From Graduate Students to Teachers — My career as a university administrator can be traced back to the fall of 1990 when I became the English Department’s Director of the Graduate Programs. In the process of serving in this position, I learned a lot about the demographics of our graduate program. At the time, most of our graduate students were teachers. Back then, many North Carolina school districts incentivized their teachers to go to graduate school by providing them with raises once they completed a master’s degree. As a result, we had many high school English teachers in our graduate program. Such incentive programs disappeared years ago, but our graduate program still attracts some students who plan to pursue teaching careers, and these students often go on to experience success in their careers as teachers. I was reminded of this aspect of our graduate program when I received excited emails from two recent graduates of our M.A. program.
A few weeks ago Melody Vaughn sent me an email message. Melody was my teaching assistant last year, so I got to know her pretty well. Throughout last semester, she kept telling me that she was applying for positions involving the teaching of English at high schools in her native state of Virginia. In her email, she wrote, “I have officially accepted an offer to teach high school English (and yearbook) at Thomas Dale High School in Chesterfield County, VA. Chesterfield was my top choice, so I’m very excited!” A week or so later, I received an email from Kevin Chauncey, who, like Melody, completed his M.A. in May. He wrote, “I just wanted to update you and let you know I have been offered and have accepted a job working as a Writing Coach at Gaston College’s Writing Center. I’m really pleased to be able to continue working with students in a college environment. I can’t help but feel just how fortunate I am to have been a part of our group there in the English Department.”
I know that all of us who taught Melody and Kevin are pleased that they succeeded in getting teaching positions in their fields. Their successes are but two examples of the many fine teachers who have graduated from our M.A. Program over the decades. I am proud of them all.
Learning Community News — Tiffany Morin attended the 20th Annual National Summer Institute on Learning Communities at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, last week. The institute is designed to help teams develop a two-year action plan for their Learning Community Program through in-depth workshops and cluster meetings. UNC Charlotte’s team of seven members developed a plan in conjunction with Housing and Residence Life that aims to give students a more holistic first year experience to improve student satisfaction and aid in retention rates. The English Learning Community is recruiting for the 2018-19 academic year and is pleased to report that we already have twenty members. Please let Tiffany know if you would like to include the ELC in any of your programming this fall.
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:
Meghan Barnes recently had a book chapter titled “You Can’t Un-see Color: A PhD, a Divorce, and The Wizard of Oz ” published in Feminism and Intersectionality in Academia: Women’s Narratives and Experiences in Higher Education (Palgrave Macmillan). She also just learned that she received the 2018 Outstanding Reviewer Award for English Teaching: Practice and Critique.
Pilar Blitvich recently published a co-authored article titled “Relational Work in Multimodal Networked Interactions on Facebook” in the journal Internet Pragmatics. This is a new journal published by John Benjamins. Pilar was invited to be a member of its editorial board, and she accepted this invitation.
Kirk Melnikoff delivered the welcome address at the 8th annual conference of the Marlowe Society of America in Wittenberg, Germany. As President of the organization, he also helped plan and run the meeting.
Tiffany Morin served as a mentor for English major Makalea Bjoin as part of the Charlotte Community Scholar Program this summer.
Quirky Quiz Question — The current Teacher of the Year in the United States is a high school English teacher who graduated from our M.A. program. Can you name this celebrated teacher?