
Pattis Dad and Remake the Goddamned World. Lake Region Review. January 1994: 20-23.
The Starlight Theater. Dominion Review. Spring 1993: 74.
American Dream. Mississippi Review. Spring 1992: 167-169.
Here and There and Country of Thistle. Mid-American Review 11:1 (1991): 101-102.
Names and Living Things and Exits. Gulf Coast, A Journal of Literature and Art 3.2 (1990): 14-15.
Garden Story and Owl. The Kenyon Review. 9.1 (1987): 63.Essays in Anthologies (forthcoming)
Uppity Subalterns and Brazen Compositionists: Confronting Labor Abuses with Theory,
Rhetoric, and the Potent Personal. Gypsy Scholars, Migrant Teachers and the Global Academic Proletariat. At the Interface/Probing the Boundaries Journal Series. Oxfordshire, UK: Rodopi Press.
Articles in Referreed Journals (National)
Remediation, Genre, and Motivation: Key Concepts for Teaching with Weblogs. Intothe Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs. Assisted/co-authored withKevin Brooks and Sybil Priebe. University of Minnesota, 2004.
"Responding in Kind: Down in the Body in the Undergraduate Poetry Course )Thoughts on Bakhtin,
Hypertext, and Cheap Wigs(." Enculturation: Special Multi-journal Issue on Electronic Publication 4.1 (Spring 2002): HYPERLINK "http://enculturation.gmu.edu/4_1/toc.html" http://enculturation.gmu.edu/4_1/toc.html
Grants and Awards (Partial)
Professional Development Grant, $900-$1000.00, Office of the President, Spring 2006, 2005, 2003, 2002,and 2001.
Faculty Institute for Excellence in Learning Fellow. (Problem-Based Learning), 2002-2003. $1,000.
2000 Bison Ambassadors Apple Polisher (annual recognition honoring outstanding faculty and staff members who work at NDSU). 22 February, 2000.
1999 Lois Vogel Outstanding Teacher Award. $500
North Dakota Humanities Council Grant (instruction). $1,050.00, 1996.
Sonora Review Merging Genres finalist, 1993.
Stipend recipient. Writing Across the Curriculum. Bush Foundation Grant. North Dakota State University, June 3-7, 1991. $500.
American Poetry Association, $1000 Grand Prize in poetry, 1988.
Readings and Presentations (Partial)
Poetry Readings (Invited)
Spirit Room, Annual Reading Series featured writer, Fargo, N.D. Oct, 2005.
Celebration of Tom McGrath, Spirit Room reading series (through Concordia), Fargo,
N.D., October 2004.
Featured Poet. Voices: Writers on the Plains reading series. Plains Art Museum, Fargo, N.D.,
February 9, 1998.
Allen Ginsberg tribute reading, Spirit Room, Fargo, N.D, 1997.
Regional Women Writers Poetry Reading. NDSU Womens Week, at Zandbroz, Fargo, N.D., 1 March,1994.
Reading by Plains poets, University of North Dakota. Grand Forks, N.D., c1988.
NDSU Womens Week Dinner. Featured poet. North Dakota State University, 1987.
Academic Conference Papers and Writers Conference Participation
Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing. Is Any Body Here? Swarming, Irradiated, and Lyrical in the Critical Theory Classroom. Fargo, N.D. April 7, 2006.
Society of Early Americanists Conference. Panel: Stranger than Fiction: Contemporary Poets and Historical Inspiration. Alexandria, Virginia March 31-April 2, 2005.
Northwoods Writers Conference w/Nancy Willard. Bemidji State University, MN. June, 2005.
Participant.
Craft, Critique, Culture: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Writing in the Academy. Grokking the Ancient Wound[]." University of Iowa, Iowa City. April, 2004.
Between Paper and Screen: Hybridity and Its Hazards in Recent Scholarly Writing. Research Network Forum, Conference on College Composition and Communication. Chicago, March 20, 2002.
Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing. When the poets repair to the forest of language, it is with the express purpose of getting lost: Thoughts on Teaching Poetry. Madison, S.D., 22 April 2001.
"Ghostly Professions/Motley Genres: A Report from the Academic Brink and Brim." North Dakota/Manitoba Linguistic Circle. Fargo, N.D. Fall, 2001.
Teaching and Course Development (Partial)
English 101-103, 110-111, 110-120, 226, 271, 298, 322, 323, 331, 358, 398, 498. 3-5 courses per term. Created 423, Creative Writing Studio, proposed and approved Spring 2005. Governors School Creative Writing: 2003-present. Uncompensated Independent Studies: c1990-2004. ESL Tutor: 2002.
Department, University, and Tri-College Service (Partial)
North Dakota Reads, Oakes Public Library, Oakes, N.D. North Dakota Humanities Council program. Discussion leader. April, 2006. $400 honorarium.
Cosgrove Seminars, 2002-present. (Will take over coordinators role Fall semester, 2006.)
Poetry on Wheels, point person and coordinator. Fall 2004-present.
Poetry Contest Judge, Red Weather. MSUM. 2004-present. $25 honorarium.
NDSU Liaison, Plains Art Museum planning committee: Voices: Writers on the Plains reading series, 1997-2000.
ROBERT HAROLD O'CONNOR
EDUCATION:
Ph.D. Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio - December, 1979
M.A. SUNY/Binghamton, Binghamton, New York - English, May, 1973
B.A. Cornell University, Ithaca, New York - English, June, 1970
AWARDS AND HONORS:
Robert Odney Excellence in Teaching Award, North Dakota State University, 1997-98.
English Department Nominee for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Award, 1995 and 1996.
Vogel Award for Outstanding Teaching in English at North Dakota State University, 1989.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
1997 - present Professor, North Dakota State University
1988 - 1997 Associate Professor, North Dakota State University
1985 - 1988 Assistant Professor, North Dakota State University
1980 - 1985 Assistant Professor, Southwest Texas State University
1978 - 1979 Lecturer, Southwest Texas State University
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
British Romantic Literature
The British Novel
Science Fiction and Fantasy
MOST RECENT ACADEMIC SERVICE:
University Senate Member (Fall 1998-Spring 2000, and Fall 2006-Present)
University Program Review Committee Chair (Fall 2006-Present) and Member (Fall 2003-
Spring 2005 and Fall 2006-Present)
English Department Promotion, Tenure, and Evaluation Committee Chair (Fall
1998-Spring 2005 and Spring 2006-Present)
Univeresity Teacher Partnership Program (with Mark Aune) (Fall 2004-Spring 2005)
Humanities and Social Sciences Promotion, Tenure, and Evaluation Committee Member (Fall 1995-Spring 1996 and Fall 2002Spring 2005)
SCHOLARLY/CREATIVE ACTIVITY (2000-PRESENT ONLY):
Strategy in Philip K. Dicks The Game-players of Titan: Winning the Rigged Game [book chapter]. The Games Science Fiction Writers Play. Ed. Pawel Frelik. Krakow: U of Krakow P (forthcoming September 2006).
The Hired Gun and the Bounty Hunter: Moral Ambiguity in the Post-McCarthy Era TV Western and Philip K. Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? [paper]. The Conference of the Science Fiction Research Association. White Plains, 23 June 2006.
Baz Luhrmans Moulin Rouge: Orpheus Again Descending [journal article]. The Lamar Journal of the Humanities Fall 2005: 38-46.
Strategy in Philip K. Dicks The Game-players of Titan: Winning the Rigged Game paper]. The Conference of the Science Fiction Research Association. Las Vegas, 20 July 2005.
Beauty or Truth: The Faustian Dilemma in H. Ryder Haggards She [paper]. International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Fort Lauderdale, 17 March 2004.
Baz Luhrmans Moulin Rouge: Orpheus Again Descending [paper]. International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Fort Lauderdale, 20 March 2003.
At Millenniums End: New Essays on the Work of Kurt Vonnegut, Ed. by Kevin Alexander Boon [book review]. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 13 (2002): 241-42.
Myth as Genre in British Romantic Poetry, by Paul Wiebe [book review]. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 12 (2001): 351-53.
Rituals of Hospitable Civility in Tolkiens The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings [paper]. International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Fort Lauderdale, 22 March 2001.
John Williams Mary Shelley: A Literary Life [book review]. SFRA Review 250 (Jan./Feb. 2001): 17-18.
David Punter and Glynnis Byrons Spectral Readings [book review]. SFRA Review 244 (Jan./Feb. 2000): 20.
The Decline and Fall of Billy Tinkerson [short story]. Carbon World VI (2000): 162-72.
The Think Tank [short story]. Carbon World VI (2000): 173-96.
Debra K. Peterson
Curriculum Vitae
Department of English 21 Broadway South, Apt. 509
North Dakota State University Fargo, ND 58103
320G Minard Hall Office Phone: 701.231.7156
Fargo, ND 58105 email: d.k.peterson@ndsu.edu
Current Position
Instructor Department of English, North Dakota State University
Education
2006 Ph.D. (expected), English, Wayne State University
1996 M.F.A., English, Western Michigan University
1992 B.A., English, Michigan State University
Publications
Essays and Chapters
Disneys Erotic Exotic. Under consideration at The Journal of Popular Culture.
The Femme Fatale Mother in Cold-War Noir. Under consideration at Quarterly Review of Film and Video.
Disneys Celebration: Citizens and the Corporate Community. Contemporary Justice Review. Forthcoming special issue on social justice.
"A Room With a View: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and the Use of MOO Spaces." The Pedagogical Wallpaper: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" in the Classroom. Ed. Jeffrey Weinstock. New York: Peter Lang, 2002.
Encyclopedia Entries
Fractured Fairy Tales. Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. Ed. Donald Haase. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. [Forthcoming]
SplashRon Howard. Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. Ed. Donald Haase. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. [Forthcoming,]
Walt Disney. Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. Ed. Donald Haase. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. [Forthcoming.]
Reviews
Rev. of Film Genre Reader III, edited by Barry Keith Grant, Austin, TX: U of Texas P, 2003. Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies. 4 (February 2005) Institute of Film Studies, University of Nottingham .
Rev. of Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-Garde, by Esther Leslie, London and New York: Verso, 2002. Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies. 2 (June 2005) Institute of Film Studies, University of Nottingham .
Presentations
Mothers and the Femme Fatale in Noir Film. Twenty-Ninth Annual Colloquium on Literature and Film: Constructing and Deconstructing Motherhood in Literature and Film. Morgantown, West Virginia. 30 September-2 October, 2004.
"'If It Aint Broke, Don't Fix It, or, If It Is Broken, Did Disney Fix It? Disney's Recent Family Films and Their Reception." Midwest Popular Culture Association. Minneapolis, MN. 17-19 October 2003.
Ohana Means Family, Family Means Nobody Gets Left Behind. Disney's Family Films, Cultural Studies Association. Pittsburgh, PA. 5-8 June 2003.
Stalking the Mouse: Doing Disney Studies. Modern Language Association. New Orleans, LA. December 2001. (Panel Organizer and Chair.)
Escape to Tom Sawyers Island: Designated and Discovered Free Zones in Walt Disney World. Rethinking Disney: Private Control and Public Dimensions. Public Intellectuals Program, Florida Atlantic University. Ft. Lauderdale, FL. November 2000.
"Beyond the Disney Version: The Postmodern Fairy Tale. Twentieth-Century Literature Conference at the University of Louisville. Louisville, KY. February 2000.
Service
2005-2006 Co-Chair, Department Curriculum Committee, North Dakota State University
2003-2005 Chair, Department Curriculum Committee. North Dakota State University.
2003-2006 Member, Department Assessment Committee. North Dakota State
University.
2004-2006 Manuscript Reviewer, Marvels & Tales: A Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies.
2005-2006 Member, Film Selection Committees: Animation, Experimental Films, and Narrative Shorts. Fargo Film Festival, Fargo, ND
2003-2006 Member, Black History Month Committee.2003-2004 Judge, Penning with the Pros. Fiction and essay judge for K-12 creative
writing contest organized by the Great Plains Network.
Teaching Experience Course Taught, North Dakota State University
2002-2006 English 110: College Composition I
120: College Composition II
English 220: Introduction to Literature
English 262: American Literature II
English 342: Nineteenth-Century American Short Story
English 343: Twentieth-Century American Short Story
English 344: American Drama
English 345: Themes in American Culture
English 345H: Themes in American Culture (Honors)
English 473/673: Contemporary American Literature
Amy Rupiper Taggart
369 Elmwood Ave. Department of English, 320 Minard
Fargo, ND 58103 North Dakota State University
(701) 239-3400 Fargo, ND 58105
HYPERLINK "mailto:amy.rupipertaggart@ndsu.edu" amy.rupipertaggart@ndsu.edu (701) 231-7148
EDUCATION
Ph.D., English (Composition & Rhetoric), May 2002, Texas Christian University Fort Worth, TXB.A., English and German, May 1995, University of St. Thomas St. Paul, MN
Universitt Trier Trier, Germany 1993-94
PRESENT APPOINTMENT
Assistant Professor of English (Writing)
North Dakota State University Fargo, ND
RESEARCH
Selected Publications: Articles
Pentadic Critique for Assessing and Sustaining Service-Learning Programs. Reflections: A Journal of Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy. Special Issue on Professional Writing and Service-Learning 4. Eds. Jim Dubinsky and Melody Bowdon. (Winter 2005). 78-102.
"Reciprocal Expertise: Community Service and the Writing Group." By Any Other Name: Writing Groups Inside and Outside the Classroom (peer reviewed). Eds. Beverly J. Moss, Nels P. Highberg, and Melissa Nicolas. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004. 95-112. (With H. Brooke Hessler).
The Community Writing Sequence. Teaching Ideas for University English: What Really Works (peer reviewed. Eds. Patricia M. Gantt and Lynn Langer Meeks. Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon, 2004. 55-68.
What Are Styles and Why Are We Saying Such Terrific Things about Them? Teaching Writing: Landmarks and Horizons (peer reviewed). Eds. Christina McDonald and Rob McDonald. Southern Illinois UP, 2002. 214-227. (With Rebecca Moore Howard, et al.)
Selected Publications: Editing and Reviews
A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. (Co-edited with Gary Tate & Kurt Schick).
Special issue on Rewriting Community Writing and Rhetoric Courses. Reflections: A Journal of Writing, Service-Learning and Community Literacy. Spring 2006. (Guest edited with H. Brooke Hessler).
Review of Writing Partnerships: Service-Learning in Composition. Composition Studies 31.2 (Fall 2003): 138-42.
Review of Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom. Kairos 7.1 (2002). Online available (With H. Brooke Hessler).
Selected Presentations
Advocates for Sustainability: Service-Learning Advisory Boards and Cross-College Consortia. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Service Learning Special Interest Group. San Francisco, CA. March 2005.
Reciprocity in Community Engagement? Childrens Writing as Public/Published Works. Conference on College Composition and Communication. San Antonio, TX. March 2004.
A Man at the Forefront, A Woman Nearby: Gender & Rhetorical Space in the Leadership Rhetoric of W. E. B. Du Bois and Jessie Fauset. Rhetorics Road Trips and Horizons. Penn State U. State College, PA. July 2003.
From Mission to Curriculum: The Uneasy Marriage of Religion and Service Learning. Panel Presenation & Arrangement for Invention. Workshop on "Using Rhetoric to Teach Writing." Conference on College Composition and Communication. Chicago, IL. March 2002.
The Container and the Thing Contained: Local and Institutional Scenes Shape Service Learning. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Denver, CO. March 2001. (Panel Organizer).
One or Many? The Problem of Authorship and Evaluation in Service Learning. Writing Program Administrators Conference. Charlotte, NC. July 2000.
"The Question of Motive: A Dramatistic Analysis of Service Learning." Conference on College Composition and Communication. Minneapolis, MN. April 2000.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
North Dakota State University Fargo, ND
Assistant Professor, August 2002 to Present
College Composition I, College Composition II, Honors Composition II, Introduction to Writing Studies, Intermediate Writing, Advanced Writing Workshop, Composition Studies: Seminar on Community Engagement, Composition and Rhetoric: Seminar on Authorship, Field Experience
Texas Christian University Fort Worth, TX
Graduate Instructor, August 1997 to May 2002
Introductory Composition, Intermediate Composition, Advanced Composition: "Writing about Pop Culture" (with Gary Tate), Multi-ethnic Literature (with Australia Tarver)
SELECTED SERVICE
Member, Vertical Writing Curriculum Committee. (Spring 2005-).
Member, Interdisciplinary Committee for developing a Peace and Conflict minor. (Spring 2004).
Member. First-year English Committee. NDSU. Fargo, ND. (2002-Present)
Member (2003-2004), Chair (2004-2005), Social Outreach and Recognition Committee. NDSU. Fargo, ND.
Board Member and Director of Research and Development, Write to Succeed, Inc. Fort Worth, TX. (1997-Present).
Board Member, March of Dimes. Fargo, ND. (2004-Present)
RICHARD MURRAY SHAW
1614 53rd Ave North Center for Writers
Moorhead, MN 56560 North Dakota State Univ.
Richard.Shaw@ndsu.nodak.edu Fargo, ND 58105
218-287-8682 701-231-7928
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Ball State University, May 1985. British and American Literature.
Major focus: Composition Research and The Teaching of English.
Dissertation: The Effects of Teachers Written Comments on the
Revision of Description Essays by College Freshmen.
M.Ed. Lyndon State College (Vermont), 1979. English Instruction and Curriculum.
M.A.T. (1967); A.B. (1966) Brown University,. French Literature.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Director, NDSU Center for Writers, and Assoc. Prof. of English & Education, 2004-
Associate Professor of English/Education, North Dakota State University. 1994-
Assistant Professor of English, North Dakota State University, 1985-1991.
Doctoral Fellow and English Instructor, Ball State University, 1979-1985.
English Instructor, Lyndon State College, Lyndonville, VT, 1977-1979.
English Teacher, Lake Region Union High School, Orleans, VT, 1972-1977.
French and English Teacher, Lake Region Union High School, 1967-1969.
HONORS
College of AHSS Award for Excellence in Service, 2003
Vogel Award for Excellence in Teaching, NDSU English Department, 1997.
Outstanding Doctoral Graduate, Ball State University English Department, 1987.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Shaw, Richard M., et al. Our Lives, Our Worlds. Harcourt Brace, 2001.
---. Ourselves and Our Lives. Harcourt Brace, 1997. Rev. 1998.
---. Ourselves and Our World. Harcourt Brace, 1997. Rev. 1998.
---. Writing, Reading, and Reasoning. Harcourt Brace, 1996; Ginn Press, 1987, 1991.
---. Kaleidoscope 3: Emerging Perspectives on Science,_Ethics, and Economics.
Ginn Press, 1990; Kaleidoscope 2: Emerging Perspectives on History and Social
Justice, Ginn Press, 1989; Kaleidoscope 1: Emerging Perspectives on Community
and School, Ginn Press, 1987, Rev. 1989.
Shaw, Richard.M. Barry Beckham. Cyclopedia of World Authors II. Salem Press,
1989; Jean De La Fontaine. Great Lives from History: Renaissance to 1900.
Salem Press, 1989.
SELECTED REVIEWS OF ENGLISH/EDUCATION MATERIALS
Milner & Milner. Bridging English, 2nd ed., 1999. Suggested revisions for
a complete 3rd edition by Pearson/Merrill, June 2000, Pub. July 2002.
Classroom Reading Assessment and Diagnosis: A Worktext for St. Martins Press,
October 1991.
Improving Your Comments on Student Papers: A Handbook for St. Martins Press,
March 1990.
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATIONS
Designing Assessment and Rubrics: Help Your Students Write Better Papers.
Presentation with Mary Pull at the International Alliance of Teacher Scholars Lilly
Conference, Pomona, California, March 14-15, 2003.
Errors and Expectations: Assessing and Improving Writing at NDSU. Presentation
with Mary Pull, University Assessment Luncheon, NDSU, November 14, 2001.
Improving Assessment Without Reinventing the Wheel (with Robert Harrold
and Julie Schrader). Collaboration Conference for the Advancement of
College Teaching and Learning. Bloomington, MN, November 20, 1998.
Co-chaired a panel on Questions of Agency in the Writing Process. College
Conference on Composition and Communication, Phoenix, AZ. April 1997.
Convened and chaired English Education workshops on Model Guidelines for the
Preparation of North Dakota English & Language Arts Teachers. Bismarck,
ND. June 7-8; March 28-29, 1996.
Helping Reluctant Colleagues Use Writing as an Assessment Tool (with Helen
Correll). Bush Regional Faculty Development Conference on Assessment,
Bloomington, MN. February 16, 1995.
Re-creating and Sustaining Writing Across the Curriculum (with SuEllen Shaw
and Beth Anderson). National Writing Centers Conference, New Orleans, LA.
April 14, 1994.
SELECTED FACULTY DEVELOPMENT/RESEARCH GRANTS
NDSU Technology Fee Grant for writing workshops ($5,710.00), 2004-2006.
NDSU Technology Fee Grant for CFW computers ($5,319.00), 2003-2004.
Bush Foundation Grant ($60,000) to assess quantitative and writing skills at
NDSU (with William Martin, NDSU Math Department), 1999-2002.
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
English Department: Assessment Committee, 19902006. PT&E Committee 2005. Vertical Writing Committee, 20042006. Teaching Evaluation Committee, 1997-2003. Curriculum Committee, 1995-1999. Computer Resources Committee 1986-1998. Writing Program Coordinator, 1985-1991.
School of Education: Associate Faculty. English Education Advisor, 1995 - present. Promotion and Tenure Committee, 1995-97, 2004-2005. Teacher Ed. Council, 1995-96.
College /University: AHSS Architecture Committee, 2000-2003. AHSS Student Progress Committee, 1997-2000./ Director, Center for Writers 2004-2006. University Assessment Committee, 1995-2003. University Scheduling and Registration Committee, 1995-1999.
Vita of Dale L. Sullivan
Full Professor, Department of English, North Dakota State University, 322G Minard Hall, Fargo, ND 58105, Phone: 701.231.7144, E-Mail: Dale.Sullivan@ndsu.edu
Educational Background:
Ph. D. in Rhetoric and Communication, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, 1988.
Master of Arts in English, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas, 1979.
Bachelor of Arts, St. Mary of the Plains College, Dodge City, Kansas, 1977.
Professional Experience:
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND. Tenured, Professor of English and Department Head, July 1, 2003 to present.
University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN. Tenured, Full Professor in Rhetoric. Department Head, May 13, 2002 to June 2003.
Michigan Technological University: Houghton, MI. Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Technical Communication and Director of Scientific and Technical Communication. Fall 1997-May2002, tenured 2001.
Northern Illinois University: DeKalb, IL. Assistant Professor of English (promoted to Associate 1995, tenured 1996), and Writing Across the Curriculum Coordinator. Fall 1994 to Summer 1997.
University of Nebraska at Kearney: Assistant Professor (promoted to Associate 1994) of English. Director of Writing Programs, Fall 1991 to Spring 1994.
Michigan Technological University: Houghton, MI. Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in Humanities Department, Fall 1988 to Summer 1991. Graduate Faculty.
Gordon College: Wenham, MA. Director of Writing, Fall 1987 to Spring 1988.
Kansas Technical Institute: Salina, KS. Assistant Professor, Spring 1980 to Summer 1985.
Publications and Presentations:
Edited Volumes
Guest Editor of Special Issue of The Journal of Communication and Religion. Conversations about Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian and Rhetorician. 28.2 November 2005. (All articles were peer reviewed).
Writing a Professional Life: Stories of Technical Communicators On and Off the Job, co-editor with Jerry Savage. Allyn & Bacon, 2001. (The whole book was sent out for peer review by the publisher).
Refereed Articles (Selected)
After Ten Years: Dietrich Bonhoeffers Epideictic Exhortation to Responsible Action. Journal of Communication and Religion, 26 (2003): 28-50.
Primary author with Michael Martin as second author. "Habit Formation and Story Telling: A Theory for Guiding Ethical Action." Technical Communication Quarterly 10 (Summer 2001): 251-272
Primary Author with Christian Anible as second author. "The Epideictic Dimension of Galatians as Formative Rhetoric: The Inscription of Early Christian Community." Rhetorica 18 (Spring 2000): 117-145.
"Keeping the Rhetoric Orthodox: Forum Control in Science." Technical Communication Quarterly 9 (Spring 2000): 125-146. Winner of the Nell Ann Pickett Award for the best article of the year 2000 in Technical Communication Quarterly.
Identification and Dissociation in Rhetorical Expos: An Analysis of St. Irenaeus Against Heresies. Rhetoric Society Quarterly 29 (1999): 49-76.
"Displaying Disciplinarity." Written Communication 13 (1996): 221-250.
"Migrating Across Disciplinary Boundaries: The Case of David Raup's and John Sepkoski's Periodicity Paper." Social Epistemology 9 (1995): 151-164. Reprinted in Scientific & Technical Communication: Theory, Practice, and Policy. Eds. James H. Collier with David M. Toomey. Sage, 1997, 330-349.
"Galileo's Apparent Orthodoxy in The Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina." Rhetorica 12 (1994): 237-264.
"Exclusionary Epideictic: NOVA's Narrative Excommunication of Fleischmann and Pons." Science Technology & Human Values 19 (1994): 283-306.
"The Ethos of Epideictic Encounter." Philosophy and Rhetoric 26 (1993): 113-133.
"Kairos and the Rhetoric of Belief." Quarterly Journal of Speech 78 (1992): 317-332.
"The Epideictic Rhetoric of Science." Journal of Business and Technical Communication 5 (1991): 229-245.
"Political-Ethical Implications of Defining Technical Communication as a Practice." Journal of Advanced Composition 10 (1990): 375-386. Reprinted in Humanistic Aspects of Technical Communication, ed. Paul M. Dombrowski, Baywood, 1994, 223-234; also reprinted in Central Works in Technical Communication, eds. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart Selber, Oxford UP, 2004, 211-219.
"Attitudes toward Imitation: Classical Culture and the Modern Temper." Rhetoric Review 8 (Fall 1989): 5-21.
Book Chapters (Selected)
First author with Michael S. Martin and Ember R. Anderson. Moving from the Periphery: Conceptions of Ethos, Reputation, and Identity for the Technical Communicator. Power and Legitimacy in Technical Communication, Volume I. Ed. Teresa Kynell-Hunt and Gerald J. Savage. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Company, Inc. 2003. 115-136.
"Two-Year College Programs." Education in Scientific and Technical Communication: Academic Programs that Work. Ed. Michael L. Keene. Society for Technical Communication, 1997. 167-181.
Invited Publications
Rhetorical Invention and Lutheran Doctrine? Rhetoric & Public Affairs 7 (Winter 2004) 4: 603-614. Invitation by Martin Medhurst, editor.
"Worries about the New Literacies." (Review of Mary Sue Garay and Stephen A. Bernhardt's Expanding Literacies.) Sigdoc 23 (November 1999) 4: 30-35. Invitation by Robert Johnson, book review editor.
Curriculum VitaeGary Totten
North Dakota State University 459 Birch Lane
Fargo, ND 58105 Moorhead, MN 56560
(701) 231-7158 (218) 233-8591
gary.totten@ndsu.edu
Education
Ph.D. English, Ball State University, July 1998
M.A. English, Brigham Young University, August 1993
B.A. Humanities (Magna Cum Laude), Brigham Young University, December 1990
Publications (published and in press)
Books:
Totten, Gary, ed. Memorial Boxes and Guarded Interiors: Edith Wharton and Material Culture.
Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2007. (in press)
Articles and Book Chapters:
---. Southernizing Travel in the Black Atlantic: Booker T. Washingtons The Man Farthest Down.
MELUS (2007). (in press, 34 manuscript pages)
---. Introduction: Edith Wharton and Material Culture. Memorial Boxes and Guarded Interiors: Edith
Wharton and Material Culture. Ed. Gary Totten. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2007. (in press, 23 manuscript pages)
---. The Machine in the Home: Women and Technology in The Fruit of the Tree. Memorial Boxes
and Guarded Interiors: Edith Wharton and Material Culture. Ed. Gary Totten. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2007. (in press, 35 manuscript pages)
---. American Seen: The Road and the Look of American Culture in Dreisers A Hoosier Holiday,
American Literary Realism (2006). (in press, 34 manuscript pages)
---. Teaching Travel Writing as Life Writing. Approaches to Teaching Life Writing. Eds. Craig
Howes and Miriam Fuchs. New York: MLA, 2006. (in press, 12 manuscript pages)
---Dreiser and the Writing Market: New Letters on the Publication History of Jennie Gerhardt.
Dreiser Studies 36.1 (Summer 2005): 28-48.
---. Zitkala-Sa and the Problem of Regionalism: Nations, Narratives, and Critical Traditions.
American Indian Quarterly 29.1/2 (Winter/Spring 2005): 84-123.
---. Ideology and Aesthetics in Teaching Gilmans Works. Approaches to Teaching Gilmans The
Yellow Wall-Paper and Herland. Eds. Denise Knight and Cynthia Davis. New York:
MLA, 2003. 26-31.
---. An Ordinary Tourist: Cultural Vision and Narrative Form in Dreisers A Traveler at Forty.
Dreiser Studies 33.3 (Fall 2002): 21-39.
---. Simone de Beauvoirs America Day by Day: Reel to Real. Issues in Travel Writing:
Displacement, Empire, and Spectacle. Ed. Kristi Siegel. New York: Peter Lang, 2002: 135-49.
---. The Art and Architecture of the Self: Designing the I-Witness in Edith Whartons The House of
Mirth. College Literature 27.3 (Fall 2000): 71-87.
Notes and Encyclopedia Entries:
---. A Cabin in the Clearing, Iota Subscript, Neither Out Far Nor In Deep, and Revelation. TheRobert Frost Encyclopedia. Eds. Nancy Tuten and John Zubizarreta. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001: 48-49, 172-73, 226-27, 304.
---. The Field of Study. PMLA 115.7 (December 2000): 2021.
Selected Conference Presentations (2001-present)
Technologies of Uplift: Race and Beauty in Whartons Twilight Sleep, MLA Conference,
Washington, DC, December 27-30, 2005
The Critics, The Canon, and Cultural Capital: Edith Wharton as a Short Story Writer, American
Literature Association Conference, Boston, MA, May 28-30, 2005
Traveling Through the Ruins of Western Civilization: Pilgrimage and Manifest Destiny in
Contemporary Native American Literature, International Travel Writing Society Conference, Milwaukee, WI, October 21-24, 2004
Cultivating a Cultural Vision: Dreisers The Color of a Great City, American Literature Association
Conference, San Francisco, CA, May 27-30, 2004
Teaching the Post-nationalist Road Narrative, MLA Conference, San Diego, CA, December 27-30,
2003
The Machine in the Home: Labor and Technology in Edith Whartons The Fruit of the Tree,
American Literature Association Conference, Cambridge, MA, May 22-25, 2003
Zitkala-Sa and the Problem of Regionalism, Midwest MLA Conference, Minneapolis, MN,
November 8-10, 2002
Re-writing Travel in the Black Atlantic: Booker T. Washingtons The Man Farthest Down, MLA
Conference, New Orleans, LA, December 27-30, 2001
Inhospitable Splendor: Spectacles of Consumer Culture in Edith Whartons Summer, American
Literature Association Conference, Cambridge, MA, May 24-28, 2001
Teaching Experience
Assistant Professor, North Dakota State University, 2004-present
Edith Wharton and Material Culture (Eng 770)
The American Road Book (Eng 499/696)
The Harlem Renaissance (Eng 475/675)
Nineteenth Century American Novel (Eng 340)
Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences (Eng 358)
American Literature I & II (Eng 261, 262)
Reading and Writing the Black Atlantic (Honors Eng 111)
First-Year Composition II (Eng 120)
Assistant Professor, Concordia College, 1999-2004
Appendix E: Previous Program Review Committee Report
A hardcopy of the report has been inserted after this page in the officially submitted self-study. However, for those reading this document as an online document, an electronic version is available at HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/dasulliv/ProgramReviewReport1999.pdf" http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/dasulliv/ProgramReviewReport1999.pdf.
Appendix F: Outside Review Reports
June 17, 2004
Professor Sullivan:
Here is my assessment of your programs in the English Department at North Dakota State University. I must say up front that I found President Chapmans Vision Statement and the two subsequent State of the University addresses to be compelling reading. The president seems committed to improving North Dakota State Universitys standing, and his commitment seems to be backed up with a willingness to generate and allocate funds to make his vision a reality. Reading these statements made me recall my time in Fargo and think about how exciting it would be to be part of the substantial changes you are undertaking. I wish you all the best of luck as you move toward realizing the presidents goals.
I will be quite interested to hear how you NDSUs English Department progresses. Obviously, a good bit of your success will depend upon your facultys commitment to change, and it does seem to me that you have a good start there. Another large component for success is the quality of the faculty, and I am impressed not only with their willingness to change but with their abilities: NDSU has a young English Department faculty, with good academic credentials in areas that are increasingly important to the discipline of English Studies. Together with your senior faculty, the department has the professoriate it needs to be successful with its undergraduate major, its MA, and a proposed undergraduate major in writing; with some additional faculty, the department should also be able to realize the goal of a PhD.
Another component for success, as my department has found out recently in a number of cases, is support from the upper administrationfrom the dean through the provost to the president and the board of trustees. If they are enthusiastic about the liberal arts, then you will not have to fight reallocations of your literature faculty; if they are enthusiastic about general education, then you should be able to maintain and even improve your writing programs; if they are enthusiastic about new undergraduate programs that can meet the emerging needs of students and the state, then you should be able to develop a BA in writing; and if they are oriented not only toward the traditionally central programs but also to the liberal arts, then you should have no trouble maintaining and even improving your BA and MA programs in literature. Sometimes, of course, the upper administration has other priorities than what the English Department realizes is best, but, as a rhetorician, you know what sort of strategies might be necessary and would be useful in realizing your goals. I guess what I am saying here is that you might think about getting out front on some of the proposals, making it clear to the upper administration why they are useful, smart, and necessary for the greater good of the state, the students, the institution, and the College of Agriculture (still the big dog on campus?), as well as good for the department. The departments proposals will no doubt be more successful when they are linked to upper administrations strategic plans and linked to specifically stated benefits to all parties, and when they are effectively promoted. My advice, for what it is worth given our inability to turn the tide on a couple of significant matters at my institution, is to keep the larger picture always in mind and not assume that everyone is as clear as we are about what is best.
I have organized this assessment by first addressing your questions that appear on pages 4 and 5 of your cover letter. My comments there are summary in nature and direct you at times to the major section of the assessment, which I have organized according to your academic programs: first, the first-year writing program, then the undergraduate programs, and finally the graduate programs. I think that my points are clear but please let me know if you would like clarification. My summary comments are sometimes blunt and as specific as I can make them. The bluntness and specificity, I hope, is seen for what it attempts to be: help to improve a department that appears already to be doing many things well and appears to have wonderful ideas to do more things well. My suggestions also lack knowledge of some important elementsspecifically, available resources, the nature of the administrations, the trustees and the legislatures attitude toward the English Department specifically and liberal arts generally, and other political concerns within the college and the university.
Again, best of luck.
Martin J. Jacobi
1. Long range planning: Curriculum design and program development; future
hiring; strengths and gaps in areas/faculty
I suggest that the BA in Liberal Arts be reorganized. Many of its courses are under-enrolled, which probably means that some faculty have quite small student loads while others substantially more, and so is at least a potential problem for morale. A reorganization of the majorfor instance, switching the focus of the major to courses and areas that are of more interest to new faculty and that address new directions nationally in English Studiesmay generate more English majors and thereby reduce pressure for reallocating literature lines.
We are in the process of revising our own undergraduate major in English, so I am expecting some very interesting faculty meetings this fall. Some of the suggestions that I make in my fuller discussion of the undergraduate major in Liberal Arts are drawn from discussions our committee has already begun.
For my extended comments on the major, see pp 10-12.
I think that you should strongly consider an undergraduate major in professional communication. Since NDSU is a land-grant university, it would serve in many ways to address needs and interests of your students; further, it can help students prepare for careers while also providing them with a strong liberal arts background, which I feel is absolutely essential for a good writing program. My institution has developed an professional communication emphasis area in the BA, and we are considering a separate BA in writing. (We actually had developed one but the upper administration put it on hold in order to focus attention on developing graduate programs.)
For my extended comments on this topic, see pp 12-13.
I think that an M.A. program should continue to receive funding because it helps to prepare teachers of the general education program, it helps to provide a base for students who wish to continue on to PhD programs, and it helps to improve teachers in public schools and two-year colleges and technical schools. Given the number of linguistic programs in the country and the number of jobs available, I think that this emphasiss cost and return should be examined very closely. However, the literature and the composition emphasis make perfect sense, for the reasons given just above. I also think that there should be, if there isnt already, a strong program for preparing your graduate students for the writing classroom/
For my extended comments on this topic, see pp 15-16.
I think that you need to be very careful in planning the kind of PhD program you want to offer. I think that you need to consider the long-term interest in this program, the employment opportunities for the graduates, and the ability of the department, the university, and the state to pay for it. In my opinion, you might look at a professional communication emphasis: it fits well with the mission of the university, it is needed for the development of teachers in tech schools and colleges, it is needed for industry, and its more narrow focus makes it more manageable regarding staffing and course enrollment.
For my extended comments on this topic, see pp 13-15.
Regarding hiring, I have looked for faculty who are capable of providing quality instruction in more than one areaespecially if one is losing literature lines. The time has passed, for us at least, for hiring a Shakespeare person, or a 19th Century American literature expert who has no other area in which she can teach. So we have been looking for faculty who cover traditional areas for literary studies, but not necessarily in the traditional ways and not exclusively those areas. As chair, I hired faculty who covered British Romantics and film, Childrens literature and film, creative writing and contemporary poetry, creative writing and journalism, and so on. It seems fairly clear to me that literature programs, in an era of declining enrollments, need to do more with less as the department shifts to areaslike media studies, cultural studies, diversity studiesthat more closely fit the direction of the discipline and the interests of the student body, and as the department is asked to develop new programs in writing.
Perhaps the English Department at NDSU will gain more faculty in writing and professional communication while losing faculty in traditional literature. As you mention, the number of majors has remained static as the student body at the university has grown, so one cannot expect that standing pat will long be acceptable to the upper administration. My thought is, as they say in Great Britain, to sex up the major, not because one wants to prostitute the liberal arts but because the major is shifting. Our students know and are interested in media studies, from movies to television to computers, and we need to offer them liberal arts in these contexts. (Or, to put it another way, the study of literature itself was sexy for me and perhaps for faculty of my generation now teaching at our institutions, and the way I learned literature was considered unacceptable by some of the older faculty in my undergraduate and graduate programs. A similar situation obtains nearly every generation, I suspect, and we must e willing to change with the times or become irrelevantto students and to the upper administration. (Just one proposal we have consideredprimarily for our general education sophomore literature program but prospectively for the majoris a course that uses computer classrooms to incorporate film clips, secondary research, and historical materials in the context of a literature and media course. This course would address your second question on the cover sheet, it would generate student interest, and it most likely would be what a number of your faculty would be interest in and capable of teaching.)
Depending upon the directions you take concerning the writing major and the PhD, you might have some substantial gaps in faculty expertise. In any event, I do believe that you do lack the faculty to offer the current programs and courses and, in addition, a writing major and a PhD.
2. Integrating practical communication and technology into the humanities
curriculum
A successful approach to integrating technology, practical communication, and the humanities, I believe, can be realized in general education courses, in the undergraduate program, and in the graduate program.
The general education program, in addition to its responsibilities to develop critical thinking, reading, and writing, can bring positive attention to the department, can improve its status in the university and the community, and can provide a place for research (at the PhD level, certainly) and teaching (in first-year writing and in the undergraduate writing major) for faculty and graduate students. At my institution, we have almost all of our first-year writing courses in computer classes, and this move allows us to integrate humanities, practical communication, and technology quite effectively. Your faculty know the value of multiple drafts of assignments, critiqued by faculty as well as peers, and no doubt some faculty know about software programs that make peer reviewing and faculty oversight easy and effective. The computer can also be used to model research strategies and actually to bring research into the course. For instance, this fall the first-year students will have read Tim OBriens The Things They Carried over the summer and participated in a lecture/discussion with the author at the beginning of the semester. Their first pieces of writingdone over the summerwill be part of an assignment which, I suspect, will include for most sections of the course research into Vietnam-era history. It will also be the first entry into each students electronic portfolio. (My institution offers summer institutes to prepare faculty to use electronic portfolios. Such portfolios are useful in assessing student writing for the benefit of faculty who want to improve the program, for higher education representatives accrediting the program, and so on. They also serve to provide students with a body of work that they can show to potential employers interested in their communication skills. The students first exposure to the electronic portfolio is in their first-year writing courses, so we are quite explicitly and significantly involved.)
So, integration of practical communication, humanities, and technology can be done very effectively in the first-year program.
For my extended comments on the first-year program, see pp 7-9.
In much the same way, an undergraduate English major could integrate humanities and technology, and depending upon the course design, some practical writing as well. For instance, a class could ask students to read William Dean Howellss short story, Editha, and also look at resources on the web that explain the history surrounding the Spanish American War. Given the hyped information used to promote the Vietnamese war (such as the Gulf of Tonkin resolution) and the hyped information used to promote the recent Iraqi war (WMD, connections to Al Quaeda, etc.), a study of the hype that led us into the Spanish American War and a look at the imperialist results would be valuable educational time for majors in the English program.
An undergraduate major or emphasis in writing (specifically professional writing but also pedagogy, for English Ed majors) will necessarily integrate practical writing with technology and, since practical writing is rhetoric and rhetoric is the queen of the liberal arts, with rhetorical theory and practice.
A PhD that emphasizes professional communication would integrate these three areas would, I believe, be a valuable addition to the profession. The costs are substantial, but the program is a logical way to make these connections, and a logical PhD program for a land grant university.
3. Departmental Strengths and Weaknesses; responses to both as NDSU moves to
the future
One of your great strengths seems to be a faculty committed to making necessary changes. Contention among faculty stops or at least seriously delays progress, and given your presidents charge, you do not want to lose any time.
Further, because of your status as a land grant institution, your desire for a PhD program, and the state of the profession of English Studies generally, and because you are already developing a faculty component in this area, I think that you should continue to develop an emphasis in writing and especially professional communication. I would look to find and retain strong faculty in rhetorical theory and in composition, and in areas such as visual communication, workplace communication, international communication, and various combinations of rhetoric and computerssuch as multi-media authoring, information architecture, distance education, and such. The public schools and the higher education system both need teachers trained in this area.
However, it seems to me crucial that the literature faculty retain an equal place in the department. I know I mention this sentiment elsewhere in these pages, but it bears repeating that writing faculty at my institutionmany of whom have national reputations and are not easily if at all replaceablehave made it clear that they do not want to build writing programs at the expense of the literature programs, because a strong university must have a strong literature program, and because they simply do not want to have to work at an institution that does not value the liberal arts.
The greatest weaknesses, as I understand your department are the insufficient number of faculty needed to staff all of the programs you have and are proposing, and the lack of funding that enables faculty to do and present research. I do not have a budget for the proposed PhD, but I am also concerned that insufficient funding for that program will be very real and significant weakness. As I mention in my extended comments on this program, faculty must have reduced teaching loads, advertising and recruiting money must be adequate to identify prospective students and bring them to campus, stipends must be attractive enough to seal the deal with the prospective students, and so on.
4. Can NDSU meet all the changes we face with current numbers and resources?
To take advantage of the many exciting possibilities, you need more than the current numbers and resources.
My department (in an institution of approximately 17,000 undergraduates) has thirty-five tenured or tenure-track faculty, between twenty-five and thirty instructors, and at least 20 graduate teaching assistants. Faculty teach 3/3, instructors teach 4/4, and TAs teach 2/2. The latter two categories teach only general education courses and the faculty teach some general educationmostly sophomore literature. (Students at my institution take 12 hours of general education requirements from the English Department.) Out of thirty-five tenured and tenure-track faculty, my institution has twelve faculty whose primary area is rhetoric and composition or professional communication. Some of these faculty are on reduced loads because of administrative appointments, endowed professorships, and reassignments based on grants and contracts, so that out of a maximum of 72 courses (12 faculty x 6 courses/year) these faculty probably about 36 courses each year. Thus, very few of these faculty can teach our general education writing courses (either first-year composition or third-year business or technical writing) because they are teaching in our MA in Professional Communication program or teaching upper-division courses in professional communication, rhetoric, or composition theory.
We have had accepted by the state a PhD program in professional communication, which will be taught primarily by faculty in our department and in the department of communication studies. We feel that faculty absolutely need to be on a 2/2 course load, in order to increase research productivity, to teach the graduate seminars, and to work with students on dissertation committees. Even with the assistance of the communication studies departments faculty, many are concerned that we will not have the faculty to do the large amount of work required for a PhD program.
Further, we have instituted a writing concentration in our undergraduate major, in which students would take half of their English Department courses in literature and half in writing. We had originally planned to offer a separate BA degree in writing, but the university wanted a PhD program first. We are quite concerned, therefore, that we get additional lines to help us with our PhD and with the reduction in course loads for these faculty.
If you have no new resources, the most effective action, I believe, would be to develop the undergraduate writing major. It would require some reallocation from the literature lines, the abandonment of the PhD program, and perhaps a revision of the first-year writing program that would reduce it to one course. The problems, of course, are that reducing first-year writing will increase problems with retention, and retention is a goal of President Chapmen; abandoning the PhD program runs counter to another of President Chapmans goals; and reallocating lines from literature weakens that program and thus an essential part of the university.
If you have new resources, I would recommend that the general education program be looked at for ways to bring national attention to the institution. Then I would develop the undergraduate program in writing. Then I would develop graduate programs in professional communicationboth M.A. and PhD. My thinking for this ranking is that (1) emphasizing general education would greatly benefit students, so retention rates, and so a universitys national reputation; if it is able to realize improvement through an innovative program with a rhetorically savvy P.R. arm, it would further increase national exposure and prestige; (2) an undergraduate program is affordable, would be successful in placing graduates in business careers, would be available for a humanistic emphasis, and would provide potential students for graduate programs; and (3) any PhD program coming out of an English department has a good deal of national competition, although one that emphasizes professional communication would be best suited for NDSUs strengths and its mission.
5. Suggestions for PhD program, to exploit departments strengths and give
students regionally marketable degree.
For my extended comments on this topic, see pp 13-16.
6. Additional Issues?
I have tried to put into this assessment, one place or another, anything I could think of that might be useful.
FIRST-YEAR WRITING
I think that connecting the program to priorities on campusas you do with leadershipis a good idea for a number of reasons. It gives readings and assignments more obvious significance for students, who see their classroom topic elsewhere given a significant place in the academic community; it adds to the coherence of the program by linking the many sections through a common set of readings and assignments; and it weaves the program into other campus programs and priorities, making the writing program more visible and important to the upper administration. With such benefits in mind, you might think also about linking the program to other initiatives and priorities of the university. At a glance, I do not see how to link the program to the four university themes mentioned in the presidents 2003 State of the University Address, but perhaps you could use these or another set of initiatives or priorities or themes. For instance, at my institution the writing program has worked into its sequence the provosts set of strategic emphasis areas.
Our program has also made links with the yearly Shakespeare Festival, with the presidents colloquium, and, most recently, with the incoming first-year students summer reading program. The Shakespeare Festival was begun by an English Department faculty and had at its origin a connection with the first-year writing program; English Department faculty were also instrumental in developing and implementing the presidents colloquium (over the past three years it has addressed cloning, academic integrity, and campus diversity and access to education) and the summer reading program (now in its second year, with Hunger of Memory and Richard Rodriguez last year and The Things They Carried and Tim OBrien this August). Again, these university initiatives were tied to the writing sequence, and from their beginnings. For instance, the presidents colloquium drives an essay contest in the first-year sequences sections, and the summer reading program asks incoming students to write a short paper that is taken up in break-out sections led by university faculty, after the authors talk, and that serve as the first entry into their electronic portfolios and a first draft of one of their writing assignments.
As I mentioned above, we believe that the more connections we can make with programs across the campus, the better our visibility and, we hope, the better our funding. (These connections helped us get an increase in our graduate teaching assistant stipends from $7,000 to $10,000.)
(As an aside, we have also worked specifically and thoroughly to link our junior-level general education courses in business writing and technical writing to the campus and community through project-based instruction and service learning: a faculty member recruits for and coordinates projects from other departments, area businesses, and local government agencies, and oversees English faculty involved in the courses. We can tout project-based learning and service learning as ways in which our own land grant institution serves others, and the provost has repeatedly mentioned this program in addresses to faculty and the Board of Trustees. By instituting this program, we have raised the profile of these courses and their instructors (to a large extent, instructors not on tenure-track) and, I believe, have secured the courses from threats in the reorganization of our general education program.)
Your documents mentioned some interest (or perhaps pressure) in spreading the writing requirements throughout the students different yearsa vertical integration. Its tough to argue that most students at a land grant university can succeed with only one writing course in the first yearespecially given that the need to develop critical reading and thinking skills, as well as critical writing skills, oftentimes falls to the writing program. And given the explicit and repeated emphasis by your president on retention, it may be dangerous to limit students writing courses in the first year, since such a limitation may well lead to lack of success in their other courses. Thus, perhaps an additional writing course at the junior levellike business writing or technical writing or advanced compositionmight be an answer to the problems of how to keep students writing, and how to help them continue to improve their writing, during their academic years. Perhaps in addition to this new requirement, the university could encourage a strong communication across the curriculum programnot to replace writing courses taught by faculty trained to teach them but to enhance these courses. Pitched appropriately, such an integrated program to enhance students communication skills could be the sort of innovative program that would rightly get the attention of the president, the board of trustees, and outside entities that could provide publicity and funding.
Although I am wary of a single first-year course, and although I do not know the quality of your entering students writing skills, and although I do not know the financial pressures, it is conceivable to make a case for replacing the second course in the first year with a required course in the junior yearprovided that a CAC program were instituted, provided that there was a strong (re staffing, re funding) writing center, and provided that students who fall below some certain threshold (perhaps to be determined, as we do, with a portfolio sent to the department over the summer) be required to take an additional one-hour lab (paid, at my institution, by the students through our lab fees). Another alternativebut again Im in an area of NDSU general education that I dont knowwould be to have one first-year course, a sophomore course that is writing intensive and that treats of literature and visual media (that is, a course with a basis in literature and a pop culture/media emphasis), and a junior course in business writing or technical writing that would lead into students writing in their science, agriculture, engineering, and other major fields.
All of this is to say something you already knowthat there are many ways to get good writing, and oftentimes the approach finally adopted is a combination of institutional and faculty strengths, financial considerations, and political compromises. In this regard, I have two last thoughts regarding the first-year writing program. At my institution, we are cognizant of the US News listings for Top 20 institutions, and one of the ways of improving an institutions score is to increase the number of courses that enroll less than twenty students in each section. Until the latest state budget crisis this spring, we had convinced the president and the provost to lower the caps on our composition courses to nineteen, so that the institution could improve its standing. (If the budget deficit turns out to be less than expected, we may still have this cap.) A number of top tier institutions have recently taken just this route, and it might be worth considering as a strategy at NDSU.
Secondly, regardless of what sort of writing program you put in place, and how many students enroll in each section, the quality of the instruction is crucial. With talk of an undergraduate major and a PhD in this area, your writing faculty will be most likely doing almost nothing with general education writing courses, so the support for teaching assistants and instructorsmany of whom, as you well know, have literature as their primary interest and trainingis essential. You also well know how hard it is to teach writing in large sections, especially if the teachers are also working to complete their own M.A. degrees and lack experience in teaching writing. A PhD that has a strong component in rhetoric, composition, and professional communication will, down the road, offer some help in staffing these courses, but there will not be enough students in that program to cover the many writing sections required. Nor can any state-supported English Department expect to hire enough tenure-track faculty to make much of a difference in staffing. Thus, any institution that takes writing seriously has to realize that paying graduate assistants a few thousand dollars per course, or instructors perhaps three thousand dollars per course is counter intuitive. Of course, the upper administration knows as well as the faculty that one gets what one pays for (or at least usually such is the case, although I know of some excellent and committed writing instructors at my institution who are grossly underpaid), so it helps to have additional reasons for increasing the focus on writing and so on the compensation. (I actually taught with at least three of your non-tenured faculty and can only imagine how good they are now, given how good they were when I was there in the early 1980s. Certainly they deserve a salary more in line with their skills and commitment.)
So, perhaps you could think about other concerted, concentrated, and forward-looking arguments, especially if President Chapman is as open to new ideas as he appears to be. At my institution, a university committee developed, over three years, a new general education program that would have given our 17,000 plus students a program similar to that at small, liberal arts institutions and would have put us on the national map and in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It would have cost less than many of the proposals adopted by the upper administration having to do with improving some aspect of the engineering college, or technology issues for education, or what have you. Not to say that these proposals were without merit; what I am saying is that for a relatively small investment, a revised general education curriculumdriven by critical reading, thinking, listening, speaking, and writing skills and focused on topics of interest to the administration, to other programs on campus, and to the national educational establishment (ours used a set of emphasis areas from a Carnegie Commission report)would give the president a lot of bang for the buck and give you an important place in his thinking. (Unfortunately, our proposal was not accepted because the university wished to increase its PhD offeringsmuch like NDSU, ironicallyand it remains to be seen whether that decision was a good one.)
UNDERGRADUATE MAJORS
A. Liberal Arts Major
As I understand the requirements, students must take 33 credits, broken down as follows: 6 credits in either the British lit survey or the American lit survey; 3 credits each in Intro to Writing Studies, Linguistics, Intermediate Composition, and the Capstone course (12 credits total); 15 additional credits, with at least 9 credits at the 400 level. (Given that English 271 is required for the capstone course, it seems that students actually have as major field electives 12 credits, with 9 at the 400-level.) The recommended curriculum lists a total of 51 credits in English, or 18 above the requirement.
My concerns with the curriculum as it is currently presented to students are these, in no particular order.
I imagine that students would have questions about why the number of credits being recommended is so different from the number required. If NDSU is like my institution, I imagine that you are discouraged from requiring the number of credits you would like (even though some majorslike engineering at my institutionseem to be able to get away with it), and that you want to maintain enough electives in the program so that students can switch their majors to English. Still, the information is potentially confusing, and I would rewrite the recommendations to indicate where the students would take their 33 required hours, with perhaps a note at the bottom suggesting that electives be used to expand coverage through additional courses. I would then speak to the advisors about how they should counsel students regarding their curriculum.
Currently, a student can graduate with 33 credits of English beyond the first year, and of those only 3 credits would be in a 200-level or 300-level non-required course (given that English 271 is in fact a prerequisite of the capstone course so, in effect, required). This curriculum makes it hard for the 200-level and 300-level courses to make. Perhaps the thinking is that students will want to take these courses as electives over and above the 33 hours, but, nonetheless, those teaching the courses may feel some injustice in the arrangement. I notice that these courses are more heavily enrolled than the 400-level courses, which I would guess is a result partly of students outside the major taking them as electives and partly because English majors are taking them as electives beyond their 33 hours. Further, by identifying in your recommendations of 51 credits courses in Shakespeare and creative writing, both 200-level surveys, and eighteen hours at the 400 level, once again the 200-level and 300-level non-required courses are not given the kind of attention other courses are.
The low enrollments of the 400-level courses are quite problematic. At my institution, we do not feel we can afford to run courses in the major that enroll less than 10 students and generally we schedule enough 400-level courses so that we average about 30 students; a course that consistently has lower enrollments ends up not being taught. However, we do have almost 200 English majors and a good many English Ed majors, so obviously we have much more flexibility than does NDSUs English Department.
Running small courses is very expensive and takes away from the flexibility you have to develop and then staff new courses and programs. Currently, some probably teach a fairly heavy student load each semester, while others teach a relatively light load, and that disparity is not conducive to collegial relations in a department. Further, and regardless of collegiality issues, some upper-level administrator may see the low enrollments, the proposed undergraduate writing major, and the proposed PhD as reasons to reallocate literature lines as faculty retire ormore ominouslybefore faculty are tenured.
My recommendations, which I offer with some diffidence, are these, again in no particular order.
I would continue to require a survey at the 200-level for all students. In fact, I would be inclined to require both surveys and try to have courses dedicated only for English majors, so that they could provide a broader and deeper survey than what would be possible for a general education course.
I would be sure to have an intro course for the major. (It seems that maybe the 275 functions somewhat that way, and perhaps the 271.) I would require it before any 300-level or 400-level courses could be taken (or else the purpose of the intro to the major is defeated). One does have to consider students who transfer into English from other majors, but we have found that when students in their senior year took the intro course it was wasted.
I suggest separate intro courses for the Liberal Arts major and the proposed writing major, perhaps 271 for the proposed writing major and 275 for the English major. If this new major does come on line, I would suggest that the Liberal Arts major be geared specifically toward literature, with the Introduction to Writing Studies course not required.
As it stands, students appear able to take the capstone course at any time relative to their 400-level courses. I would limit enrollment to majors who have completed most of their requirementsstudents in their last year if not their last semester.
I would suggest a substantial revision of the course offerings for the Liberal Arts major. Perhaps, given the interests of the new faculty and given the way the discipline is moving, NDSU might consider group areas, from which students are required to take courses. If students were required early in the curriculum to take both survey courses, they would have two years for these group requirements and, if the department advertised its course rotation, the students would have a number of options to consider. If the Liberal Arts major had a 36-hour requirement, the first 15 hours could include an intro course and the two surveys, and the other 21 hours could be divided into something like 6 hours of American literature, 6 hours of British literature, 6 hours of an open category, and 3 hours of diversity course options. Courses like Topics in American Fiction, Topics in American Poetry, and Topics in American Drama (with the same for British literature) would offer faculty flexibility to teach more specifically to research interests; in different semesters, these topics courses could include different authors, selected by whichever faculty member teaches the course and according to that faculty members research and other interests. For the open category (whatever this category might be called), courses like, for example, Romanticism in British and American literature, Naturalistic Fiction from Europe and the United States, Popular Culture in Film and Television, and Protest Lyrics of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, and Others would again offer faculty a great deal of flexibility for presenting their research in the classroom. And courses like, for example, Womens literature, African American literature, Native American literature, Latino/a literature, would provide options for some faculty and provide students with opportunities to study literatures and issues they may not otherwise have or choose to have. Obviously, the curriculum could be divided in many different ways, but my goals would be twofold: to increase the number of students in each section, and to provide the faculty with increased opportunities to blend more closely their teaching and their research. With planning, the faculty could be sure that students have some mixture of national literatures, chronological periods, genres, and so forth, and given that no program can give depth everywhere (unless students are required to take many more than 36 hours in the major), why not set up the curriculum for faculty interests, too?
I realize that offering fewer upper-level courses decreases the options for faculty, but it seems that there are at least three reasons for considering this decision anyway: first, the proposed PhD and BA writing programs are going to require more faculty, and it may not happen that the upper administration will provide those lines without requiring additional reallocation in the departments faculty lines; second, there are retirements in the offing, I understand, so the revised curriculum could be realized without dislocation of current faculty career objectives; and third, there are simply not enough English majors to allow for a great number of course offerings without severe financial costs. It is possible, I believe, that a revised English major that has significant places for cultural studies (including media studies) and diversity literatures might attract new majors, so it might be worth talking with your dean about this option before literature lines are reallocated to the writing program.
B. Writing Major
There is not a lot of information about this program. From what I can see, there is an interest in a writing major that includes professional writing, writing pedagogy, and creative writing. At my institution the English Department considered a similar major, with the inclusions in some part at least the result of political issues: the department wanted to keep all faculty happy, and it wanted to protect all our writing areas from possible reductions in force for the purpose of reallocating lines to more preferred programs.
My thinking is that the undergraduate major ought to be quite specific and relatively narrow about its interests. Frankly, I do not see the need for a linguistics requirement in the Liberal Arts major, and I am not convinced that it is essential even for a major in writing. Further, it may not be feasible to include an undergraduate emphasis in creative writing, or at least not on a par with literature or professional communication, and not only because, traditionally, creative writing is emphasized in an M.F.A. program. While I do not know the financial resources available to the department, at my institution we have been grappling with the realization that we cannot be all things for all people: we would like to have emphasis areas, or concentrations, or strong minors, for creative writing, journalism, film, cultural studies, professional communication, childrens literature, humanities, to name a few, but we simply do not have the faculty to staff the courses for all of these programs. Can you offer a strong creative writing component, along with meeting your other needs? Does UND already have a strong creative writing emphasis? If so, would the state legislature, or the board of trustees, or a dean suggest that such an emphasis simply is not needed or necessary at NDSU?
Another way to make this point is to say that the undergraduate major might better focus specifically on professional communication. A number of land grant institutions have developed undergraduate degrees in this area over the past decade and many of them have had to impose caps on enrollment due to demand from students. Because it is more narrowly focused, the program would also require fewer courses taught each semester and fewer faculty to staff those courses.
So, an undergraduate major that offers rhetorical theory, technical and/or business writing, editing, visual communication, workplace communication, information architecture, multimedia authoring, proposal writing, and so forth would be quite attractive and probably as much as your faculty could now manage, given their other commitments. Housed in the English Department, it would be able to prepare students for specific careers and also provide them with the kind of liberal arts base that is important not only for progressing in their careers (beyond grunt work and into management) but also for being thoughtful and contributing members of their society and their political world. Furthermore, it may provide students interested in continuing into graduate programs in the area. I would imagine that at an institution such as NDSU, it would become quite a popular major.
(I do not see a course in rhetorical theory in the dream curriculum for the writing major included in your materials, but I think that rhetorical theory is as important for a writing major as literary theory is for a literature major or math is for engineering.)
GRADUATE PROGRAMS
A. PhD Program
Given what has happened at is about to happen at my institution, I think that NDSU needs to consider very carefully a PhD program. From my perspective, at least the points below should be considered very closely.
Is there enough interest in the sort of program that you have outlined that would sustain the program? It is difficult now for students in literature PhDs to find employment, so it may not be a good idea to emphasize that area. From the perspective of the legislature, North Dakota would not seem to have the need for two PhD programs in literature; in my state of South Carolina, the legislature is adamant about not allowing duplication in graduate programs, and we have substantially more citizens than does North Dakota/ Further, the University of Minnesota has a first-rate program and is not too far away. Given that many graduate students are on stipends, in-state versus out-of-state tuition does not seem to be a major consideration.
Is there enough interest nationally in your prospective graduates? Research on the MLA Job Information List with which I am familiar suggests that the number of advertised tenure-track positions that are finally funded and filled has been going down for a number of years; I am not sure about the terminal-appointment positions, but many in the discipline see as unacceptable preparing students for low-paying, insecure positions, in part because it makes it that much more difficult to keep good tenure lines funded. Some disciplines work hard to keep their number of graduates low, so that those who are employed have good salaries and security, and while no institution may feel that it ought to fall on its sword to help the discipline at large by shutting down a PhD program, I do not think building a new one with a literature emphasis is the best use of funds. Further, I am not sure what sort of market there would be for graduates with a pedagogy emphasis in the way it is outlined in your program. During my years hiring tenure-line faculty (and we made over fifteen hires when I was chair for four years and over twenty five in the last seven years), we never had occasion to look for a pedagogy person. I do not know enough about the Education programs needs and areas of training, but I would think that between their programs and traditional rhet/comp programs in English, there are more than enough applicants for positions right now.
The real need, or at least what I believe to be the real need and what our own research indicated to be the real need, is in professional communication. You mention that your PhD would complement the PhD in communications at your institution, although I am not sure what sort of expertise that faculty would have in this area. Our research and our discussions with faculty in our own communication studies department suggest that professional communicationat least the kind that is in demand in the MLA JILis not an emphasis in the field of communications. So, my suggestion is that the PhD focus on professional communication, finding a niche in that area that would allow you to compete nationally as well as regionally with U of Minnesotas program, Michigan Techs program , Michigan States new program, and so forth. Otherwise, you will have too few faculty training too few students for too few positions.
The market for these graduates exists in higher educationfrom two year colleges and tech schools up through research I institutions, and it also exists in industry. We expect that our students will be about equally split between these two areas.
With or without the narrowed focus I suggest, here are some other concerns about a PhD program that I am not sure how you are addressing:
I do not think that you have enough faculty to run general education writing courses, two undergraduate majors, an MA literature program, and a PhD. I have guessed that the literature faculty have fewer students now than do the writing faculty, but a PhD will not change that dynamicno matter how configured provided that professional communication is part of it. I think that the faculty lines will migrate from literature to writing at an accelerated rate, unless the department receives a number of new lines. My institution has a dozen faculty in English and three more in communication studies for whom professional communication is the major area, and we believe we will need a number of additional faculty for our proposed PhD in professional communication. (We have general education writing, an emphasis area at the undergraduate level in professional communication, and a thriving M.A. in professional communication already, although we have a great number of instructors and grad teaching assistants to help with the general education component.)
I should also mention that our writing faculty, including two endowed chairs with national reputations, have expressed very clearly their disinterest in dismantling the literature faculty, and the literature BA and MA programs in order to staff and fund the writing programs; they believe, as do I and as do the overwhelming majority of our dozen writing faculty, that the professional communication program and faculty must have connections with traditional liberal arts literature faculty and programsfor personal, professional, and disciplinary reasons. So, I would not argue that the proposed PhD and BA be built by gutting the literature faculty and programs. If they cannot be built without harm to those programs, they should not be built at all. I believe, as a matter of fact, that many professional communication faculty around the country, given the choice, would go to an institution that also has a strong literature component, so for recruiting purposes alone your literature program ought to be maintained.
Your proposal mentions 4-6 students enrolling (each year) and an expectation of at least 2 graduating each year. That seems to be a reasonable estimate, but it given that breadth of your proposed program, how many seminars would you need to run each semester and how many students would be in each one. That is, another benefit of narrowing the focus would be that you would need to run fewer seminars, with each one having more students.
I believe that it is not reasonable to ask that faculty increase their research productivity to PhD program levels, teach seminars, and oversee dissertations, all while teaching a 3/3 teaching load. Even if the program does go through with this load, you risk losing your best faculty to one of the many institutions that require less teaching.
In addition to the substantial cost of lowering teaching loads, the PhD program has a number of other costs. I do not have information on whether or how these costs are to be met, so I will simply list what I think that most important ones are.
( Faculty will need support for conferences, travel to collections, and equipment
( The library will need a very large sum of money to meet the needs of a PhD program
( A program in professional communication will need computer equipment, labs, and
other facilities
( The current rate for PhD student stipends in professional communication is,
according to our research, pushing $18,000 yearly. We know that is more than is
currently paid to graduate students in communications and in literature, but to
compete with Minnesota, Texas Tech, Purdue, et al, that figure is going to have to be
approached.
( Further, there are simply not that many prospective students. I know that programs
have substantial recruiting budgets and that some even offer signing bonuses. Is
there money available for advertising, travel, and other recruitment costs?
( Our dean wants the program to be funded to a great extent by grants and contracts
secured by faculty. However, we see at least these two problems. Faculty need to
write and then administer the grants, thereby taking them out of the classroom and
away from graduate advising and dissertation work. Much more importantly, we have
not found any programs similar to ours that have been able to generate that sort of
additional funding. So, whatever the costs, they will have to come from the current
budget or from new appropriations.
( Given all of the costsfaculty course reductions; increases to library holdings;
graduate stipends; money for research, recruitment, technology, and facilities; new
staff positions and administrative positions, and so onthe expense is enormous. I
havent a draft of our budget with me, but I know that by the fifth year we were
expecting to need over one million dollars annually in reallocated or new funds.
Granted, we expect at this point to have approximately 32 students enrolled full time,
but I do want to iterate the seriousness of the financial commitment and the potential
threat to existing programs if the money is not forthcoming from new sources.
B. M.A. program
The program looks to have a traditional literature track, in addition to composition and linguistics tracks. Based on your stated goals for the program, it seems to be quite reasonable. (I do wonder how many students in linguistics go through the program and what they do with that training. There does not seem to me to be much call for that emphasis and I wonder if resources might not be better used. At the least, since I suspect the English Education program is in part the reason why the English Department offers so many linguistics courses, has the department a way to request additional funds to meet accreditation needs for students in that major?)
At my institution we have been talking for some time about refocusing our M.A. in literature. (We also have an M.A. in professional communication.) Currently, there are no immediate plans to overhaul the program, but the junior faculty are interested in making over the graduate program in their own imagesby which I mean that they would like to see the program more in line with the directions they see the profession heading and that they would like to be able to teach more to their research interests. However, we also see the graduate program, as do your department, as a preparation for a PhD program in literature, and my time at ADE meetings has convinced me that these programs want M.A. students with a solid grounding and breadth in literature. That is, we are not sure whether our students interested in going beyond the M.A. are better served by this program or a revised one, but we do believe that students who plan to teach in two-year colleges or in high schools are better served with the more traditional approach that emphasizes breadth.
So, I do not think I would advocate much change in the programs curricula. Of course, depending upon the nature of the PhD program, you may want to consider another track at the M.A. level.
My only other suggestions concerning the M.A. have to do with the preparation of the graduate students to teach in the first-year writing program. If I understand the information, students can enter the program and immediately teach. We had that situation until the state board of higher education passed the 18-hour rule, which requires that students have 18 hours of graduate credit in their field before having teaching responsibilities. We think that the rule has improved our teaching, because students in their first year can take composition theory and apprentice with experienced faculty. Of course, supporting first-year graduates is expensive, although we do use them to staff the Writing Center and the Multi-media Authoring Teaching and Research Facility, and to assist departmental administrators and faculty doing research. But, short of giving these students time to prepare, I would suggest that they be required (if they are not already required) to take English 764 in their first semester. And if you do not already have such a program in place, I would suggest a one-week workshop on teaching composition required of all first-time teaching assistants, weekly practica for the second semester that focus on that course, faculty mentors assigned to each new graduate student, and a common syllabus developed by your WPA and not adjustable by graduate students at least in their first year of teaching. As Wayne Booth frequently has noted, the first-year writing program is one of the most important courses that undergraduates will take, and if the department is not going to get the kind of funding necessary to staff these courses with the same level of faculty who teach in the majors across the campus, it falls to the English Department to do all in its power to make sure that these courses meet their potential.
Review of the English Department Curriculum
at North Dakota State University
June 2004
Douglas Hesse, PhD
Professor of English and Director,
Center for the Advancement of Teaching
Illinois State University
Campus Box 3990
Normal, IL 61790-3990
HYPERLINK "mailto:ddhesse@ilstu.edu" ddhesse@ilstu.edu
309 438-7175
At the invitation of Department Head Dale Sullivan, Im pleased to offer a review of the North Dakota State University English curriculum. Professor Sullivan sent a comprehensive packet of folder of materials to support the review, including information about the university and President Chapmans plans, information about the department, including its mission statement and cvs of full-time faculty, lists and descriptions of courses, along with syllabi and enrollments, descriptions of current major and minor programs, and proposals for a new doctoral program and new writing programs. In addition, I received a comprehensive summary of the departments history, with a candid assessment of resources and opportunities, co-authored by Professors Sullivan, Birmingham, Johnston, Peterson, and Shaw. The departments thorough preparation, has put me in a reasonable position to offer some perspectives. Ive organized my remarks to correspond to questions raised in the cover document to the portfolio.
1A. What are issues the department may wish to consider for curriculum design and program development?
Contexts
As the department well knows, the field of English has undergone a substantial transformation in the past quarter century, from nearly an exclusive identity as the study of British and American literature, with some composition and scattered writing offerings on the side, to a varied terrain shorthanded as English Studies. In that new landscape, not only do additional literatures figure more prominently but so do various critical and theoretical perspectives; an expanded range of Texts (including not only verbal ones) justified by the tenets of cultural and rhetorical studies; literacy studies; and a whole panoply of writing: technical and professional, civic, and creative. While Im confident that English departments at prestigious private universities will successfully continue for sometime a narrower focus on literary studies, Im equally confident that most English departments will better thrive by embracing a more comprehensive English studies model.
The NDSU English department has moved in that direction, as signaled most notably by hiring decisions and curricular developments in writing studies. In this transitional phase, the change appears rather more accretive than transformative. That is, the materials as I analyze them represent English studies rather as a federation of topical areas (literary studies; rhetoric, composition, and professional writing; creative writing; and linguistics) than as a new entity. I should point out that such a pluralistic move is change in a healthy direction and likely the most politically tenable. Still, however, I note that the main clause of the draft mission statement highlights the phrase inspire an appreciation for the English language and its literatures, and the words inspire and appreciation continue to hearken back to a different era, even if that mission statement goes on to articulate more innovative directions. Contrast, for example, that first sentence of the mission statement with something like, The mission is to develop a sophisticated understanding of textuality and to develop facility in both interpreting and producing a variety of texts: literary, popular, rhetorical, instrumental, and so one, with particular attention to the historical and cultural contexts of their creation.
To bring this rather abstract contextualizing to a close, I will observe two practical challenges with an additive English studies curriculum. One is that with but 14 full-time faculty, hiring specialists in even a portion of the sub areas of literary, rhetorical, writing, and language studies is an exercise in frustration. Second is that the large number of courses in the catalog make two things difficult: offering courses on some regular basis and achieving some kind of coherence in the experiences of English majors, especially undergraduates.
Broad recommendations for the undergraduate major
The portfolio cover letter notes that the current undergraduate curriculum lacks vertical integration. Right now, the general requirements are a two course sequence in either British or American literature and a course in language/linguistics. Everything else appears to be elective. If the department truly aspires to an English studies model, I suggest withdrawing the current requirements and (A) developing a new gateway course to the major or a required sequence of three courses, and (B) developing a second tier cluster requirement, for a sequence that leads from gateway to middle tier to capstone.
A. The nature of the gateway.
First Option: A single new gateway course might engage students with a few generative questions:
What are literary texts? What is the relationship between them and other kinds of texts, including popular, rhetorical, journalistic, and so on?
How can texts can be analyzed and interpreted? Why? What good does analysis and interpretation do? For individuals, for specific groups of people, for the culture at large?
What is the history of English as a discipline? What have English majors traditionally read, for example? What values have traditionally been attributed to the kinds of knowledge that English produces?
Why and how do writers write? What are the circumstances and practices that shape their writing?
What has literacy meant at different historical moments? What does it mean now?
How do people develop as readers and writers? What accounts for differences in the ways that even speakers of the same language develop differently as language users?
Already with that set of questions Ive sketched a nigh impossible course. What Ive really begun to describe is the outcome of an undergraduate major, a complex of courses. What could plausibly happen in a single introductory course with a set of questions like this would be some general scaffolding of English studies.
Second Option: An alternative to a single course would require students to take three prerequisite courses:
A revised version of 271 Literary Analysis, retitled as Introduction to Literary and Textual Studies that takes up questions 1, 2, and 3, immediately above. Such a course might include canonical literature, popular literature, television shows, and New Journalism or creative nonfiction.
English 275 Introduction to Writing Studies, which sounds like a fine course as it is, already taking up question 4
A new course 27X Introduction to Language and Literacy which incorporates elements of the existing 450, 452, 453, and 454 (getting at the heart of question 6 above) and perhaps expanding to question 5.
B. Second tier requirement
Group as much of the existing curriculum as you can into three different categories corresponding to the three courses outlined in the second option above. Require students to take at least a second course in two of the areas and three courses in the third.
Now, under the second option for part A, youre up to eight courses in the major. A required capstone, 497, makes it nine. That leaves one elective for students who will want the barest minimum major, but I speculate that many of your majors already take a course or two or three beyond the minimum and will continue to do so. Of course, under the first option for part A, youre at seven specified requirements, with more freedom.
Arranging the curriculum in this fashion would both more reasonably map the terrain of English studies and provide a more coherent and vertical orientation to the curriculum.
Observations about the Masters program
This program and its various tracks strike are well-conceived. Particularly exemplary is the portfolio review process and the nature of the Masters Paper. I have just a couple of small questions that might be worth exploring.
First, I wonder about titling what I would call the Writing emphasis the Composition emphasis. Composition tends more to designate the world of teaching required college writing courses, in all their guises. While that is one option listed under this emphasis, the leading options suggest more a professional communications focus. You might have various reasons for preferring Composition, including some desire that this term will be re-mediated (as Cindy Selfe and others have hoped) to point more broadly to multimedia composing, creating texts that have elements in addition to words. Still, you might reflect on the term.
Second, I wonder about the linguistics/rhetoric combination, which seems a once-and-future proposition. That is, my own sense is that linguistics and rhetoric were more closely linked twenty or thirty years ago than they are today. (And even looking back to the medieval trivium, I dont see rhetoric as more necessarily linked to grammar than to dialectic.) With the development of critical linguistics in the past fifteen years, theres a renewed basis of their joining. But it still seems to me that most people in rhetoric and composition these days would not see them as necessarily yoked fields. Again, you may have local reasons for this label and combination. Im just pointing out a small discordance.
1B. Directions for future hiring? Faculty strengths or weaknesses?
For an institution with 12,000 students, an English department of only 14 full-time faculty (some of them) is disproportionately small. To some extent, this is a chicken or egg situation; as you note, the number of majors is small enough that you cant rely on majors demand to push more hiring. The departments service mission, through composition, would seem to warrant more tenure lines, but as long as North Dakota State, like many institutions, is reasonably satisfied with the required writing program staffed at its current price, theres little leverage there. The 3/3 teaching load is somewhat high for a PhD-granting department, though institutions comparable to NDSU often have a 3/2 load, and some have been successful with 3/3. (Illinois State University had a 3/3 load for a number of years but was able to move to 3/2 above five years ago, primarily by strategically increasing course sizes in selected general education courses.) Especially in a writing-intensive English department, the number of students a faculty member has is more a limiting factor than the number of sections. If teaching a 3/3 load allows faculty members occasionally to teach a section of 8-10 students, the trade-off seems worthwhile. However, the PhD does suggest a raised level of faculty publications; Id caution the department and university against raising this level too high without a substantial realignment of faculty loads.
In choosing to develop rhetoric and professional writing, the department has made a good decision, and it seems to have hired astutely. I note, for example, that faculty interests are broad, that the writing faculty, for example, have literary and other field interests and that, conversely, the literature faculty have a range of interests and teaching specializations that regularly range productively beyond their areas of concentration.
A potential strength of the faculty is the apparent interest in areas of popular and cultural studies. Professor Petersons recent hiring epitomizes this interest, but shes not alone in a capacity to teach a set of courses in addition to the traditional literary courses on the books.
Such a range is important because the numbers of faculty are so small. By strategic design, the department has hired well in composition studies and professional communication and can claim a strong concentration in that area. (Keeping this faculty together will be something of a challenge due to continued mobility in this field.) However, with but a single linguist and two and four faculty in American and British literatures, respectively, traditional coverage becomes problematic. In the literature courses, this is tenable if those faculty dont teach out of field in first-year writing, etc. The single linguist might be more problematic, even given the fact that in most English studies programs, linguistics is a lesser partner. As future openings occur, it would be useful to hire someone concentrating in literacy studies or critical linguistics who might overlap with rhetorical studies or postcolonial literatures.
One gap I see now in the faculty is in the area of creative writing. I dont know what your local experience is, but in almost every department I know, creative writing offerings burst at the seams, and if I were looking for additional ways to build undergraduate major numbers, I would offer a fuller sequence in creative writing. Now, it may be that youre able to staff sections with existing faculty, adjuncts, and TAs. Still, a publishing writer brings an extra level of visibility, energy, and credibility to the program. You might either hire someone in fiction or someone in creative nonfiction, but I suggest someone able to teach in both areas. I dont know your students at all, but Id suggest looking for a writer who is willing to work with students in genre courses, at least from time to time. By that, I mean someone who committed to the literary tradition but who, additionally, is welcoming now and then of students who want to work in more realist traditions or, even, kinds of writing that one might actually sell.
That brings me to an alternative. Earlier I noted your need to forego trying to fill every possible slot in English studies; it may be impractical to extend further into creative writing. However, I would encourage you to add some additional options in what Ill call freelance writing or writing for other than business or academia. These genres include not only poetry and fiction (including commercially viable work) but also creative nonfiction, environmental writing, new journalism, memoir, magazine essays, internet content, interviews, reviewsin short, the whole gamut of work that gets sold by the piece. Students may be as likely to make a career out of such writing as they are out of studying literature, but my point is that there such kinds of writing courses are appealing to students and should draw majors and enrollments. Further, such courses are justified because they do develop writing abilities and extend students understandings of genre, audience, and purposes beyond the relatively narrow academic and vocational domains presented in most programs.
Finally, the bulk of the writing program is delivered by nontenure-track faculty. That a high percentage of these are long-term lecturers brings some stability to the program. However, there must be assurances that those faculty members continue professional development. Do they present papers at conferences? Do they have memberships in CCCC and read journals? Do they participate in colloquia? Are they thoroughly integrated in decision making for the program? Answers of no for many faculty is a sign of weakness in the writing program. This is especially true when the program is pursuing smart but challenging revisions to the first-year writing courses, as described in the thoughtful FEC White Paper.
2. What models might we use to integrate practical communication and technology skills into our traditional humanities curriculum?
I offer three models or some combination of them.
a. The first model, which I proposed above, employs 1) a gateway course or set of courses that, either singly or together, are designed to clarify connections between the practical and the humanistic, and 2) course distribution across these areas. Further, the faculty might work to articulate such connections for themselves, perhaps using the mechanism of white papers, a thoughtful example of which concerning the first year writing program was included here. As a next step, you might adapt those articulations for students, which would help them make the connections.
b. Beyond a revision of degree requirements and that would mandate some mixture of course work in both domains, you might rethink some individual courses. Creative writing MFA programs, for example, tend to teach literature differently that English departments, focusing on reading like a writer, with heightened attention to issues of craft and effect. So might some literature courses attend not only to interpretation, cultural criticism and so on but also to authorial decisions and the circumstances of works production, printing and publication, and distribution. In mirror fashion, some writing courses might have a stronger interpretive reading element, looking at texts not only in terms of their rhetorical strategies and compositional elements but also in terms of their interpretation through any of the several critical methods currently employed in literary studies. If enough faculty consciously taught their individual courses in ways that connected these two aspects of English studies, students would be encouraged to see connections. Alternatively, the department might develop two or three courses specifically designed to bridge the gap.
c. Perhaps the most promising mode of integration might come through the co-curriculum. Imagine a very robust student magazine (perhaps online) or website that published literary criticism, creative writing, internship reports, book and film reviews, and so on, a magazine or site that, further, published news not only about the program but about developments in English studies elsewhere. It could publish some senior projects. Consider not only the writing opportunities and audiences for students but also the editorial, design, and production aspects. Such a robust ventureand Im talking about something considerably more ambitious than a once-a-year magazinewould unify elements of the department as perhaps nothing else might. It would have the further benefits of giving English majors some common cause and social dimension, and it would create visible and ongoing artifacts of the departments efforts. Look, for example, at the work by NDSU Communication students at HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/communication/studentwork/work.php" http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/communication/studentwork/work.php and aspire to go that better.
3. What are departmental strengths and weaknesses?
Above I noted the writing faculty and diversity of faculty interests as a departmental strength, and to this I would add the willingness to undergo tough introspection as implied by this review.
A second department strength is the assessment plan devised for the undergraduate major. By accumulating four types of artifacts from different phases of students careers and by having both a capstone project and a portfolio of student work, the department will have a thick way of assessing the program, a method consonant with both the goals of the major and the nature of the discipline. Analyzing and discussing these materials should be a fine faculty development opportunity. Beyond scoring the portfolios, you may find it helpful to analyze a random sample of the portfolios very closely..
A third strength is the planning that has occurred for the first-year English sequence. The department is astute to join campus and professional dialogues on engaged learning and to join campus initiatives such as Communities of Caring. The aspirations of a fused English studies curriculum described at the bottom of page 5 of the White Paper would serve the larger department well.
The main weakness at present is the imbalance between courses on the books and the numbers and areas of expertise of the faculty to deliver them. Despite the clear aspirations for a broad English studies model, and despite the apparent commitment to that vision, the curriculum in the catalog represents the department differently. I realize that the actual term-by-term course offerings vary in proportion of offerings from the catalog, but having so many courses creates not only a planning inertia but also risks failing to represent the department in a compelling fashion to prospective students, the university community, and prospective faculty members. In order fully to embrace an English studies model, then, the department will likely have to reconceive its course offerings, especially in literary studies. This will be a painful process because every single one of the courses listed in the catalog can well be justified, and speaking as someone who continues to value my own traditional education in literary studies, I know that a winnowing will necessarily constitute a loss.
Finally, on a far different topic, I note that paying GTFs $12,000 to teach 3/3 is exploitative and counters best professional practice, however much the GTFs themselves might desire this arrangement. It is healthier for the program and for the graduate students themselves (and I recognize it sounds paternalistic for me to say this) to discontinue this category of teaching and hire instead at the level of lecturer. I very much doubt there is sufficient money in the department budget to accomplish this change through reallocation, so the change would require an investment by the university.
4. Can we make changes with current numbers and resources? If so, what recommendations can you make for allocating resources most effectively. If not, what suggestions can you make for prioritizing change and growth?
Several questions might be begged with these questions, so permit me to rephrase them as, Given our current numbers of students and faculty, the current makeup of our program, and our aspirations, how would you prioritize change and allocate resources?
1. Increase the number of undergraduate Liberal Arts English majors by at least 50%. For an institution of your size to have only 60 majors doesnt give you much clout on campus. All sorts of curricular innovations depend on having sufficient numbers of students. Some of this growth will depend on marketing: explaining the program more compellingly to students. Some will depend on demonstrating to students that the English department is interested broadly in undergraduates work and civic futures, not just its intellectual traditions. Both will depend on modifying course offerings; the trick here will be to reconcile vital scholarly traditions and faculty interests with what will have face value to students. But, after all, enrollments in your film, writing, and popular culture courses are considerably stronger than in traditional literature.
2. Revise the undergraduate major requirements, perhaps along the lines I suggested above.
3. Develop the co-curriculum. What opportunities can the English department sponsor outside the curriculum in order to link practical and liberal arts studies. I described this in response to question 2, above.
4. Realize the full potential of the Center for Writers. Youre right to see opportunity in transforming this resource into a center of activity on campus. Among other things, it will provide some co-curricular opportunities for students. Beyond providing assistance in writing, I urge pursuing two additional initiatives for the center. First is an identity of writing in all its technological manifestations; the center should not simply be a place where students come to fix broken essays but rather a place where people can come to work on visual and graphic designs, to work on web pages, to incorporate multimedia and so on. Second, the center should have a faculty development component. I know the budget for the center is meager. However, a strategy for increasing that budget is to provide a rich compelling vision for what the center needs to be and to argue for resources to meet that vision. Such visions may likely be more attractive to the campus than a demonstrable need for more traditional tutors.
5. Keep the PhD program modest. Frankly, I would caution against pursuing the PhD. However, given the campus aspirations and climate, it would be foolish to decline these efforts. My own experience and fear is that the PhD can become a tail wagging a dog, commanding disproportionate faculty resources and amounts of energy, especially to the extent that teaching doctoral courses has more prestige than other faculty activities. You keep the program modest by narrowly defining its scope, as you have (but I have further suggestions, below), by limiting the number of students enrolled, and by working as best you can with a cohort strategy that tries to move students through the degree in groups, allowing for strategic planning and leanness in course offerings, assuring that students finish in a timely fashion.
6. Substantially revise the course offerings. I would be pleased to make specific recommendations for this, but the lateness and length of this report prevent my doing so now. If youd like me to do so, please ask, and Ill pursue this as a follow-up.
5. How might we fine-tune our proposed doctoral program to exploit strengths and provide students with a regionally marketable degree?
A department with faculty resources as tight as yours cant offer every permutation of dissertation areas, and youve wisely narrowed your focus. The precise focus of the programon preparing graduates for teaching careers or for careers as professional writersis somewhat diffuse. The three core courses (Technology in English Studies, Directions in English Studies, and Pedagogy of English Studies) that establish the English studies theme are clearly aimed toward teaching. Yet the proposal also mentions cutting edge skills needed in business and industry as well as higher education. As intellectually salutary as the English studies courses might be, it would be harder to rationalize them as requirements for professional writers.
I suggest clarifying this issue further: do you really want both a practitioner track and a teaching track? If so, do the English studies courses make sense for both? Is your existing masters program sufficient for professional writing practitioners?
A further question. Page 5 of the proposal calls for an emphasis on writing in all of its forms and resists focusing on composition or literature. I agree with this broader perspective, and yet the existing PhD courses and the proposed ones dont deliver on that promise. What shows up (in courses 755, 756, and 757, and 758) is composition. That suggests a fairly narrow perspective. What happens if you substitute writing for composition in all those courses? Unless by composition you mean something very broad, composing in the fashion that Cindy Selfe and others have argued for recuperating the term, composition refers to the fairly narrow tradition of school writing mainly in first year composition. I raised this same issue in my comments on the Masters program.
Im confused by the Sample Programs of Study for the PhD program. After all the explanations on writing in all of its forms and what seems to be a prescribed range of dissertation projects, Im not sure what to make of the only two sample programs being suggested for a composition emphasis and for a literature emphasis.
One course you might want to consider adding is in Writing Program Design and Administration, since PhDs in writing frequently have such responsibilities. Such a course might talk about writing centers, freshman composition, writing across the curriculum, writing majors and minors, certificate programs; about teacher training and faculty development; about assessment; and so on. Of course, this could be offered under the 757 number, which would make the course and number could be offered on a regular basis.
It will be extremely difficult to attract quality PhD students by paying $8000 for a 2/2 teaching load. Aspire in the very near term to increase this by at least 25%.
Conclusion
I commend the English department for its commitment to undergoing a pervasive and difficult transition, a commitment already demonstrated in hiring decisions and the nature of the PhD being planned. The complexity of the process is compounded by the fact that the department staffing is extraordinarily lean, and its faculty have quite full teaching responsibilities. While I firmly believe the changes you are making are not only pragmatic but, more importantly, intellectually defensible, I do recognize how painful they can be. While I have been professionally active in rhetoric and composition studies and writing program administration, my own deep training is in both writing and literary studies. Im deeply invested in many aspects of English studies, including literary history and aesthetics as well as rhetoric and writing studies. There is considerable value in reading a wide historical range of literary texts, and in my perfect world there would be sufficient time to read widely in the expanded canon. Still, the broader approach as signaled by your plans is most defensible.
I would be more than happy to clarify or expand any ideas presented here. If I have failed to address one of your key concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Appendix G: English Department Promotion and Tenure Guidelines
English Department Promotion, Tenure, and Evaluation Guidelines
Revised, May 9, 2006
University PT&E guidelines are available at HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/policy/352.htm" http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/policy/352.htm.
The most recent version of the VPAA Promotion and Tenure Guidelines should be reviewed by the candidate prior to applying for promotion and tenure. Those guidelines are linked from the following URL: HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/vpaa/info.shtml" http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/vpaa/info.shtml.
The College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences tenure and promotion guidelines are available in the Colleges handbook, available at HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ahss/office/College%20Handbook.pdf" http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ahss/office/College%20Handbook.pdf
Prefatory Material
The following items establish key definitions, procedures, and ways to read dates found in this document.
Promotion, Tenure & Evaluation Committee Defined
For the purpose of evaluation, all tenured faculty, excluding the chair or head, who have completed three years of full-time appointment with the University and who have attained the rank of associate professor or above, are qualified to serve on the department PTE committee.
The PTE committee consists of at least three members, each serving three-year terms. The constitution of the committee is determined at the first faculty meeting of each school year. Should fewer than three qualified faculty members be available from the department, the qualified faculty of the English department, any candidate up for promotion, the department chair or head, and the College Dean, should collectively identify and request the participation of a tenured faculty member from the College to round out the committee.
Restriction and limitations in the evaluation process
Faculty members being considered for promotion may not serve on a promotion committee while being evaluated. Spouses and partners of a candidate may not serve on either the department or college PTE committee that is considering their mate, nor will that spouse or partner play any role in the evaluation of or recommendation for the candidate.
If the chair or head of the department needs to recuse himself or herself from the tenure evaluation process because of a conflict of interest, the Dean, in consultation with the qualified faculty and the college PTE committee, will designate another faculty member to assume the chair's or head's responsibilities in this case.
On dates used in this document.
If a definitive date for any action described in this document falls on a weekend or a holiday, the next working day will function as the appropriate deadline.
Annual Review Procedure for Lecturers and Faculty
By December 1st, the English department head reminds faculty and benefited lecturers that their annual activity reports for the current calendar year are due the end of January, shortly after the holiday break. The head also specifies the activity report structure and guidelines. Those guidelines are linked from HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/dasulliv/department/index.htm#review" http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/dasulliv/department/index.htm#review . Lecturers activity reports should be accompanied by copies of peer reviews.
Faculty and lecturers write their annual activity reports and submit electronic copies to both the department head and the office administrator no later than the date specified in announcement (number 1 above).
The office administrator assembles two notebooks, one for the faculty activity reports and one for the lecturer activity reports. These notebooks are forwarded to the Dean of AHSS.
The PTE Committee forwards annual reviews of tenure-track faculty from the previous year to the department head by February 15th.
The department head writes performance reviews for each faculty member (by March 15th) and benefited lecturer (April 30th) and sends a copy to the person being reviewed.
The person being reviewed may make suggestions for revision, may request a meeting to discuss the review, and may write a response to the review for inclusion in the files.
The department head revises the performance review and attaches the response written by the person being reviewed, if there is one. Both department head and person being reviewed sign it. The original goes to the Dean of AHSS, a copy to the personnel files, and a copy to the person being reviewed.
Annual Peer Review Guidelines for Lecturers
Because the English department annually hires a large number of lecturers, and no single committee can perform annual reviews, the Department Head requires that lecturers perform annual peer reviews, submit evidence of those reviews to peer(s), and submit a self-reflective letter to assist with the annual review process.
Committee Defined
The Peer Review of Teaching Committee (PRTC) is made up of at least three lecturers. Members of the committee are elected by their peer group and are members of the committee for three years. The committee will co-ordinate the yearly schedule; each committee member will co-ordinate sub-groups within the program. The committee should meet at least one time before each semester begins, and the sub-groups should meet at least once during each semester. The committee should assess the effectiveness of the program each year and make any adjustments accordingly.
Sub-groups should consist of six or seven members, and these sub-groups in turn consist of pairs or groups of three. Groups of three are recommended to ensure stability in the peer review process, and in order to provide more than one perspective on teaching materials and classroom conduct. These sub-groups are formed in order to clarify and simplify the peer review process, and in order to promote exchange of ideas and information.
Groups cannot work together more than two years in a row, and individuals are encouraged to work with a wide range of colleagues.
Procedures
The Peer Review of Teaching Committee (PRTC) meets before each semester in order to organize the groups and activate the process.
Members of peer groups exchange copies of their syllabi with each other for review and evaluation either before printing or as soon as possible in the semester.
Peer group members meet before the end of the second week of class and schedule classroom visits by group members.
Peer group members visit classes of peers and fill out the peer review form adding constructive comments and signing the review.
Peer group members schedule meetings to review the classroom observations and review.
Each lecturer writes an activity report following the template designated by the department head and available at HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/dasulliv/lecturer_activity_report_04.doc" http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/dasulliv/lecturer_activity_report_04.doc and sends it to the department head by the first of February each year. Review sheets of the syllabus and the classroom visit should be attached. They are available at HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/dasulliv/department/lecturer_peer_review_sheets.doc" http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/dasulliv/department/lecturer_peer_review_sheets.doc.
Guidelines for Promotion to Senior Lecturer
Lecturers in the English department are not eligible for tenure, but they are eligible for promotion to senior lecturer.
Criteria
The college criteria are as follows:
At least four years of service as a lecturer at NDSU.
Distinguished teaching performance reflected in high quality, creativity, demonstrated mastery of a range of materials in a variety of classes, and skilled use of contemporary pedagogical techniques and methods.
Continuing commitment to professional development reflected in progress toward advanced degrees, scholarly and creative activities and fundamental improvement of course content.
Procedures
Although according to the college handbook the nomination process begins with a letter of nomination, in a collegial and supportive department, the process should probably begin with the person who would like to be promoted meeting with his or her head to discuss the criteria and the process. Once it has been determined that a lecturer would like to pursue promotion, the following things need to happen. These activities may occur concurrently.
The department head, a member of the English faculty, or a senior lecturer in English writes a letter of nomination addressed to the English faculty. The letter is given to chair of the Promotion and Tenure Committee (PTE).
The PTE chair asks the candidate for promotion to compile a promotion portfolio, consisting of:
an updated C.V.,
names of references from whom to solicit letters of support,
SROIs,
student written responses on SROIs, if appropriate, and
other supporting materialteaching materials, Student Survey of Engagement results, past records of teaching evaluation, and any scholarship or other evidence of professional development not noted on the vita.
When the candidate has completed the portfolio and given it to the PTE chair, the chair requests letters of support from references. When those letters of support arrive, the chair of PTE puts them in the promotion portfolio, and the PTE committee evaluates the candidate.
The chair of PTE forwards the portfolio, along with a memo discussing the PTE committees evaluation, to the department head and English faculty members, and requests time at a faculty meeting to discuss the candidates promotion.
The English faculty, at a faculty meeting vote, whether or not to support the candidates nomination.
If the faculty support the nomination, the department head forwards the portfolio along with a letter indicating the facultys support and his or her own evaluation of the candidate to the Dean of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. These documents should be forwarded in accordance with college and university PTE timelines.
If the Dean of the College agrees that the nominee is qualified for elevation to the position of senior lecturer, he or she forwards the portfolio and the recommendation to the Vice-President for Academic Affairs.
If a member of the PTE Committee or a tenure-track faculty member disagrees with the recommended promotion, he or she may submit a dissenting report to the Vice-President for Academic Affairs (VPAA).
The VPAA makes the final decision to grant or deny promotion to the status of senior lecturer.
If promotion is denied, the candidate may reapply and his or her job status is not jeopardized by a denied promotion.
Annual Peer Review Guidelines for Faculty
To ensure regular and thorough evaluation of non-tenured faculty, the qualified tenured faculty members conduct annual peer reviews.
Procedures
The English departments PTE committee publishes the review assignments for the year January 15th. Tenured associate and full professors are assigned to review tenure-track faculty members teaching.
The person being reviewed contacts his or her reviewers and together they determine this years process.
The person being reviewed gives material agreed upon by both parties (such as syllabus, example assignment sheet, etc.) to the reviewer.
The reviewer and the person being reviewed agree about a class visit day and time.
The reviewer reviews class materials and visits class at an agreed upon time.
The reviewer writes a review report and gives a copy to the person being reviewed and sets up a time to talk about the report.
Both parties meet to talk about the report, thematerials, and the class visitation(emphasis on mentoring), and they negotiate final wording of the report. The person being reviewed may attach her or his own response to the report.
The final version of the report is signed by the reviewer and given to the person being reviewed to sign. If the person being reviewed writes a response to the report, this too must be signed by both parties. These are returned to the reviewer, who makes copies.
The reviewer gives a copy of the report to the person being reviewed, but gives the officialsigned report and response (if there is one) to the chair of the English departments PTE Committee.
After PTE reviews the reports, they pass them on to the head of the department no later than February 15 of the year following reviews for use in the annual performance reviews.
When the head has finished using them, he or she places them in the faculty member's official file kept in the English Department.
Third-Year Review: Guidelines and Timeline
The department conducts a 3rd year review of non-tenured facultys performance in the areas of teaching, research, and service.
Procedures
By September 1st of the fifth semester of a tenure-track professor's appointment (including semesters credited to a faculty member hired as an advanced Assistant professor or Associate professor without tenure), the chair or head of the English department requests the departmental PTE Committee to review the candidates portfolio and all supplementary materials. At the same time, the chair or head of English notifies the faculty member coming up for review that she or he needs to put together a portfolio for the PTE committee to review.
The faculty member being reviewed assembles the portfolio. This portfolio should be thought of as an early attempt to create a promotion and tenure portfolio; therefore, the faculty member should consult the English Departments Standards and Procedures for Promotion, Tenure, and Evaluation, available in this document, and should follow Part I of the Promotion and Tenure Portfolio checklist (available elsewhere in this document) and should check the VPAA Promotion and Tenure Guidelines available at HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/vpaa/info.shtml" http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/vpaa/info.shtml.
The faculty member being reviewed submits the portfolio and the supplemental materials to the PTE committee by the first of November.
The PTE committee conducts classroom observations, reviews the portfolio, and completes its written evaluation of the members progress in research, teaching, and service by the 15th of January. The candidate then has 14 calendar days to respond to the written evaluation. The response, if any, is added to the file.
If the PTE committee believes that the person being reviewed has performed well enough to continue, the evaluation letter is forwarded to the Dean of the College of AHSS by the end of February, and a copy is placed in the faculty members file in the English department. The PTE Committee forwards the portfolio to the department head by the end of February.
If the PTE committee believes that the person being reviewed has not performed adequately to merit renewal, the Committee passes the portfolio on to the chair or head of the department by January 15th along with a written request that the qualified tenured faculty be assembled to discuss the case. If the head and qualified faculty determine, in consultation with each other, that the person being reviewed should not be rehired, the head of the department writes a letter by March 15th to the Dean of AHSS, recommending non-renewal of the contract. A copy is simultaneously given to the person being reviewed, who has 14 calendar days to respond in writing. The NDSU policy for tenure, review, and dismissal is available at HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.edu/policy/3503.htm" http://www.ndsu.edu/policy/3503.htm. The Dean of AHSS forwards a notice of non-renewal to the VPAA by April 30.
The department head does not write a separate review, but may widen the scope of the yearly performance letter for the third year, to include recommendations from the PTE committees evaluation and an assessment of the candidates progress over the first three years.
Application for Promotion and Tenure: Guidelines and Timeline
A faculty member hired without credit towards tenure will typically apply for promotion and tenure in the fall semester of his or her sixth year of service. A faculty member may seek early promotion if he / she meets the department, college, and university expectations for early promotion. Faculty members hired with credit towards tenure may seek promotion and/or tenure at the beginning of their sixth year as an Assistant Professor, and no sooner than the beginning of their third year of employment at NDSU. Faculty members may request extensions of the probationary period: see the Guidelines for Early Promotion and Tenure as well as extension for more details (page 19).
Procedures
By March 1st in the semester preceding a candidates application for tenure (usually March of ones fifth year, unless a candidate is seeking early promotion or was hired with credit towards tenure), the department chair or head meets with the candidate to discuss the promotion and evaluation procedures.
By March 31st, the candidate will provide the chair or head with a list of six prospective outside evaluators, indicating the candidate's relationship to the evaluators, and describing how each potential evaluator is qualified to evaluate the candidate's scholarship. The chair or head will meet with the PTE committee and additional qualified faculty to select the outside evaluators and to identify one additional evaluator not listed by the candidate. The head may contact at least one evaluator not on the candidate's list. Outside evaluators must not have a vested interest in the applicant's promotion and/or tenure such as Ph.D. advisors, former instructors, or co-authors.
By May 15th, the department chair or head will solicit a minimum of three letters of evaluation from colleagues knowledgeable in the appropriate field or sub-field.
By August 16th, the chair or head of the English Department formally reminds the faculty member, in writing, that she or he needs to complete the portfolio (2 copies) and all supplementary materials (1 copy) by September 15th for the PTE committee to review. The candidate should follow the current Provost/VPAA Promotion and Tenure Guidelines for the portfolio and supplementary materials, linked from HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/vpaa/info.shtml" http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/vpaa/info.shtml.
The department chair or head also requests the department Promotion, Tenure, and Evaluation (PTE) Committee to review the candidates portfolio and all supplementary materials, to conduct classroom observations in a timely fashion, and to seek, if necessary, feedback from current or former students.
The faculty member places one copy of the supplementary materials in a central location determined by the office manager and submits one copy of the portfolio to the PTE committee and one copy of the portfolio to the department head on or before the September 15th.
The department chair or head submits a list of candidates for promotion and tenure to the dean of AHSS and the College PTE committee by October 1st.
Both the PTE committee and the department head review the portfolio and the supplementary materials and submit their independent written evaluations and recommendations to the candidate on or before October 15th. The candidate then has 14 calendar days to respond to the written evaluations. The response, if any, is added to the portfolio.
The portfolio with the addition of the evaluations by the departments PTE committee and the department head must be submitted to the AHSS College PTE Committee and Dean on or before November 1st.
Procedures outside the department
The AHSS Handbook has a section on Procedures for Promotion and the NDSU Policy Manual, Policy 352, section 6.3-6.5; 6.7 describes the process outside the department.
6.3 The college PTE Committee and the college Dean will independently review and evaluate the candidate's dossier. The PTE Committee will prepare a written report, including recommendations and an explanation of the basis for them, that will be included in the candidate's dossier. The report and recommendations shall be submitted to the Vice President for Academic Affairs by January 15. A copy shall be sent to the Dean, the chair or head of the academic unit, and the candidate.
6.4 The College Dean will prepare a separate written report, including recommendations and an explanation of the basis for them, that will be included in the candidate's dossier. The Dean will forward the report and recommendations, and the dossier of the candidate, to the Vice President for Academic Affairs by January 15. A copy of the Dean's report shall be sent to the PTE committee, the chair or head of the academic unit, and the candidate.
6.5. The Vice President for Academic Affairs shall review the candidate's materials and the recommendations of the department, college PTE Committee, and College Dean. The Vice President shall make a recommendation in writing, including an explanation of the basis for it, by March 31, to the President who shall then either make the final recommendation to the SBHE for tenure and/or promotion or shall notify the candidate of non-renewal or non-selection for promotion. Copies of the Vice President's written recommendation shall be sent to the candidate, the department chair, the College Dean, and the college PTE Committee.
6.7 Evaluations for promotion to Associate Professor and granting of tenure will ordinarily be conducted concurrently.
Faculty Performance Expectations for Research
The Department of English expects continuous scholarly engagement and achievement of all tenured and tenure-track faculty throughout their employment at NDSU.
Criteria For Promotion to Associate Professor and Tenure
The College expectation for an Assistant Professor, as identified in the College Handbook, is that her or she "has made substantial progress toward the development of a scholarly/creative view, as demonstrated by appropriate scholarship/creative activity."
Assistant professors in the English department seeking promotion to Associate Professor can meet this expectation in a number of ways. For instance, one candidate may offer a substantive refereed monograph; another may offer a smaller monograph and a couple substantive refereed articles; another may offer several refereed articles. The candidates publications will be evaluated on their quality, quantity, and impact. Factors related to the quality of the journal or press, such as acceptance rate, reputation, prestige, will also be taken into account. Normally a candidate should have the equivalent of one fairly substantial monograph or three to five refereed or invited articles in reputable journals in order to qualify for promotion and tenure. Evidence of continuous engagement is essential.
Primary publications: scholarship and research
The English department requires refereed research or creative achievement for promotion and tenure of tenure-track faculty. A publication is considered peer-reviewed or refereed when it has undergone blind review by at least one qualified, outside reader. As long as the venue is refereed and recognized by the discipline, the publication may be in either print or electronic format. Collaborative work is prized and encouraged in some areas of English Studies; therefore, collaboratively written papers carry weight equal to single-authored papers. Candidates for promotion and tenure show their scholarly achievement through refereed or invited publications of the following types.
Book-length projectsArticles, chapters, proceedings Peer-reviewed monographs in university presses or other recognized pressesRefereed or invited articles in recognized professional journals, including international, national, and regional journalsPeer-reviewed edited collections, including 1) books with scholarly chapters and 2) issues of a recognized professional journalRefereed or invited chapters in peer-reviewed booksScholarly edition or translation of a primary textRefereed conference papers in refereed proceedings, including international, national, and regional conference proceedingsPeer-reviewed volumes of a recognized professional journal if the candidate is a senior editor for the journalPeer-reviewed text booksPeer-reviewed anthologies or readersExtensive and widely recognized professional, pedagogical, or archival websites such as HYPERLINK "http://www.rossettiarchive.org/" http://www.rossettiarchive.org/
HYPERLINK "http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/TABLE.HTML" http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/TABLE.HTMLPrimary publications: creative achievement
A creative-writing faculty members creative activity will be judged in terms of its aesthetic value by both the departments PTE Committee and creative artists whose critical judgment is well recognized and accepted. The following list is a rough indication of the ranking of publications considered for promotion and tenure.
Publication of book by large, well-established press and/or through large, well-established contest
Publication of book by small, independent press
Publication of individual works in well-established, large-circulation journals and magazines
Invitation to read, speak, or conduct workshops at well-established conferences, festivals, or colonies
Publication of individual works in smaller journals and magazines
Publication of scholarly or otherwise "non-creative" work related to creative writing or literary studies in well-established peer-reviewed journals
Publication of scholarly or otherwise "non-creative" work related to creative writing or literary studies in smaller peer-reviewed journals
Publication of chapbook by well-established press
Presentation at well-established writer's conferences, festivals, or colonies.
Supplemental professional publications
Although the English department does not recognize the following publications and activities as evidence equivalent to the refereed and invited publications above, it does recognize them as professional activity that may be used to help support a candidates tenure case. However, a candidate can not achieve tenure on the basis of these publications and activities without a solid record based on refereed and invited work.
Non-refereed publications, including books, articles, chapters, and creative writing pieces
Published responses to articles appearing in refereed journals
Non-refereed and non-invited book reviews, including refereed and non-refereed journals
Conference papers delivered at professional conferences, including international, national, and regional conferences
Conference papers published in non-refereed proceedings
Professional or pedagogical weblogs that have gained recognition in the field.
Publication of scholarly work related to creative writing in non-peer-reviewed journals
Attendance at well-established creative writer's conferences, festivals, or colonies
Publication of chapbook through independent small press
Publication of scholarly work related to creative writing in conference proceedings.
Criteria For Promotion to Full Professor
The College's expectations for an Associate Professor are that he or she "continues to make substantial contributions to scholarship / creative activity."
In order to qualify for promotion to full professor, associate professors are expected to continue professional activity and publication, and to achieve, during their tenure as associate professors and in addition to their existing work, a publication record that exceeds that described above for those seeking promotion and tenure. Normally a candidate should have the equivalent of one fairly substantial monograph or four to six refereed or invited articles in reputable journals in order to qualify for promotion to full professor. Evidence of continuous engagement is essential.
Research Expectations for Full Professors
The Colleges expectations for a Full Professors is that she or he is an academically mature scholar/creator who continues to make marked contributions to his or her discipline and has acquired recognition in that discipline.
When reviewed on a tri-annual basis, full professors are expected to demonstrate continuous scholarly activity as well as increasingly take on roles as reviewers for publications, service on editorial boards, reviewer for regional or national grants, or other kinds of scholarship unique to and appropriate for a full professor.
Faculty Performance Expectations for Teaching
The English Department expects to see competent, knowledgeable instruction early in faculty careers develop into mature, excellent instruction by the time one achieves the rank of Full Professor.
Criteria for Promotion to Associate Professor and Tenure
The College Handbook defines the college's teaching expectations for Assistant Professors as
Being prepared to teach some advanced as well as introductory courses.
Being prepared to sponsor graduate students.
The English department acknowledges that introductory courses, particularly first-year composition courses and writing intensive courses, are among the most difficult, if not the most difficult, courses to teach because of student resistance, the time-intensive nature of responding to students writing, and the need to incorporate programmatic goals which may be unfamiliar to some new faculty. Therefore, the department's expectations are that faculty will be able to
Adequately teach introductory courses and writing intensive courses.
Effectively teach upper-level courses in one's area of expertise.
Effectively sponsor graduate students in one's area of expertise.
Process of evaluation
Evaluation of teaching performance is conducted each year through the English departments peer review system (see page 5) and by the department head in yearly performance reports (see page 1). These reviews are based on the teachers teaching materials, class observations, and student review of instruction reports. Additional materials, such as self-evaluations and teaching portfolios, which would include course materials, student work, and other pertinent documents, may also be requested by the departments Promotion & Tenure Committee or by the Department Head. The candidate for promotion or tenure may submit these materials in support of her or his case even if they are not requested.
Besides teaching classes, these activities also are considered under the standard of teaching:
Serving as academic adviser to undergraduate and graduate students.
Serving as an adviser for senior projects.
Serving as a reader for graduate student portfolio evaluations.
Serving as a reader/committee member for graduate students writing disquisitions.
Directing graduate student disquisitions.
Conducting independent studies.
The English department values teaching that is informed by current theory, up to date in terms of national content standards, student centered, challenging, and innovative. Although not all teachers share the same teaching styles, and should not be expected to conform to prescribed methods, the department expects that teachers will be prepared for their classes, timely in responding to student work, available for student consultations, and that they will make appropriate use of emerging technology when it complements or enhances their teaching. It is our goal to stimulate student interest, to lead them into the process of inquiry, and to prepare them to be students capable of continuing their own research and writing when they leave our programs.
Criteria For Promotion to Full Professor
The College Handbook defines the college's teaching expectations for Associate Professors as being able to "demonstrate substantial competence in teaching at the introductory and advanced level."
The English department expects Associate Professors to become familiar and comfortable with programmatic goals for first-year composition and writing intensive courses, as well as strengthen their command of course material and design in advanced courses. Therefore, the department's expectations are that faculty will be able to
Effectively teach introductory courses and writing intensive courses.
Excel in the teaching of upper-level courses in one's area of expertise.
Provide excellent sponsorship and guidance for graduate students in one's area of expertise.
Process of evaluation
In order to qualify for promotion to full professor, associate professors must consistently meet these expectations after being awarded promotion and tenure. Evidence of such success will be drawn from teachers teaching materials, class observations, and student review of instruction reports. Additional materials, such as self-evaluations and teaching portfolios, which would include course materials, student work, and other pertinent documents, may also be requested by the departments PTE committee or by the department chair or head. The candidate for promotion or tenure may submit these materials in support of her or his case even if they are not requested.
Teaching Expectations for Full Professors
The colleges expectations for a full professor is that she or he demonstrates exemplary teaching at all levels. When reviewed on a tri-annual basis, full professors are expected to demonstrate exemplary teaching at all levels as well as contribute to the ongoing assessment and improvement of the departments degree programs and teaching initiatives.
Faculty Performance Expectations for Service
English faculty members are expected to make service contributions to the department, the college, the university, and the profession consistent with the changing responsibilities at each rank.
Criteria for Promotion to Associate Professor and Tenure
The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Handbooks states that Assistant Professors are expected to make contributions to department policy and university governance.
Recognizing the need for tenure-track assistant professors to build a strong research and scholarly profile, the English department asks new faculty members to confine their service activities to serving on no more than three departmental, college, or university committees during their probationary period. Although not all tenure-track faculty will be able to serve regional or national professional organizations in an official capacity during their probationary period, the department encourages active professional engagement, especially at the national level, and considers holding office or serving as a manuscript reviewer important professional service worthy of recognition.
We encourage service to the community in capacities that reflect faculty members professional expertise, especially activities that increase literacy, stimulate good reading and writing, cultivate an appreciation for literature, and awaken cultural and social awareness.
We affirm the colleges view of different expectations for different ranks. The service of an assistant professor, prior to achieving tenure, may be centered primarily within the department, with membership in appropriate professional organizations. Associate professors will seek more active engagement in department, college, and university service, in outreach service, and in the administrative work of their professional organizations. Professors will demonstrate, in varying degrees, leadership on campus, in outreach, and in their professional organizations.
Based upon his or her faculty profile, each faculty member will have a clearly articulated philosophy of service. It is understood that the service dimensions of the faculty profile may vary annually according to the needs of the department and the university, and the individuals own professional development.
Criteria For Promotion to Full Professor
The College Handbook states that an Associate Professor who meets his or her service expectation plays a major consultative role in formulating departmental policy, contributes to the advancement of his or her profession, is expected to assume greater
responsibilities in university governance, and shares academic and professional expertise with the public.
In order to qualify for promotion to full professor, associate professors are expected to excel in their service to the profession, university, college, and department. Because the English department tries to protect tenure-track assistant professors from heavy service loads, the department expects tenured faculty to carry a somewhat heavier service load, serving on committees like the Promotion and Tenure Committee and serving as faculty reviewers and mentors for junior faculty members. It is also expected that they will find opportunities to serve at the College and University levels and to serve regional and national professional organizations.
Service Expectations for Full Professors
The College Handbook states that a Full Professor who meets his or her service expectation assumes major consultative and leadership roles in formulating departmental and university policy, in advancing his or her profession, and in contributing to the public in areas of his or her academic expertise. When reviewed on a tri-annual basis, full professors are expected to continue the kinds of service work begun as an associate professor, and expand their range of service commitments through meaningful work in appropriate venues. Service to the profession at a national level and service to the community will be particularly valued.
Evaluation of Department Chair or Head
The English department will comply with the evaluation procedures for department chair or head as determined by Policy 327, section 4.2 in the NDSU Policy Manual. Although the Policy Manual does not include head in its description, a department head should undergo the same review procedures.
Faculty Promotion & Tenure Portfolio Checklist
The most recent version of the VPAA Promotion and Tenure Guidelines should be checked to make sure that the following checklist is accurate during the year the candidates review year. Those guidelines are linked from the following URL: HYPERLINK "http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/vpaa/info.shtml" http://www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/vpaa/info.shtml. Detailed descriptions of materials requested for each part are available in that document.
The Promotion and Tenure Portfolio consists of three parts: Part I is assembled by the candidate; Part II is assembled by others in the review chain, such as the department chair, the dean, etc.; and Part III consists of supplemental materials kept on file by the candidate.
Part I: The Candidates Case for Promotion & Tenure
FORMCHECKBOX A. Cover Page
FORMCHECKBOX B. Table of Contents
FORMCHECKBOX C. Appointment Letter and Position Description/Special Agreements
FORMCHECKBOX D. Academic Background
FORMCHECKBOX E. Academic Experience/Employment History
FORMCHECKBOX F. Statement of Context and Accomplishments
FORMCHECKBOX G. Teaching, Advising, and Curriculum Development
FORMCHECKBOX H. Research, Creative, and Professional Activities
FORMCHECKBOX I. Service
FORMCHECKBOX J. Awards and Honors
PART II: Guidelines, Procedures, and Reviews
FORMCHECKBOX K. Unit Promotion and Tenure Criteria
FORMCHECKBOX L. Third Year Review Report
FORMCHECKBOX M. Letters of Evaluation
FORMCHECKBOX N. Evaluation and Recommendations
FORMCHECKBOX Department PTE Committee
FORMCHECKBOX Department Chair
FORMCHECKBOX College PTE Committee
FORMCHECKBOX Dean
FORMCHECKBOX Director
VPAA Guidelines for Early Promotion and Tenure and Extensions
Revised 08 Sep 2005
Probationary faculty are normally eligible to apply for promotion to Associate Professor and tenure during their sixth year of continued academic service at NDSU. Promotion and tenure decisions generally occur concomitantly.
Faculty without Previous, Relevant Experience
For a faculty member without previous academic-relevant experience (first academic position), eligibility for tenure requires a probationary period of six years; however, such probationary faculty who have demonstrated exceptional academic accomplishments may apply for early promotion prior to the completion of the six years of the probationary period.
Faculty with Previous, Relevant Experience
Conversely, a faculty member with relevant professional/academic experience may be given credit toward tenure and promotion when negotiated as a provision in their original hiring contract. There are two options:
Faculty may be given one to three years of credit (maximum allowed) and then would apply for promotion and tenure in the sixth year of academic service (for example, given one year of credit, promotion and tenure application would be due after four years of service; given three years, the application would be due after two years of service).
Faculty may be given the full six year probationary period with the option of applying for promotion and/or tenure at any time following three years of academic service. In either option, failure to achieve tenure will lead to a terminal year contract.
Extension of Probationary Period
At any time during the probationary period but prior to the sixth year (when the portfolio is due), a faculty member may request an extension of the probationary period not to exceed three years based on exceptional personal or family circumstances. Faculty given promotion and tenure credit are eligible for this extension. The request must be in writing and will be reviewed and forwarded sequentially with recommendation by the chair/head, dean, and Provost/VPAA to the President who will approve or deny the request. Denial of an extension may be appealed pursuant to Policy 350.4.
Appendix H: Report of Alumni Survey, Summer 2006
Survey for recently graduated English majors and graduate students (2006)
1. About me:
I am a (6) man (44) woman.
At NDSU, I was a(n) (25) undergraduate student (16) graduate student (9) both.
I received my most recent degree from NDSU in (4) 1999; (7) 2000; (8) 2001; (4) 2002; (8) 2003;
(9) 2004; (9) 2005; (1) 2006.
As a graduate student, I was in the following track: (17) Literature; (8) Composition; (0) Rhetoric and Linguistics; (25) Not Applicable.
Present job title:
Professions:
Educators: 29
11 High school and middle school teachers
6 Doctoral candidates
5 Lecturers (college-level teachers, non-tenure track)
3 TAs
2 Corporate trainers
1 Campus missionary + religious education curricula
1 Tenure track assistant professors
Professional Writers: 7
2 Grant writers
2 Tech writers
2 Editors
1 Other writers
Managers: 5
2 Project managers
1 Property manager
1 Service manager
1 Non-profit manager
Other: 9
2 Homemaker
2 Administrative/exec. assistant
1 Bank VP
1 Financial consultant
1 Customer service rep
2 No response
2. During my studies as an English major or graduate student at NDSU, I received instruction that: (% checking each item)
92% gave me experience with American literature.
92% gave me experience with British literature.
80% gave me experience with World literatures.
72% helped me understand professionalism and to cultivate professional relationships and behaviors.
90% introduced me to literary theory and concepts.
68% introduced me to rhetorical theory and concepts.
64% taught me to analyze and critique visual elements in written and electronic documents.
84% taught me how to assess my own writing.
88% taught me how to undertake research using the library.
76% taught me how to undertake research using electronic sources.
74% taught me how to write different types of documents for different purposes, to different audiences, and for different rhetorical situations.
86% taught me how to manage complex research and writing projects.
84% taught me to read literary texts critically
3. My studies as an English major or graduate student helped me become more knowledgeable in the following areas: (% checking each item)
84% American literature
76% British literature
86% composing processes
78% conventions of standard written English (grammar, punctuation, usage)
56% conventions of professional and/or technical writing
52% creative writing
46% electronic communication
78% literary theory
64% multicultural, womens, or minority literatures or rhetorics
56% postcolonial or world literatures
46% rhetorical theory
4. My studies as an English major or graduate student helped me acquire the ability to do the following things: (% checking each item)
80% access and use information ethically and legally.
90% access information effectively and efficiently.
86% adapt my writing and speaking to different occasions and audiences.
90% assess the quality of my own work.
84% critique a range of literary texts from various literary perspectives.
60% determine the constraints of a rhetorical situation and take them into account when composing a text.
70% determine the expectations of my employers and colleagues.
76% determine the extent of information needed for a given project.
92% evaluate information and its sources critically.
84% incorporate selected information into my knowledge base.
92% plan, carryout, and complete complex writing projects.
92% use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.
50% understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information.
5. Because of my English major or graduate degree, I have a better understanding of: (% checking each item)
82% different literary genres
64% different professional writing genres
74% the role of writing and speaking in professional settings
82% the cultural importance of literature
72% value systems and lifestyles different from my own
84% varieties of language uses and expectations
72% world cultures and literatures
Thank you for your willingness to take this survey. If you have comments about any of these questions, or if there is additional information that you would like to share with us in order to help us improve our degree programs, please provide feedback below. We are interested in what you have to say and encourage you to keep in touch with us.
Comments:
#12: There is no other institution that could have taught me what NDSU has. I apply the skills I
acquired from the English program on a daily basis. Thank you for my education.
#14 Would recommend a stronger emphasis on internships!!
#16 I believe that a more effective style needs to be taken for the literary theory course that the NDSU English department offers (or offered when I was a student there). I found the course ineffectivewe did not learn how to actually apply a theory to literature. In the future, I hope NDSU decides to offer a class in academic publishing. I took a course in this area at my current university and it proved invaluable. It would be an asset for the NDSU English MA/future PHD program.
#17 During my coursework, the English Dept. courses didnt seem smoothly jointed with the education classes relating to English. I would like another class joining the twolike an ed class that was more specific to jr. high, etc. Perhaps this has changed since then.
#18 With help from Dr. Matchie (retired) and Elizabeth Birminghamgreat professors!
#21 I am disappointed to hear of the English Departments shift from a literature-based program. The literature classes I took from teachers like Dr. Matchie, Steve Ward, and Dr. Krishnan were transformative while I felt the communications style course I took in electronic communication, etc. felt like busy work. They belong in the communication dept. I wouldnt consider continuing with graduate studies at NDSU under your current program.
#26 I would love to see a Masters in English Education!
#27 I would have liked to have covered more information (theory, pedagogy, etc.) during my grad school years. I also felt that a course or a section regarding office politics would have been helpful as well; much of the department seemed focused on students going into doctoral programs rather than teaching.
#29 The greatest gap English majors and English departments have is the lack of courses that focus on short, concise effective writing and communication. In the business world, you have 1 page, 1 billboard, 1 short e-mail, to get your message across. Create a course for this.
#32 I really enjoyed my English classes at NDSU, and I feel I received some of the very best instruction. The one thing I always questioned (and still do) is what to do with an English degree. Wouldnt it be interesting if you could form a new class that addressed the myriad of different occupations people go into with an English degree. Guests could come to talk to the class about the possibilities, students could research different options, and possibly it could increase interest in the English program.
#33 limited variety of classes was a real problem for me
helpful to have a variety of workshops on applying to grad schools, applying for jobs,
etc.
#35 My English major also gave me a better understanding of Native American Literature and to some extent creative writing. When I graduated NDSU didnt have a writing program. I think it would be great if NDSU were to get such a program, if they have not already. Then students would not have to take classes through tri college to get more education in writing while getting a Literature degree. NDSU has an excellent English Department with very knowledgeable professors who can teach students many things including how to be excellent writers, because many of them are.
#37 *I am so grateful and proud of my B.A. in English from NDSU it taught me how to be an awesome writer.
#41 I was inspired by my instructors to become a better writer what it means to be an effective leader.
#42 My graduate experience is very valuable to me. Both my professors and my TA/TF teaching gave me the critical thinking tools needed to now home educate my own children. And even though I have been a stay at home mom since receiving my degree, I have used the skills I acquired at NDSU in numerous personal and volunteer activities.
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