The Department of English and the Program in Rhetoric and Composition have received funding awards to enhance the use of pedagogical technology in in our current computer classrooms as well as the Writing Center and the department at large. Notable enhancements already in place include:
- A complete updating of one of our desktop labs (State Hall 029)
- New printers for all State Hall computer classrooms
- New laptops and a new printer/scanner/fax machine for the Writing Center
- A portable media cart for capturing class lectures and talks by guest speakers
- 30 portable handheld audio recorders and 30 portable handheld video recorders for use in classroom projects
- Camtasia software for use in composing computer-based instructional videos
Professor Pruchnic’s article “Neurorhetorics: Cybernetics, Psychotropics, and the Materiality of Persuasion” appears in the latest issue of Configurations 16.2 (Spring 2008): 167-197.
The latest issue of College Composition and Communication contains articles by two WSU rhet/comp faculty members. Issue 61.1 (September 2009) features Jim Brown’s “Essjay’s Ethos: Rethinking Textual Origins and Intellectual Property” and Gwen Gorzelsky’s “Working Boundaries: From Student Resistance to Student Agency.”
Two of the program’s graduate students will present talks at the 23rd Annual Conference of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (November 5-8, 2009). As part of the panel “Decoding Use: Broken and Failed, Localized and Expansive,” Jared Grogan will deliver a talk entitled “Garbage, Gospel, and Gold: Decoding User Inputs in Climate Modeling” and Kimberly Lacey will deliver a talk entitled “Decoding Kryptos and the Failure of Human/Machine Interaction.”
PhD Candidates (and GTA’s) Andrew Engel and Kim Lacey have been named HASTAC scholars for the 2009-2010 academic year. As part of the program sponsored by the Humanites, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, participants use a variety of media (blogging, vlogging, tweeting, etc.) to report on the use of information technology in research and teaching at their home institution.
Professor Pruchnic has won a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Teaching Award for the academic year 2008-2009.
The program will hold an informal job search brown bag for R/C graduate students on Friday, May 29 at 1 PM in the English Department’s 10th floor conference room. A casual discussion of the ins and outs of the job search process will be followed by reviews of job application materials solicited from individuals recently hired to and from WSU. Participants are encouraged to review in advance Collin Brooke and Eileen Schell’s (Syracuse) handout on Preparing for the Job Market and the first few chapters of Kathryn Hume’s Surviving Your Academic Job Hunt (available as an e-book download from the WSU library).
Recent program graduate Linda Mercer Learman has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in the Department of English of Adrian College. Linda defended her dissertation in Fall ‘08 under the direction of Professor (and Director of Composition) Ellen Barton.
Multiple members of the program will be honored during the annual English Department Scholarship and Writing Awards Ceremony (taking place from 3-6 PM, in the Welcome Center Auditorium on Friday, April 24, 2009). Graduate student (and GTA) Michael McGinnis will be awarded a Thomas R. Jasina Endowed Scholarship in English. Fellow graduate student (and GTA) Clayton Walker will be awarded a Jasina Scholarship and an Albert Feigenson Scholarship, as well as the first place Tompkins Award for best essay for his work “‘Feeling,’ Saying, Being, Doing: Recuperating the Role of Affects in Literacy Research.”
Professor Ray has been awarded a Board of Governors Distinguished Faculty Fellowship. She joins English Department Colleague Richard Grusin among this year’s winners.