Wednesday, 6 October1999
READING MATTERS Vol V, No 7
Meeting and Teaching Matters
English Department faculty meeting on Thursday, October 7, at 3:45 in the Gerber Lounge.
This meeting will discuss Huston's Report of the Task Force on Teaching and begin considering its recommendations. The Report is currently being amended in light of executive committee suggestions and to respond to the Provost's new procedural guidelines for promotion and tenure. A hard copy of the amended report, of the proposed Teaching Statement for the Department of English and of the proposed new Course Evaluation Form should be in your mailboxes this Friday.
Please e-mail any specific thoughts or questions about or objections to these documents to Huston or to me before next Thursday's meeting so we can try to figure the best way to proceed with the discussion. And, since this document is both long and complex, making it almost certain that this meeting will be the first of several at which it is discussed, please e-mail us your thoughts after the meeting, to help us organize further consideration.
Web links to the Report and to the Teaching Statement are below (both documents are drafts).
English Department Teaching Statement
More Meeting and Teaching Matters
Fall area committee meetings have been scheduled for the purpose of planning our course offerings for the 2000-2001 academic year. These meetings are your annual opportunity to propose new courses, discuss the viability of existing courses, and to make recommendations on the assignment of courses to individual faculty members.
Please plan to attend all meetings in your areas of interest. Since about 1/3 of us teach between the hours of 3:30 and 6:00, it's inevitable that some meetings will conflict with some teaching times. If you are unable to attend a meeting in one of your areas of interest, please give proposals or other input to John Harper, who will convey the information to the area committee leaders.
Meetings are scheduled as follows:
Monday, Oct. 11 - THEORY AND CRITICISM, 4:00PM, Gerber LoungeTuesday, Oct.12 - 20TH CENTURY LITERATURES, 3:45PM, Gerber Lounge
Wednesday, Oct. 13 - MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN, 3:30PM, Gerber Lounge
Monday, Oct.18 - 18TH AND 19TH CENTURY LITERATURES, 3:30PM, Gerber Lounge
Tuesday, Oct. 19 - AMERICAN LITERATURE, 3:45PM, Gerber Lounge
Tuesday, Oct. 19 - NONFICTION WRITING, 3:30PM, 331EPB
If you have not yet returned your course preference list and/or course proposals for 2000-2001 to Sharry, please note that they are due this week.
FRIDAY, OCT. 8
THE FACULTY COLLOQUIUM PRESENTS
BLUFORD ADAM
"Greenhorns in BeanTown:
Ethnicity in Gilded Age Discourses of Urban Degeneration"
3:30-5:00, Gerber Lounge
UROP Matters
George Cain (Biological Sciences) is working to establish an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) for Iowa. His proposal, presented to the CLA is as follows:
Below are the major features of what might be called an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Similar programs are in place at many of the universities we compete with. Hopefully it will increase the involvement of undergraduates in one of the distinctive activities of a major research university.
1. Research Experience. The aim of the program is to provide undergraduate students with experience in working with a faulty member in research or other scholarly activities in any field, including the sciences, arts and humanities. Lower division students would be emphasized. The program would be organized across all colleges, including the professional schools, to provide the widest possible opportunities for students.
2. Academic Credit. The research/scholarly experience should be for academic credit. Faculty m effort mentoring the student should be counted as teaching.
3. Introductory Course. An Introduction to Research/Scholarship course, team taught by faculty, would provide the student with information about how research is conducted in different fields, good research practices, communications, publications, and presentations of scholarly works, uses of library and electronic media for information gathering, research ethics, human and animal subjects, safety, intellectual property, etc. The course might be a prerequisite, or co-requisite, with the research experience.
4. Seminar. For advanced students, a Research Seminar course, perhaps weekly for one hour, that would provide a way for students to present, share and discuss research findings.
5. Undergraduate Research Day. An annual event that would provide a way for advanced students to present their research findings, either by way of a brief oral presentation, or a poster/display format.
6. Recruitment of Faculty Mentors. A dedicated and effective group of faculty in a wide variety of fields would need to be developed as undergraduate research mentors. Incentives may be needed. The pool of available faculty mentors and their respective research/scholarship areas would need to be developed and maintained by a central program coordinator.
7. Web-based management and coordination. Effective management, communication and the matching of undergraduate students with appropriate faculty research mentors, would be best conducted through a web-site and e mail.
8. Faculty Coordinator. The development and management of the program would need to be lead by a faculty member, with a staff assistant, to organize the research courses(s), the seminar, the recruitment and development of faculty mentors, the matching of students to faculty mentors, and the operation of the web site and program communications.
9. Relations to Honors, USA, and other programs. The program would need central coordination and would be designed and operated so as not to interfere with, but complement, other undergraduate research programs, such as Honors Research Practicum and departmental Honors research efforts.
For similar programs at other universities, see
http://research.berkeley.edu/urap/info.html
George is inviting comments and/or suggestions. Since this initiative might mesh quite well with our Honors Program and our existing opportunities for independent study, I urge you to give it some thought.
"Nothing more short of Oprah,"editor declares
Just kidding. Tom Lutz's Crying: The Natural & Cultural History of Tears continues to enjoy an amazing reception. The October 11, U. S. News & World Report includes an article in its "Science & Ideas" section by Jay Tolson that identifies Crying as capping a steadily building surge of books attempting to answer the question: What do "crying, laughing, gossiping, feeling bored or disgusted, falling in and out of love. . .and other behaviors say about the human creature?" Tolson's "When you are what you weep: A book trend that plumbs life's details" (p. 60) points to Lutz's Crying, Barry Sanders's Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History, Patricia Meyer Spacks's Gossip, and William Ian Miller's Anatomy of Disgust, suggesting that they represent the "cultural-studies flip side of memoirs," adding to a distinguished tradition dating back to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy in which authors probe "the relative weight of biology and culture in shaping human beings." Citing Norton publicist Patty Chang Anker's noting "an ongoing fascination with whether people are biologically shaped or culturally determined," Tolson concludes: "But Lutz's success may owe more to the fact that he richly documents a truth most nonacademics have long intuitively grasped: People are the curious products of both."
Oct 7 The Office of Affirmative Action invites you to the first annual Honoring Diversity: The 1999 Catalyst Awards Reception, October 7, 1999, 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. North Room, Iowa Memorial Union. The Catalyst Award is an annual award designed to honor creative initiatives by UI faculty, staff, units or departments to promote an inclusive, diverse community. The 1999 Catalyst Award recipients, Ms. Billie Townsend (Individual Recipient) and the Department of Mathematics (Departmental Recipient), will be honored at the event.
Oct 7 James Galvin, an alumnus and faculty member of the U of I Writers' Workshop will read from his new novel, Fencing the Sky, at 8:00 pm Monday, October 11 in Shambaugh Auditorium of the U of I Main Library.
Oct 13-14 Houston Baker visit and lecture Oct 13 8pm in Buchanan Auditorium. The title of his presentation is: "Turning South Again: Re-Thinking Modernism/Re-Reading Booker T."
Oct 15 The Center for the Book will sponsor a lecture by Robert Darnton on Friday night, October 15, at 8PM in Tippie Aud, with a reception to follow in the Anderson Galeria in PBAB. His Saturday AM discussion may have a different topic, perhaps concerning e-texts, and will be open to all those interested.
Nov 12-13 Barry Moser will be on campus as an Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor, his visit to coincide the publication of the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible that he has designed and illustrated. Barry Moser is considered the foremost wood engraver in the United States and one of our finest book designers and illustrators. When the Pennyroyal Caxton Press Bible, which he has been working on for twelve years, reaches completion, it will be the first Bible illustrated by a siingle author since Gustave Dore's famous Bible published as the Civil War was coming to a close. A recent interview with Barry Moser can be read at http://www.staff.interport.net/~hdu/moser.htm a site describing connections between painting and writing and Moser's work can be seen at http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~estes/illumine.html and information about the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible can be found at http://www.pennyroyal-caxton.com/
(From 9:00 am to 4:00 pm on Friday, November 12, Mr. Moser is available for scheduling two or three sessions with students, either within regularly scheduled courses or as separate sessions. On Saturday afternoon, November 13, Mr. Moser will give a hands on demonstration of new engraving techniques for faculty and students. Please contact me (Brooks) if you would like to try to arrange time with Mr. Moser with one of your classes or with your students on November 12.)
Nov 12 Barry Moser Ida Beam Public Lecture: "Tanakh and Testament: A Reprobate Tinkers with Holy Writ" 8:00pm Shambaugh Auditorium, Main Library
Oct 11 Central Investment Fund for Research Enhancement (CIFRE) applications due by 5:00 in the Office of the Vice President, 201 Gilmore Hall
Oct 15 Columbia University Society of Fellows in the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowships 2000-2001 applications due
Oct 15 End of trial period for UI Library subscription to Women Writers Online Project
Oct 29 Council on Teaching Instructional Improvement Award proposals due by 4:00 pm in 111 Jessup
Dec 1 Obermann Center Summer 2000 Interdisciplinary Research Grants proposals due