Archive for ‘Advising Information’

They’re taking finals next week, but already their eyes are set on packing their suitcases.

Two of our English seniors are anticipating exciting graduate school adventures.

Juliana Kocsis, after considering an offer from Oregon State with full funding, decided upon North Carolina State in Durham where she will study Comp/Rhet (fully funded).

She’ll see a familiar face among the saturated green landscape when she walks onto the NCS campus. English Department alum Bethany Bradshaw began her graduate lit studies there this year.

Claire Hardin will soon perhaps be singing the praises of the Trailblazers and Stumptown coffee. She is headed to Portland State, where she will study Technical Writing.  Like Juliana, she received other offers, but chose Portland State.

• Departmental Chapels–Bible 117
• January 31 – Please join the faculty for a luncheon/tea in the Inkwell immediately following chapel
• March 6
• April 10
• Shinnery Review Chapels—Every Thursday in The Inkwell
•  All majors are invited to come together to share artistic creations, poetry, and we periodically will feast around the table of life with food.  Majors are encouraged to invite their friends and roommates.  For more information on the Shinnery Review, visit their new blog.
• Sigma Tau Delta Induction—Februrary 4th in the Chapel on the Hill at 3 pm
•  Dr. Steven Moore will be speaking. Please come and support the newest members of the Tau Epsilon chapter.  Biographies of the newest members can be found on the new Sigma Tau Delta blog.
  
• Fourth Annual Culp Professor Reading—April 10, 7-8 pm, Brown Library auditorium
• The English Department’s Dr. Chris Willerton will be performing
• The ACU Theatre Department presents Emma based on the Jane Austen book–April 12-21
• Visit the theatre website for more information.
• The Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest will present weekly meditations during the Lenten season–February 29-March 28
• The five-week series highlights some of Anglican history’s most important writers with some of the finest scholars in the area. Among those scholars will be Chris Willerton,  speaking about Dorothy Sayers(Wednesday, March 7 at 6:30 pm) and Mikee Delony presenting on J.R.R. Tolkien on Wednesday, March 14 at 6:30 pm.  For more information or to view other topics in the series, visit the church’s website.
• The Black Tulip Dinner/Poetry night/Shinnery debut–April 26
• Students from any major can submit their poetry, fiction, photography, etc. to shinnery@acu.edu. Contact editor Juliana Kocsis at jck07a@acu.edu or visit the new Shinnery Blog for questions or additional information.

“It’s More Magical Than Working at Chick-Fil-A.”

Tell your friends!

*Music is used as part of a parody of The Office, in keeping with Fair Use.

For more information, visit the Writing Center blog at http://blogs.acu.edu/writingcenter/.

Hello, students!  I look forward to meeting with each you for the first time.  I was previously an advisor in Journalism and Mass Communication, but I’m still learning the English catalogs.  I ask for your patience in my learning process.  :)   I have a few changes this year which, I hope, will help to automate the advising process.

Also, please note a few new links on the sidebar of The Inkwell blog.  The most notable change is the addition of the “schedule an advising appointment” link.  Effective immediately, ALL appointments can now be scheduled via my online appointment calendar.  It can be accessed from your mobile device or laptop and includes automatic follow up and reminder emails!

If you are a Junior or Senior, you are not required to meet with me.  If you don’t wish to make an appointment, email me at pamela.piersall@acu.edu.  Include your name and banner ID in the subject line.

Jason with famous Southern writer and humorist Roy Blount Jr.

Jason Harper (English BA 2001 and MA 2003) has made Kansas City, Missouri his home.

And he’s doing well.

In the land of barbecue and jazz, Jason has found ways to acquire expertise in the red-hot world of marketing and publicizing through social media.

This is not a surprise to one of Jason’s former profs.

“I had Jason in every creative writing class and he was a standout in all of them,” Prof. Al Haley says. “Poetry, short story, creative nonfiction, he could write them all with a wholly original voice and an unparalleled eye for detail.”

Asked what he thinks of how Jason has ended up working with social media, given that Facebook didn’t even exist when Jason was an undergrad, Prof. Haley continued:

“The world of social media arrived in such a sudden rush that it’s still crying out for creative people to bring some shape and form, and yes, style, to it. Without that, it just becomes the solar system’s most impressive landfill for words. I’m really  happy that Jason figured this out before a lot of the rest of us.”

In Jason’s case, his ability to take his training in English and apply it in a versatile fashion has turned into a job.

In an email, Jason recently shared with us the specifics of his journey into the world of Facebook, Twitter and more in the form of a series of, what else? 140-character or less communications, all of which ends with a piece of advice:

My life in tweets, by Jason Harper (@jasonfharper)

• 1 – I left my hometown of Abilene in May ’03 and moved to KC with my BA & MA tucked in a hobo bandana-on-a-stick thing. First job: bookstore.

2 – Got a job as writer & editor at an alternative newsweekly in a time when print journalism was moving to a 24/7 web content cycle. I blogged.

3 – And wrote features: http://bit.ly/eGyhP2. And expanded the newspaper’s reach into the online realm of social media, podcasts, photo, video.

4 – Next, I took my skills to the ad/PR world, 1st at a startup social media marketing firm, then as web content developer for@kclibrary.

5 – The Library is amazing. Pic: http://bit.ly/hlmXAs  I spread the good word about it thru blogs & social media. (Also:facebook.com/kclibrary.)

6 – I recently met my hero, @LeVarBurton, and made this video of his visit to the Library: http://bit.ly/fyK6ro

7 – Most valuable skill: WRITING. Favorite part of the job: telling stories & producing content of benefit to people.http://kclibrary.org/blogs

8 – Advice: start a blog, learn Photoshop & video editing. Pay attn to new communication forms. And be sure to slow down & read a good book.

Guidelines

The English Department at ACU offers the scholarships listed below to English and English-Education majors on a competitive basis.  To be eligible, students must be juniors, seniors, or graduate students when applying and must plan to return to ACU in the fall after the scholarship award is announced in the spring.  Previous recipients of scholarships are invited to reapply. The amount of the awards varies from $1000 to $1500 per semester.

The Watson Scholarship

• Awarded for character, scholarship, and need

The Garrett-Watson Scholarship

• Awarded to an English major with at least a 3.0 GPA

The Ellis Scholarship

• Awarded to students with unusual potential in the profession of English whether in writing, teaching, editing, or other areas

The Mima Williams Scholarship

• Awarded to excellent students of language and literature with creative and social competence who plan to teach and who are good all-around students
• Recipients should plan to teach in either college, middle school, or high school; have a record of compliance with university rules; have an outstanding moral and spiritual reputation; excel academically but also be well-rounded, not strictly an English scholar; and show unusual potential as a teacher.  Need is not a factor.

The Jack Welch Scholarship

• Award based on character, academic ability, and financial need

How to Apply

1. Prepare a one-page letter of application outlining your eligibility for an English scholarship.  Be sure to describe your career goals, your financial need (if applicable), activities that indicate your good character, and your academic performance while enrolled at ACU.  Also, please detail any scholarly work you have done or scholarly activities you have been involved in (e.g., original research, paper presented or published, awards or publication for creative writing, participation in a conference).
2. Prepare a one-page résumé outlining your academic work, your extracurricular activities, and your employment history.
3. Submit the resume and letter of application to Dr. Shankle, ACU Box 28252 or Chambers 308.

Deadline:  February 28, 2011

If your brother does something wrong to you, go to him. Talk alone to him and tell him what he has done.  If he listens to you, you have kept your brother as a friend.  But if he does not listen to you, take one or two others with you to talk to him.  Then two or three people will hear every word and can prove what was said.

Matthew 18:15-16

From time to time, students may choose to bring complaints to the attention of English faculty or the department chair.  Complaints about department policy, facilities, curricula or other issues not specific to an individual faculty member or course should be in written form and should be signed by the student(s) who are filing the complaint.  Such complaints will be taken to the faculty by the chair for discussion, and students will receive a written response.

The chair will document the nature and date of conversations regarding student complaints in a confidential Student Complaints file.

In regard to student complaints about a specific faculty or staff member, or in regard to a specific course, the English Department abides by the biblical principle of taking the issue to the offending party before involving others.

Students who have a complaint about a professor are encouraged to discuss the issue with the professor before involving any other parties.  If the student feels uncomfortable discussing the issue with the professor alone, the student should contact the department chair.  The chair will arrange for a meeting of the student, teacher and chair.

If an issue cannot be resolved in conversation between the student and faculty member within a reasonable amount of time, or if the student is unwilling to meet with the faculty member and chair together, the student should write a formal letter of complaint to the department chair detailing the issue. The letter of complaint will be filed in the Student Complaints file.  Once the issue is resolved, or if resolution is not possible, the chair will place copies of the letter and a memo for the file detailing its resolution or attempted resolution in the files of the student and faculty member involved. The faculty member also may submit a written response and/or letter for the file, to be placed in the Student Complaints file and the files of the student and faculty member involved.

Sometimes, a student may request that his or her identity be kept confidential.  In such a case, the chair must decide whether or not to raise the issue with the faculty member in the interim.   Generally, the chair would not raise the issue with the faculty member until after the semester had ended. Exceptions would include accusations of harassment or other behaviors that clearly violate university policy.  In such case, the chair will notify the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and together the chair and dean will determine when and how to engage the teacher in a conversation about the complaint.

If the subject of complaint should escalate to a point of discipline for a faculty member, then the chair is no longer bound by an initial commitment of confidentiality.

If a student is unsatisfied with the action taken by the chair, the student may file written appeals with the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and subsequently with the provost and the president of the university.

Throughout this process, the goal of this policy is to

• Seriously consider and appropriately respond to valid complaints;
• Protect the teacher’s academic freedom;
• Protect the teacher from unfounded/unsubstantiated accusations;
• Protect the student’s grade from being affected by the complaint.