Monthly Archives: August 2016

The Terrific Trio — At the English Department meeting that took place last week, Monica Alston, Jennie Mussington, and Angie Williams provided everyone with a smorgasbord of delicious goodies that they prepared themselves.  This very pleasant surprise is but one of many examples of our staff going the extra mile to make our department such a pleasant work environment.   As I said at the beginning of the meeting, we are all fortunate to have such a dedicated staff.  Other departments have a great deal of turn over among their staff, but all three of our staff members have worked in the department for many years.  In appreciation of our staff, I have come up with a list of nine facts you might not know about our staff:

1. Monica grew up on a farm outside of Chapel Hill with her father and three siblings.  They raised pigs, chickens, and grew corn.

2. Monica started working for the UNC system in 1998.  She worked in UNC Chapel Hill’s Undergraduate Admissions Office for a number of years before she joined our English Department in 2005.

3. Monica has a loyal cat named Lucy who wakes Monica up every morning.

4. Jennie was born in Roswell, New Mexico (often called Area 51).  Her father served in the Air Force, and he was stationed at the Air Force Base in Roswell.

5. Jennie graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in business administration.

6. Jennie joined the English Department in 2000.  Before joining our department, she worked for several years in the Mecklenburg County Tax Collection Office.

7. Angie grew up in the small town of Montgomery, West Virginia.  This mountain town is located beside the Kanawha River in a picturesque valley.  She graduated from Valley High School where she was a star cheerleader.  When all of the cheerleaders stood on top of each other to form a triangle, Angie always held everybody up, a role she still plays today.

8. Angie joined UNC Charlotte in 1986.  She started her career in the Department of Languages and Culture Studies and then transferred to the English Department in 2005.

9. Angie has worked with eight department chairs over the course of her career at UNC Charlotte.

Kudos— As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department.  Here is the latest news:

Paula Martinac‘s short story “Daddy” has been accepted by the literary journal Minerva Rising and will appear in their next issue, which is due out at the end of the year.

Singin’ in the Rain — This past Saturday I went to the screening of Singin’ in the Rain at the main branch of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. Our own part-time faculty member Sam Shapiro showed this classic musical as part of the library’s film series titled “Hollywood Shoots Itself: Movies about Movies.” For more information about this film series, please click on this link: https://www.cmlibrary.org/blog/hollywood-shoots-itself-film-series.

I knew I would see Sam there, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Aaron Toscano and Alison Walsh in the audience, too. After watching the film, I talked for a little while to Sam, Aaron and Alison, and then we all went our separate ways. For a second I thought I saw the three of them dancing down Tryon Street with Alison in the middle and Sam and Aaron on either side, but it was probably just my imagination.

Released in 1952, Singin’ in the Rain is not just a famous musical; it is also a film about the history of the American film industry during the transition between the silent film era and the advent of films with sound. The film is set in the late 1920s, just after the release of The Jazz Singer, which made history as the first “talking picture.” In Singin’ in the Rain, a movie production company must respond to this change or risk being marginalized. The production company, called Monumental Pictures, ends up embracing this change. The company releases a film that takes full advantage of sound, and in the process it sets into motion the rise of movie musicals.

As I drove home humming the title song from the film, I started thinking about connections between the film and our English Department. Like the production company represented in the film, our English Department is facing broader changes that have the potential of marginalizing the department. With the growing emphasis on STEM disciplines and programs that take an applied approach to education, many English Departments are currently experiencing sharp declines in their majors and course enrollments, but not our department. In recent years, our English Department has embraced change through our innovative concentrations, our collaborations with colleagues from the STEM disciplines, and our leadership in the emerging area of digital humanities. Unlike the many English Departments that seem disheartened as they are deluged with bad news, our English Department has a much more optimistic outlook. It is as if we are singin’ in the rain.

Kudos— As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department. Here is the latest news:

Antwan Alexander, one of our recent graduates, was recently honored as one of the “30 Under 30” by Charlotte’s Black Chamber of Commerce, an honor that recognizes Charlotte’s brightest young black entrepreneurs and business professionals 30 years and under.

Sarah Minslow recently published an article in the Journal of Popular Culture Studies titled “Treat Your Chicken-eating Children ‘Right’: The Conservative Political and Evangelical Values Reinforced in Chick-fil-A’s Classic Stories and Essential Values Series.”

Malin Pereira gave a paper at the conference for MESEA (The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas) in Warsaw, Poland, titled “Becoming a Minority Cosmopolitan: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Mixed Race Identity from Beyond Katrina to Thrall.” On the way there, she gave a talk on Wanda Coleman’s “Retro Rogue Anthology” at the University of Wuppertal in Germany.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is a list of upcoming meetings and events that will take place this week:

-CLAS All Faculty Mtg & Breakfast Friday, August 26 8:30-10:00am
Fretwell 100

-English Department Mtg Friday, August 26 11-12:15pm
Fretwell 290B (English Department Seminar Room)

Quirky Quiz Question — The film Singin’ in the Rain stars Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor as the two leading male actors. Who is the leading female star in the film?

Last week’s answer: the principal violinist

Like an academic departments, orchestras have their own hierarchies.  In a traditional orchestra, who is second in command behind the conductor?

Tuning Up the Orchestra — In the days of my youth, I played the bassoon in a community orchestra.  One of my pleasant memories from this experience was the ritual involved in tuning up the orchestra before a performance.   I remember the musicians assembling on the stage.  I remember the initial sounds of a few instruments going through scales.  And then more and more instruments would add to the growing cacophony of sounds.  And then the oboe player would play an A, and all of the musicians would tune their instruments to the oboe.  And then they would put down their instruments, the conductor would appear, and the performance would begin.

I flashed back on this memory today while sitting in my office listening to the sounds wafting through the department.  Like the musicians assembling on the stage, the faculty members are assembling in the lobby and chatting in the mail room.  The photocopy machine is making its rhythmic sounds as faculty members keep it busy running off course syllabi.  Students keep ringing the bell at the front desk, asking for help finding offices.  I regularly hear Sarah Minslow’s cheery voice as she greets students and brings them to her office for last-minute advising appointments.  These are the sounds I associate with the beginning of the semester, and they remind me of the sounds that the members of an orchestra make as they prepare for their next performance.  Our next performance starts in a week, and I am confident that by then we will all be tuned up and ready to go.

Kudos— As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department.  Here is the latest news:

Eric Linne, a graduate of our M.A. program, recently learned that his new novella titled MillVille will be released in serial form online in the Charlotte Agenda.  Beginning this Tuesday, they will be publishing two chapters a week for five weeks.