From the Chair

I am pleased to welcome a number of new colleagues who have joined the faculty of the Department of English this spring.  Some of these new faculty members are familiar faces around the department, having received their M.A. degrees recently from the department.

For example, Jennifer McQueen, who received her B.A. in English cum laude from Birmingham-Southern College, completed her M.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at ECU this past December, as did Michael McClanahan.  Michael had earlier received both his B.A. in English, as well as a Master's of Public Administration, from ECU.  Both Jennifer and Michael received appointments as lecturers.

Valerie Jones, also joining the department as a lecturer, completed her M.A. with a concentration in Multicultural Literature at ECU this past May.   She received her baccalaureate in Secondary Education from Indiana University.

Appointed as a Visiting Assistant Professor is Tonita Brannan, who graduated magna cum laude with honors in English from Wake Forest University.  A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Tonita received her M.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her Ph.D. in English from Michigan State University.  Her dissertation focuses on contemporary Southern women's writing.

Two new faculty members are joining the department electronically, each teaching one Distance Education course in our online M.A. program in Technical and Professional Communication.  Brenda Rubens, who received her B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Texas and her M.A. in English from the University of Texas at Arlington, completed her Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  Joining the department as a Visiting Assistant Professor, Brenda has been employed by IBM for a number of years, where her primary responsibility has focused on the design of system-integrated computer products with transparent, state-of-the-art computer-human interfaces.  Katherine Underwood, who is currently manager of publications and information design in the Office of Information Technology at Duke University, received her B.A. in English from George Mason University and her M.A. in English from the University of Texas at Austin.  Katherine has previously served as a lecturer in the Department of Technical Communication at the University of Washington, where she taught both undergraduate and graduate courses.  However, she has spent much of her post-baccalaureate career as a technical writer or editor for such firms as Microsoft, the ROLM Corporation, BPI Systems, and Texas Instruments.  Katherine joins the department as a lecturer.

Please join me in welcoming our new colleagues.