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Message from the Chair

Dear students, faculty, and staff of the English Department,

We have come to the end of a busy and challenging Fall 2023, and I'd like to share a few words of gratitude and reflection.  

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Most immediately, I’d like to thank and congratulate our students:  thank you for continuing to show up, even during these very challenging times.  I hope you know how grateful we are that you have chosen to learn with us – in our writing classes, in the majors, and in our grad programs.  Your curiosity, resilience, and intellect are shaping the future of what it means to be a writer, an English major, a teacher.   

 

Please join me in thanking our department staff Chris Conroy, Cynthia Losinsky, Heather Sawyer, and Perry Udomwadhanaphorn for their constancy and dedication this fall.  I also thank our student staff who bring joy and camaraderie to our office vibe: Jermelyn Genove-Mangibin, Anastasia Cadenas, Mikey Pagan, and Louis Miller.
 

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Maricel Santos

Department Chair

I extend my deep appreciation to so many individuals and groups (please see below) who make our department a vibrant place to teach and learn. 


Thank you to the many faculty who do such important, less-visible work on department and university committees. In spring, we will be working to clarify our department's vision for service equity, following up on a three-year initiative led by Faculty Affairs to clarify service roles and responsibilities on our campus.  My hope is that, through community discussion and revision of our department by-laws, we will minimize the stress around service workload and promote greater transparency and ownership of our department's values about service.  Our work in the spring will also enable us to document the tremendous investment of energy our faculty and staff have put into teaching, advising, organizing, advocating, mentoring, innovating, and more during the past couple years. 
 

Thank you to our lecturer faculty in particular who have endured such pain and disruption in their professional lives this past semester. For many of you who have not been offered classes in Spring 2024 (or offered less than what you need), I thank you for the determination, grace, and self-advocacy you have demonstrated over the past year.  You definitely inspire me to keep pressing forward and to advocate on your behalf and for our students in the Writing Program.  

 

On a final note…

 

The Winter Solstice is just around the corner. We spend so much of our academic lives marking time with deadlines, semester starts and ends, and schedules.  I am so glad to be reminded that there are other markers of time like changes in warmth and light. 
 

I hope that during this solstice period, we all find time to retreat and rest, and I mean, really rest.  Our 2023 is ending with many unresolved and painful conflicts, locally and globally.  My wish for everyone is that you find ways to get good sleep and restore the energy you need to do hard work in the new year. Africana Studies Professor Shawn Ginwright talks about the need “to cultivate the reservoir of presence”.  I love that phrase.  I hope that our collective reservoir will sustain us and help us thrive in Spring 2024. 

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Please be well, stay safe, and take care, 

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Maricel 

Special thanks to:

  • Instructional Student Assistants and Teaching Assistants: Hallie Stark, Andrea Cruz, Julia Stahura, Mollie Downs

  • Graduate Teaching Assistants: Jackie Cao, Gretchen Cion, Cody Fisher, Isaac Arellano, Rose Hyunh, Connor Kelliher

  • CFA Leadership: Teresa Pratt, Kat De Guzman, Sarah Cox, Kurt Nutting, Larry Hanley

  • Program Coordinators: Jenny Lederer, Jim Gilligan, Sarita Cannon, Neil Lindeman, Mark Roberge, Priya Abeywickrama, Sara Hackenberg

  • Writing Program Team: Robert Kohls, Tara Lockhart, Jennifer Trainor, Priya Abeywickrama, Esther Chan, Dan Curtis-Cummins

  • Organizer of our Teaching Latinx Literatures event in October - Will Clark 

  • Organizers of our Bell Hooks tribute in September - Dan Curtis-Cummins, Teresa Pratt, ExCo student leaders

  • Retention Committee: Wai-Leung Kwok, Jennifer Trainor, Anastasia Smirnova, Mark Roberge

  • The architects/champions of new courses and certificate: Priya Abeywickrama, David Olsher, Will Clark, Teresa Pratt, Anastasia Smirnova, Sarita Cannon, Julie Paulson, Summer Star

  • Faculty Support & Mentoring Committee for keeping us connected: Kat De Guzman, Jim Gilligan, Carrie Hechtman, Caroline Casper, Collin Ludlow-Mattson, Gin Schwarz

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