Chair: Kent Baxter
Notes compiled by: Kate Haake
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Announcements
Even though it’s Wednesday, these Notes are coming out a day early to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving holiday! Now is the time to rest and fuel up for the coming end of term. So, enjoy the warmth and cheer of family and friends and take a well-earned break. We will all be back next week.
On Wednesday, November 29, from 5:00 p.m to 7:00 p.m., this year’s recipients of the Don Dorsey Excellence in Mentoring Awards will be honored at a reception in the Oviatt Library Jack & Florence Ferman Presentation Room, with a short program beginning at 5:20 p.m. This very special award is made even more special this year because our own Harry Hellenbrand is included among the five recipients. Congratulations–and much gratitude–to Harry, who has so exceptionally mentored so many of us, right along with the students for whom he has been a lifelong, fierce, and much-needed champion. Please RSVP at (818) 677-4151.
And in other very big news, The WhatEvery1Says Project (WE1S) co-directed by English Professor Scott Kleinman has been awarded $1.1 million by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Along with co-directors Alan Liu, Professor English at UC Santa Barbara, Jeremy Douglass, Assistant Professor of English at UC Santa Barbara, and Lindsay Thomas, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Miami, Kleinman will spend the next three years studying the representation of the Humanities in public discourse. The WE1S project is an outgrowth of 4Humanities, an advocacy initiative that responds to what is often called the “Humanities crisis” — the perception in America and some other nations that the disciplines within the Humanities are of little value in higher education and society at large. WE1S will address the issue by mining digital media to learn what pundits, politicians, scholars, students and others think about the Humanities in order to formulate strategies and narratives to counter misconceptions about the liberal arts and Humanities. During each of the three years of the grant, CSUN will bring together teams of students and faculty for “summer research camps” to use these tools to study public discourse about the Humanities. Led by Mauro Carassai, the research camps will coordinate with parallel teams working at the other participating campuses to research source material, analyze data, and develop resources for Humanities advocacy based on the project’s work.
Our holiday party and awards ceremony will be on Friday, December 8 from 1-3 p.m. The sign-up sheet for the potluck is now posted in the mail room.
Reminders
Please remember that the online student evaluations of faculty (SEFs) are currently open and will close, by default, on December 8. Faculty are strongly encouraged to give students time in class to complete the surveys, which you may do by directing them to to www.csun.edu/sef, where they can log in with their CSUN credentials to access all SEF surveys available to them. Students can complete the survey on any internet-capable device, including a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. And you can access brief instructions, the one-page best practices document, and instructions for changing the evaluation window at http://bit.ly/2zAAxa6.
Opportunities
Campus Quality Fee proposals for the 2018-19 year are now being accepted. This call for Campus Quality Fee proposals is limited to initiatives that support advancements in student use of technology or provide student support services. Consistent with university priorities, the details of your proposal should discuss ways in which its outcomes will support student success. The proposal document is accessible at the Campus Quality Fee (CQF) website located at: http://www.csun.edu/studentaffairs/campus-quality-fee and must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. on December 21, 2017.
Achievements
Noreen Lace‘s story, “The Gold Teeth,” will be published in The Box, Pilcrow & Dagger’s November/December issue. Both Noreen and Nancy Taylor are excited to report that the story was inspired by Nancy’s inheritance of gold teeth!
Kate Haake gave the keynote address, “Because We Still Have Tongues: Women and Writing Redux,” at the Creative Writing Studies Organization Conference last week, a three-day gathering devoted to the topic of creative writing in the Trump era.
