Wednesday, 27 October1999
READING MATTERS Vol V, No 10
Congrats to Teresa Mangum, whose Married, middlebrow, and militant: Sarah Grand and the new woman novel got a nifty notice in Choice.
The "new woman" phenomenon continues to fascinate new genera tions of scholars and students. Between the 1880s and the 1920s, thousands of upper- and middle-class women iu the UK and the US campaigned and fought against traditional notions of women's "proper" roles. These so-called new women were important forerunners to their activist sisters later in the 20th century. Mangum (Univ. of Iowa) has written a fascinating literary and social history of the new woman as she appeared in fiction and reality. Focus ing on the little-known author Sarah Grand, Mangum argues that Grand's new-woman novels provide insight into changing gender roles at the turn of the century. Grand's work and other new-woman novels had a wide-ranging impact: Mangum observes, "The British New Woman novel outraged 'womenly women,' inspired women's rights activists, and provided grist for both radical and reactionary reviewers." An absorbing read, Mangum's well-researched study of how Grand (and other writers) used middlebrow literature to agitate for social change will hold the attention of anyone interested in women's changing image in literature or in women's studies in general. An important addition to scholarship on turn-of the-century women. All academic and general collcctions. S. A. Inness, Miami University
Veteran TWISTERS (those with two years in the program) will now need to manage their own web pages. Uploading of new material to the server will be up to individual faculty members, with Jeff Porter becoming our web resource contact. Jeff will not manage individual pages for us, but will teach us what we need to know about managing TWIST web pages.
1. Faculty will still need to fill out the TWIST application and will still consult with TWIST librarians.
Karen Zimmerman explains:
The application form for spring 2000 TWIST course web sites is activated at
http://twist.lib.uiowa.edu/projects/application/
Please note the guidelines on the application form, copied below for your convenience. Thanks!--Karen Zimmerman, TWIST Coordinatorkaren-zimmerman@uiowa.edu
The goal of the TWIST program is to encourage the use of information technology to enhance learning, facilitate the use of authoritative information resources, and provide important links for faculty and students to rich library expertise and resources. To that end, the TWIST staff and librarians are available to provide in-depth assistance to faculty, teaching assistants, and students in the creation and use of TWIST-supported websites. However, staff and library technological resources are not sufficient for TWIST to become a source of labor for day-to-day website maintenance or production work on a permanent basis nor is TWIST meant to be a production center for complex multimedia production. The guidelines below provide some parameters within which the TWIST program operates to optimum advantage.
Library staff is available to demonstrate a TWIST website, the TWIST tools linked to the website, and links to information resources as part of course-related instruction. However special arrangements must be made if a faculty member wishes to teach a class how to use ancillary, specialized software such as audio/video editing, HomePage or DreamWeaver. It is expected that faculty or their teaching assistants be proficient in any technology that is required to be used by students for successful completion of course assignments. TWIST staff will gladly advise faculty and their T.A.s on upcoming TWIST workshops, Web Clinics, ITS courses, and other methods of obtaining training in instructional technology software. In some cases TWIST staff can arrange for customize training sessions for TAs and/or faculty beyond these other offerings.
Faculty who are working with applications that require specialized development work from other campus units (i.e. such as Academic Technologies) may be asked to move their website to a centrally supported server to facilitate that development work. TWIST tools and links to information resources may then be linked to the course site residing elsewhere.
Faculty are also encouraged to use WebCT and other server space on campus. TWIST tools and links to information resources may be easily linked to other course sites.
TWIST staff may require that websites for courses previously, but not currently, offered be moved off the TWIST server should server space become too limited.
Special support is available within the Department of English which provides a tiered service arrangement for faculty who are longer-term partners (2 years or more) in TWIST. Faculty who are not new to the program and who require assistance in incorporating technologies that require large amounts of server space or extensive system support, who wish to have assistance in basic page editing or, conversely, assistance in sophisticated applications like streaming video, will be supported by English department personnel. Library staff will remain available for ongoing consultation and course-related instruction in information resources pertinent to the class.
The beginning of each term is extremely busy for both faculty and Libraries staff. In order to support the maximum number of TWIST partners, priority at the beginning of each term will be given to the process of getting all basic websites ready for the first week of class. Complex websites will require that course content be available early enough to provide sufficient time for installation. TWIST staff will prioritize requests for support at their discretion with the goal of maximizing support for the widest number of participants.
2. Faculty working with audio and video on their TWIST sites will still go to the INfo Arcade for help.
3. Faculty who need to learn how to upload their text and images to the TWIST server need to get in touch with Jeff Porter. Jeff has scheduled two workshops for folks wanting to learn how to manage their own web sites: Tuesday, Nov. 9 (11-12) and Thursday, Nov. 11 (9-10) for web workshops on formatting and uploading syllabi to Twist sites.
Karen Zimmerman offers an initial tip for faculty who create their syllabi in Word."Maximizing Word Documents for Web Page Conversion" can be found on the TWIST Learning Guides page at http://twist.lib.uiowa.edu/tutorials/
Here's the text:
Here are a few tips that will make life easier when you want to create documents, such as your syllabus, in Word and then convert them to a web page.
1. Do not use tabs. When a document is created using tabs in Word, the formatting is lost on conversion to HTML. 2. Use tables for spacing rather than tabs. Word tables convert very nicely to HTML by either copy/paste into a web page editor or by "Saving as HTML." 3. To produce single line spacing instead of double spacing at the end of paragraphs (i.e. returns), use the shift-return instead. This translates into HTML as a single line break.
If you have other tips to add to this list, please e-mail karen-zimmerman@uiowa.edu
This academic year, we again have two sources of funds for travel support: the College of Liberal Arts' allotment for travel to conferences (this combines money from the Provost's Office and the College's allocation) and the Department's Glick Foundation Fund for research travel. The Dean announced that the amount of this year's allotment for English Department travel is $18,000, a 38% increase over last year. At the same time, the number of faculty requests for travel have increased. On that basis and according to general guidelines approved by last year's Executive Committee, Gayle Sand and I have matched available funds with faculty travel plans. Given anticipated travel needs, allotments look like this:
Assistant professors or Lecturers will be able to count on $350 per trip for up to three conferences at which they will be delivering a paper or chairing a session. Funds may not be combined to cover expenses for a single meeting.
Assistant professors who have indicated travel to conferences are Bass (2), Bolton (2), Creekmur (2), Dawson (3), Foster, Gidal , Harper, Hussman, Latham (2), Lavezzo, Levine, Phillips (2), Thomas (3), Trevor (3), and Wittenberg (2).
Assistant professors can also count on $350 for each trip to a research library.
Assistant professors who have scheduled research trips are Adams, Creekmur, Dawson (2), Gidal, Lavezzo, Levine, Phillips, Trevor (2), Witt, and Wittenberg.
Tenured faculty traveling to conferences for the purposes of delivering a paper or chairing a session can count on $300 per trip for up to three conferences. Funds may not be combined to cover expenses for a single meeting.
Faculty who have indicated trips to conferences are Boos (3), H.Diehl, Diffley (2), DiPardo (2), Donaldson (2), Eckstein, Emery, Folsom (2), Hamilton, Herr (2), Kopelson (2), Kuenzli, Lutz, Mangum (3), Morris (3), Nazareth, Round, Simmons, Snider, and Wilcox (3).
Tenured faculty planning a research trip to a library or manuscript collection can count on $300 (from the Glick Fund) for each trip.
Faculty who have scheduled research trips are Boos (2), de St. Victor (3), H. Diehl, Diffley, Eckstein, Emery (2), Folsom, Hamilton, Herr (3), Kuenzli, Morris (2), Pascoe, Round, Simmons and Snider.
Faculty on halftime split appointments can count on half the above amounts and should check with their other department for availability of further funds. This applies to conference and research travel for Donaldson, DiPardo, Kuenzli, Marshall, Weissbort, and Wittenberg.
Faculty who are part of MLA interview teams: 18th-century (Wilcox, Lavezzo, Kupersmith/Gidal) and Post Colonial (Lutz, Bass, Dawson). This trip will be paid out of College recruitment money and is not tabulated in the above totals.
If your plans change, you need to inform me immediately. If you did not turn in travel plans, we have assumed you do not plan to travel (if you find you need travel support, you will need to talk to me about whether or not there are any funds left). Anyone else needing to make a research trip must also check with me about availability of funds.
These guidelines are in effect
for the fiscal year: they cover all travel beginning July 1, 1999
through June 30, 2000. Travel vouchers must be completed and vouchers
turned in before June 30th.
The College has announced four finalists who will be interviewed for the position of Associate Dean for Research and Development:
Steven Bruell Department of Computer Science
Joseph Kearney Department of Computer Science
Usha Mallik Department of Physics & Astronomy
Michael O'Hara Department of Psychology
Bluford Adams reminds us. . .
Dear Faculty Colleagues,
Can you spare some time to help prepare our candidates for the job market? The Placement Committee is staging a 2-part Q & A session on Tuesday, NOVEMBER 9TH--FROM 3 TO 4:30 in the Gerber Lounge.
Part I: from 3 to 3:45, the discussion will focus on Interviewing.
Part II: from 3:45 to 4:30, we will talk about Campus Visits.
If you can come to either or both parts of this event, please let me know. I will get you our candidates' questions in advance. Our candidates are especially eager to hear from faculty who have recently served on search committees, but anybody with advice on these vital matters will be much, much appreciated!!
thanks, -bluford
Dean Maxson encourages us to nominate one of our distinguished alums for the Alumni Fellows Award:
Thanks to the Alumni Association's endowment of a Dean's Chair in the College of Liberal Arts, we are once again able to publicly recognize some of our most outstanding alumni. To that end, I am pleased to announce the opening of the second annual College of Liberal Arts Alumni Fellows Awards. I invite you to submit nominations for this award.
Each year, the Alumni Fellows Awards Program will honor up to six alumni for their contributions to society, their professions, the College, and the University. The Alumni Fellows will be brought to campus for a two-day visit on April 10 and 11, 2000. Each Fellow will have the opportunity to visit his or her home department to speak to classes, meet socially with small groups of faculty and students, and make a public presentation based on his or her experiences since leaving the University. On the first day of the Fellows' visit, the College of Liberal Arts will host a College-wide reception at which each Alumni Fellow will receive a commemorative award.
As a faculty member, you are uniquely familiar with the activities and achievements of your former students. I very much hope you will bring one or more of them forward as possible recipients of this recently endowed award.
Please send the nominations to your DEO, who will forward one nomination to me by Friday, November 5. Each nomination should be a brief (one- to two-page) letter describing the nominee's qualifications for this recognition. Please include the year the nominee graduated and the degree he or she earned. If possible, please attach a professional biosketch, resumÈ, or CV.
For further information, please contact Carolyn Lewis, Office of the Dean, by e-mail mailto:yerkes@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu or carolyn-lewis@uiowa.edu or by phone (5-2610).
And we are also invited to nominate an alum for the Hancher-Finkbine Alumni Medallions:
The deadline for nominations of University of Iowa alumni to receive one of the prestigious Hancher-Finkbine Medallions is Friday, November 5, 1999.
Recipients of the Hancher-Finkbine Alumni Medallions are chosen for the manner in which they exemplify the characteristics of learning, leadership, and loyalty. The Finkbine Dinner Committee selects a female recipient in odd numbered years, and a male recipient in even numbered years. In keeping with tradition, a male recipient will be chosen in 2000.
The Hancher-Finkbine Medallions were established in 1964 to recognize learning, leadership, and loyalty. The Medallions are named for William O. Finkbine, the founder of the Finkbine Dinner, and Virgil M. Hancher, a student guest at the first Finkbine Dinner in 1917 who went on to serve as president of The University of Iowa for 24 years. Four outstanding students, one professor and an alumnus are honored each year. Previous alumni recipients include C. Maxwell Stanley 1926BSAA, 1930MS, Jill McLaughlin 1953BA, Nicholas Meyer 1968BA, Jewel Limar Prestage 1952MA, 1954PhD, Irving B. Weber 1922BA, Dorothy "Dottie" K. Ray 1944BA, 1945MA, Mary Louise Smith 1935BA, Marvin A. Pomerantz 1952BSC, and Lilia Abron 1972PhD.
For nomination materials and a complete list of previous recipients, please contact the Finkbine Dinner Committee at 335-3557. If you have any questions please call me, or email me at belinda-marner@uiowa.edu.
Helen Ryan writes to add info and a URL to a previous announcement about Literature Online, or
Lion at the Libraries
The University Libraries has subscribed to a full-text database of close to 300,000 works of American and British poetry, drama and fiction. It includes almost 900 works of African American poetry from 1750 to the present; over 50,000 poems from more than 300 poets from the Colonial period to the present; 20 different versions of the Bible; over 200 works of prose fiction from 1500 to 1700; 11 major editions of Shakespeare's complete works with the ability to compare texts, and many Shakespearean adaptations; 80 works of complete prose from 1700 to 1780; 4,000 plays by 1,200 authors from the late 13th century to the earlier 20th.; close to 200,000 poems from 600 to the early 20th century. The database will continue to grow, notably with the addition of over 200 novels from Victorian England this fall, of which there are now over 80. This following year a few hundred 19th century novels from the United States will be added.
The database also contains a large and growing database of secondary sources dating from the early 19th century; the major of these is ABELL: The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature from England, covering all English language and literature research and surpassing the MLA Bibliography by its retrospective coverage to 1920, and its coverage of book reviews and creative works. Included in the secondary sources are full texts of over 40 major journals and tables of contents of some few hundred more.
The Libraries have purchased part of this database and are subscribing to the remainder. We will be monitoring its usage and may not retain the subscription if use does not justify cost. We urge you to examine it and consider the new techniques in research that it presents. Our subscription provides unlimited access, i.e., there is no restriction to the number who can have access at the same time.
The Internet address is: http://purl.lib.uiowa.edu/lion/lion
Email or call Helen Ryan at helen-ryan@uiowa.edu or 335-5945 if you have questions. I will be glad to set up appointments for individual or group demonstrations.
Helen Ryan
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 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