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Alumni Updates
Brad Barry - W.
Keith Duffy - John Fallon
Chris Harris - Robb Jackson - Carolyn
Keefe - James Martin - Carol O'Shea
Lynette Porter - Brent Royster - Inez Schaecterle - Christine
Tully
Recent
Faculty News - Recent Student News
Brad Barry,
Professor of English at Dixie State College, has been named Director of the
Composition Program starting Fall 2007. Brad reports that his department
has expanded the range of its courses and programs in recent years, and that
it now offers a BA with an emphasis in professional and technical writing and
a BA with an emphasis in literature. (Brad adds that Dixie College is advertising
this spring for a faculty member in professional and technical writing.)
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W. Keith Duffy, an assistant
professor of Humanities and Writing at Penn State, recently had his sixth peer-reviewed
article accepted for publication later
this year in PEER English, an academic journal specializing in literacy and
sponsored by University of Leicester, England. The article, titled “Sound
Arguments: Composing Words and Music,” follows closely on the publication
of Duffy’s related piece “A Pedagogy of Composing: The Rhetoric
of Electronic Music in the Writing Class” published by the pedagogy journal Inventio.
Keith reports that he will be submitting his materials for tenure and promotion
to associate professor in the fall of 2007. In the spring of 2006, Duffy, who
records electronic music under the artist name The Joy Project, had three tracks
from his 2005 CD release “Trip to Style City” licensed for use
on HBO’s The Sopranos, Oxygen Network’s Tempting Adam, and also
the feature film The OH in Ohio, starring Danny Devito, Liza Minelli, Parker
Posey, and Paul Rudd.
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John Fallon gave a presentation in April at the Annual Convention of the American
Association of Community Colleges (AACC) in Tampa, Florida. The session title
was "Learning Communities: Impact on
Retention and Academic Performance." John presented four years of research
on the impact of Learning Communities on student retention and academic performance
at Rhodes State College.
Results from the four years of research (N=199) showed that students participating
in Learning Communities re-enrolled the following quarter at a 94% rate, versus
a re-enrollment rate of 82% for the control group. After a period of one year,
students in linked courses were still retained by the college at a rate of
62%, versus a retention rate of 54% for students who had not participated in
a Learning Community. Finally, after two years, 42% of the students from the
Learning Community were either still enrolled or graduated, while the general
student population had retained or graduated at a rate of 40%.
Thus, the data on retention suggested that students participating in a Learning
Community re-enrolled the following term at a 12% higher rate than students
not in Learning Communities. The retention benefits rapidly deteriorated, such
that after two years, the Retention/graduation rate was virtually the same
(42% vs. 40%) between the two groups.
One other interesting result from the research was that studentsparticipating
in Learning Communities scored a "C" or better in theirclasses 90%
of the time while students not in Learning Communities, scored a "C" or
better only 78% of the time.
John says that he "learned about research and how much fun it can be" while
working on his dissertation, The Impact of In-service Teacher Training on the
Writing of High School Juniors in Five
West Central Ohio Counties at BGSU. For a copy of the research results,
you may contact John at fallon.j@rhodesstate.edu
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Last year, Chris Harris won a grant coauthored with Sandra Hill (English)
to replace equipment in two SMART classrooms and to purchase equipment for
an additional SMART classroom. This year’s grants include one in conjunction
with Director of Retention, Barbara Michaeledis, to implement service-learning
in Freshman Year Seminar Courses (FRYS 101) and Learning Community-linked English
101 courses. The grant will help fund the summer reading program and involves
implementing service learning projects in FRYS courses. In English 101, students
will create poster board presentations that showcase research and artistic
projects that link their majors to hurricane response and preparation. Students
will perform community service in FRYS and research and reflect upon their
service in English 101.
Another grant, with eight other faculty and Gene Eller (English) and Paula
Thornhill (Continuing Education) as primary investigators, funds interactive
multimedia, web 2.0-ish, learning modules that both
History and English faculty can use as ancillary material in their courses.
Chris’ current unit under production (with Monica Bonty from History)
examines rhetorical body postures and principles of good speech in Egyptian,
Greek, Roman, and Enlightenment rhetorics. The current grant project is a proposal
to replace computers in two outdated computer labs and one outdated laptop
lab, as well as fund an
additional computer lab with attached conference room/lounge.
Chris also has an accepted book chapter, coauthored with Sandra Hill, “Service-eLearning
in Professional Writing Classes,” in the forthcoming Service-eLearning:
Educating for Citizenship. He is working with the Education department by offering
presentations about communication across the curriculum to senior education
majors and high school teachers. He has also been the advisor and mentor to
the first-year English program and rewrote all of the FY course guidelines
so they adhere to the WPA OS.
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Robb Jackson, professor
of English at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
is now working on certification as a Certified Advanced Poetry Facilitator
(CAPF) through the National Association for Poetry Therapy (NAPT). He reports
that he is facilitating four poetry therapy and journaling groups each week
as a volunteer at our local Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (SATF) with
non-violent felons.
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Carolyn Keefe is now in her tenth year at Lindsey Wilson College. She reports
that she was on sabbatical in the spring semester this year, analyzing the
results of a survey about grammar instruction she administered to all full-time
English teachers at Appalachian College Association colleges and universities.
She was recently nominated, for the third consecutive year, for the Methodist
College's Excellence in Teaching Award at Lindsey College.
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James Martin left
a tenured associate professor position in English at the University of Guam
in 2002, and moved to a position as Associate Professor and Foreign Expert
at Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian province, People’s Republic of China.
In January, James presented a paper on “The Birth of Postmodern American
Poetry” at a conference roughly translated as “International Conference
on Contemporary American Literature” in Haikou, Hainan, P.R. China.
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Carol O’Shea,
Assistant Director of General Studies Writing and Acting Director for 2006-2007,
was inducted as a Fellow of the American Council
of Developmental Education Associations in October. ACDEA is a consortium of
five national professional associations whose members work in developmental education
and learning assistance. According to ACDEA, the criteria for fellowship are
based on the nominee's contribution to the field and include scholarship, leadership,
and service. Nominees are those individuals who have influenced the national
discourse in developmental education or learning assistance, articulated a progressive
vision for the discipline's efforts, served as an executive officer at the national
and/or regional level, published in developmental education and learning assistance,
and frequently presented at national and regional conferences. As you can imagine,
the ACDEA Fellows are a small and select group of highly respected professionals.
In correspondence announcing the induction, ACDEA President Hilda Darrow reported
that “Carol earned this honor because of her noteworthy professional career,” and
she mentioned some highlights. “Carol served with distinction as NADE President
(2001-02) and as the Ohio Association for Developmental Education (OADE) President
(1998-99). In 2003, OADE recognized Carol as the Outstanding Developmental Educator
in Ohio, which prompted the Ohio Senate to write Senate Resolution 1577 commending
her contribution to the education of underprepared young adults in Ohio. In 2002
she was one of only twelve individuals in the nation asked to serve on the original
steering committee of the National Bridge Project, a project funded by the Lumina
Foundation to improve the curricular transition from high school to college.
. . . Carol's contribution to NADE continues today as she manages NADE's online
presence, serves as a member of NADE's Emeritus Council, and shares her expertise
with developmental educators across the country who regularly approach her with
requests for advice.”
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Lynette Porter is on sabbatical this year, tackling four book projects. She
just turned in the second edition of Unlocking the Meaning of Lost: An Unauthorized
Guide, which did really well in the first edition last year. She is also working
on another Lost book, which should be out this summer.
She recently presented a paper about Lost at the Hawaiian International Conference
on the Arts and Humanities. Lynette has also been interviewed by Catchphrase
Entertainment for their Lost documentary, by USA Today’s Bill Keveney
about the return of Lost in February and by ABC affiliate KITV to talk about
Lost on Honolulu TV. During her stay in Hawaii, Lynette gave a lecture entitled “The
Telling of a Tale” about some of the adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s
The Lord of the Rings to a class at Honolulu Community College.
Currently, she is at work on two Lord of the Rings-related books in New Zealand,
where she will be through March, finishing her stay as a visiting scholar at
the University of Canterbury in Christchurch.
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Brent Royster's new book concerning
creative writing pedagogy, entitled The Construction of Selves in the Contemporary
Creative Writing Workshop, is forthcoming
from Edwin Mellen Press. His most recent poems appeared in The Mississippi
Review. He is currently at work on a manuscript of linked prose poems.
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Inez Schaecterle is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Buena
Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. Last May, she won Bowling Green State
University's 2006 Outstanding Dissertation Award. She also co-presented with
dissertation advisor Sue Carter Wood at the Rhetoric Society of America meeting
in Memphas. A revision of their refereed presentation was selected, after a
second review, for publication in Sizing Up Rhetoric, a book growing out of
the 2007 RSA meeting.
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The University of Findlay recently tenured and promoted Christine
Tully, who
was in the University of Michigan post-doctoral program from January 2004 to
May 2005. Though the program and funding was available for two years, Christine
finished in 18 months. Her specialties are in Mexican cinema and melodrama
and the title of her final project was “The Cabaretera Film as Utopian
Woman’s Film: Constructing the ‘New Woman’ in 1940s Mexico.”
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