Engagement and Outreach — Our English Department has a long history of engaging with educational partners and allies and reaching out to community organizations. This tradition is alive and well as is reflected in two recent developments involving members of our English Department.
Last week the university announced that Consuelo Salas is the 2018 recipient of the J. Murre
y Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award. Consuelo, who has a joint appointment with the University Writing Program and the English Department, is being honored for her innovative and collaborative work with three of the librarians at Atkins in order to enrich the educational experiences of her students and promote “information literacy.” As part of this collaborative effort, Consuelo arranged for her students to draw on the resources of the library’s Visualization Lab (VisLab) in their research and writing projects. In an email Consuelo sent to me about this collaboration, she wrote, “Our collaborative curriculum has prepared students not only for their future university coursework but also for their future professions and to be critical and engaged citizens. We plan to continue our collaboration in future courses.”
Consuelo will receive the Atkins Library Faculty Engagement award during a ceremony scheduled for 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 6, in the Halton Reading Room. For more information about Consuelo’s award, please click on the following link: https://inside.uncc.edu/news-features/2018-08-14/salas-receives-atkins-library-faculty-engagement-award
The English Department’s tradition of community outreach extends well beyond Charlotte’s city limits. For example, several members of our department are involved in an upcoming cultural event called On the Same Page: Ashe County’s Literary Festival. This festival will take place in West Jefferson, North Carolina, on September 11-15, 2018. Chris Arvidson and Henry Doss, two of our part-time faculty members, are helping to organize and promote this festival, and Bryn Chancellor is participating as one of the featured authors. One of the other participating writers is Tracy K. Smith, who is the current U.S. Poet Laureate. For more information about this literary festival, please click on the following link: http://www.onthesamepagefestival.org/
As these two recent examples demonstrate, our English Department does not exist within the confines of an isolated academic silo. To riff off lines from Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” and Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” we are everywhere, man, from Atkins’s high-tech VisLab to Ashe County’s Lit Fest.
Kudos — As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department. Here is the latest news:
Clayton Tarr published a review of Big & Small: A Cultural History of Extraordinary Bodies in the most recent issue of the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly.
Upcoming Events and Meetings Here is a list of upcoming events and meetings related to the start of the fall 2018 semester:
–CLAS All Faculty Mtg Friday, August 24 8:30am-12:00pm in McKnight Hall
–English Department Mtg Friday, September 7 11:00am-12:30pm in Fretwell 280C (English Department Conference Room)
Quirky Quiz Question — The person who is currently in charge of the Atkins Library’s Visualization Lab received her M.A. in English from our English Department. Do you know her name?
Last week’s answer: Go Tell It On The Mountain