Volume 38:2

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1. Acknowledgments

  • Kudos to our new Chair for having so graciously and seamlessly navigated these first daunting weeks of fall semester.
  • And kudos to the rest of us for getting through too.
  • And thanks to our ever diligent, hard-working, and good-natured staff for helping us do it.

2. Announcements

  • The Wings/New Voices Student Awards Ceremony has been scheduled for Friday, September 23rd, from 3 to 5 in the Grand Salon. Please come help celebrate the achievements of our students–and their families and teachers!
  • The Northridge Review Fall 2011 Issue is about to hit the stands.  We are having a celebration of the event on Oct. 14, 2011 starting at 7PM.  The reading is taking place in VPAC  LA 181. Please announce to your classes.  Please come.  Please invite your friends.  It’s going to be a great party.
  • Please also announce to your classes that the Northridge Review is now accepting submissions for the Spring 2011 Issue. The deadline this semester is Sept. 23rd. Guidelines: Poetry (up to 5 poems) , Fiction, Creative Non Fiction, Drama (5000 words). No Names on Manuscripts. Cover Sheet: Titles, Name, Address, Phone and Email. Send or drop off: Engl. Dept. ST 706. You can find these guidelines on the Engl. Department web page under publications athttp://www.csun.edu/english/northridge_review.php.
  • The Civil Discourse and Social Change (CDSC) initiative has announced its second year kickoff event for the 2011-12 academic year, a lecture/workshop by Reverend James Lawson on Monday, September 26, 2011, 4:00-6:45 in the Northridge Center, USU.  For more information about this event and others, please see http://www.csun.edu/cdsc/.
  • HOP 1:  Provost Hellenbrand has invited us to join him on Wednesday, September 28, for another kickoff event of theHybrid/Online Pedagogy (“HOP”) Community of Practice, from 9:00 to 11:00 AM in the Whitsett Room (SH 451), on Wednesday, September 28.  Come learn about issues in online education, connect and collaborate with  peers, work on research projects and publications, promote quality and professionalism, and lead and shape the future of this community.  And please RSVP at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/68LCWMR.
  • But wait, there’s more: The Fall Teaching and Learning Bytes series also kicks off on Tuesday, September 20, with Elio Spinello from Health Sciences and a representative from Apple presenting on publishing e-texts with ePub. Future topics include lecture capture, clickers, podcasting, video storytelling, and “backwards” assessment.  These sessions will take place every Tuesday from 12:30 to 2:00 PM in Oviatt 30 or online.  For more information visit the Teaching and Learning Bytes website http://www.csun.edu/at/teaching/tlb_schedule.html.
  • The Office of Sponsored Projects has announced its fall information sessions, which will be held at the following times:  Friday, September 16, 9:00 am to 11:00 am; Wednesday, Setpember 21, 10:00 am to 12:00 pm; and Thursday, September 22, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm.  This is a good opportunity to learn more about how to take advantange of good opportunities to obtain support for your research and creative activities from federal, state, corporate, and foundation sponsored programs.
  • Speaking of which, here is one: On behalf of Academic Affairs, Faculty Development is pleased to announce that the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Spring 2012 Probationary Faculty Support Program is now available in both PDF and Word versions at http://www.csun.edu/facdev/grants.htm.  Please note that  the Spring 2012 Probationary Faculty Grant program is restricted to second through fifth year tenure-track faculty.
  • Starting September 1, 2011 Applications will be accepted for the 2012 Ford Diversity Fellowships Program for Achieving Excellence in College and University Teaching. Full eligibility information and online applications are available on our website at: http://nationalacademies.org/ford.
  • NEH Summer Stipends program; $6000 to selected individual applicants who wish to pursue research or projects—such as articles, books, digital materials, translations, etc.— intended for wide dissemination to humanities scholars and/or general audiences. Projects may be at any stage of development.  Interested faculty members will apply independently but must be nominated by the the College of Humanities, so let us know if you would like to apply. Deadline, September 29.http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/stipends.html.
  • The American Council of Learned Societies’ Collaborative Research Fellowships are awarded to selected small teams of scholars for collaboration on a single, substantive research project demonstrating the value of both collaborative research and inquiry into the humanities. Awards are intended as salary replacement—for full-time research while on academic leave—at set values based on academic rank ($35K for assistant professor, $40K for associate, and $60K for full), plus up to $20,000 in collaborative funds (travel, materials, research assistance, etc.), with the total award based strictly on these criteria and limited to $140,000. The fellowships are limited to projects primarily focused on research. Successful applicants will initiate their projects between July 1, 2012, and September 1, 2014. For additional information about the program, including a sample application, see: http://www.acls.org/programs/collaborativeACLS Collaborative Research Fellowship; up to $140,000; deadline: September 28. http://www.acls.org/programs/collaborative.
  • The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (ISSRNC) is pleased to announce its next conference in Malibu, California at Pepperdine University in August 2012. The conference theme will be “Nature and the Popular Imagination.” Proposals deadline, April 1, 2012. http://www.religionandnature.com/society/conferences.htm#malibu

4. Reminders

  • Personnel ballots are due tomorrow, September 16, in the ballot box in Martha office.  Please don’t forget to seal and sign–not the little, inside, secret envelope, but the big outside one the little one goes in.  And if no one can read your signature, also, please print your name.  And, please vote.
  • This just in:  SOLAR is being updated.  For a week.  Please mark your calendars–from October 5, at 6:00 pm, to October 11, at 6:00 am, both the Student Administration (SA) and Human Resources (HR) modules will be unavailable.  That means, no class rosters, no grades, no compensatory history, no unofficial transcripts.  When they’re done, we’ll have one-click access to such services as such frequently used services as class rosters, class schedules, permission numbers, recording grades, etc.  For more information on this exciting change, please tune your computers to the newly released youtube documentary, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MiU851R-DI.
  • Important clarification: In the last riveting issue of Thursday’s Notes, we were reminded of changes in the advising protocols for this year that include a re-routing of initial appointments to the CoH Advising Office, in JR 240. The list of department advisers still seeing students included only undergraduate advisers. PLEASE BE REMINDED THAT GRADUATE ADVISING REMAINS IN THE DEPARTMENT. Ranita Chatterjee, is still our indefatigable Graduate Adviser (though she keeps saying this is her last year), and Irene Clark is our equally indefatigable (and enduring) Composition and Rhetoric Adviser.Kate Haake (me) will be seeing Creative Writing graduate students this year. IMPORTANT NOTE: All graduate students see Ranita first and for all non-option-specific questions regarding their degrees.
  • Undergraduate advising remains as announced in last Thursday’s Notes (although not last Thursday)–first, to the CoH Advising Office (often affectionately referred to as “Shelly’s Office”), and then to Dorothy (subject matter), Kent (JYI, FYI), and me (literature, creative writing, honors, etc.).
  • Here, again, is the weblink and access information for Martin Pousson’s outstanding English assessment moodle page. Thanks again, Martin. Terrific work! Now we will all be able to stay current on and contribute to our assessment activities. Do remember to collect and submit data year-long. Moodle site name: English Department Academic Assessment; password, ST708; link, http://moodle.csun.edu/course/view.php?id=23617.
  • The Distinguished Visiting Speakers Program (DVSP) is a program designed to bring well-known speakers to California State University, Northridge. Applications may be submitted in one of two categories. Category I applications (up to $700) request support for classroom visits or department seminars by a guest lecturer. Category II applications (up to $1,800) request funds for individuals or small groups of scholars with broad appeal to the university community to participate in artistic performances, public lecture, or topical conferences. Please note that International speakers may have up to 30% of honorarium withheld for taxes.  For more information, contact Hedy Carpenter at (818) 677-2138. Application Deadline: September 19, 2011.
  • Linda Overman’s car was broken into and its contents stolen in parking lot B-2. This is a sad reminder that ours is a large urban campus and we need to be vigilant, taking care in the parking lot and probably, also, in our offices. Our concern goes out to Linda. So perhaps it is a good time, also, to remind the Department of a series of public safety workshops hosted by the Department of Police Services this semester. Don’t miss out on important tips about such topics as, “How to Make your Home a Safer Place,” “The Basics of Pepper Spray Defense,” “Has Your Identity Been Compromised?” The identity you save may be your own.  For more information about these workshop, please see the Safety Workshops flyer, available at,http://www-admn.csun.edu/police/crime/.
  • The Employee Assistance Program also hosts a variety of workshops and support activities to help us deal with the stress of our lives. There’s a book group, fitness and wellness sessions, mindfulness sitting sessions–even yoga. For more information about these opportunities, please see http://www-admn.csun.edu/ohrs/eap/calendar.html.
  • And Human Resources also has an outstanding lineup workshops, on such life-transforming topics as asset management, insurance, home ownership, and retirement. For more information, please see http://www-admn.csun.edu/ohrs/communications/current.html#fall. (This webpage also includes information about the EAP sessions noted above.
  • Also, we’ve been asked nicely not to move chairs from one room to another, so please, let’s not.
  • And have you filled out your doodle poll page to let Tonie and Dorothy know about your availability for exit interviews and indicated your preference of literary texts to them?  There’s still time…
  • While you’re online, you might want to friend the CSUN Creative Writing page and find out what our student writers are up to.  Thanks for this project go to Leilani.
  • Finally, it’s not time to order books for spring yet, but it is time to start thinking about ordering books for spring–just in case you’re still stuck in fall semester.

4. Faculty/Staff/Student/Alumni Achievements

  • Scott Andrews published a review of Ain’t Nobody That Can Sing Like Me: New Oklahoma Writing this summer in The Tulsa World, his hometown newspaper.  His blog entry titled “Ice Kobe” was purchased to be printed in Connecting with Cultures, a popular culture textbook from Pearson due out this year.  Congratulations Scott!
  • Fred Fields’ new book, Bilingualism in the USA: The case of the Chicano-Latino community has been published by John Benjamin Publishing Company. The book provides an overview of bi- and multilingualism as a worldwide phenomenon by taking the Chicano-Latino community of Southern Californias as a detailed case study relevant to nearly every bi- and multilingual community irrespective of nation, language, and/or ethnicity. Congratulations Fred!
  • Martin Pousson had one story and two poems accepted for publication in the forthcoming issue of Rattling Wall, the PEN Center USA literary journal.”The Masked Boy,” a story from The Nerves, a collection of stories in-progress, and “Hoodoo” & “Voodoo,” two poems from Mississippi River Anthology, a collection of poems in-progress, will be published in the Fall 2011 issue. Congratulations, Martin!

 

Compiled by Katharine Haake, Associate Chair