Awards & Appointments

Congratulations to Leanne Elizabeth Smith who received the 2005-06 Outstanding Graduate Student Award and congratulations to Lorian Elizabeth Long who received the Outstanding Senior Award.  Both Smith and Long spoke at the Department of English graduation ceremony, May 5, in Hendrix Theater.  66 undergraduates receiving the Bachelor of Arts and 28 graduates receiving the Master of Arts took part in the ceremony.  Steve and Chandra Cerutti were instrumentalists for the event.

Congratulations to Bridget Marie Todd  who received 2006-07 Russell Christman Memorial Scholarship award.   The award amount of $500 will be applied to tuition expenses.

Congratulations to Ina Royer, this years's winner of the Paul Farr Memorial Essay Contest for here paper "The Education of Man: Power Structures and Gender Conflict Resolution in 'The Wife of Bath's Tale.'"  Named in honor of a former English Department faculty member Paul Farr, the contest was established by Paul and Marie Farr before his death in 1976.  The contest encourages excellence in undergraduate expository writing, particularly emphasizing clarity and elegance in prose.  Essays from both English and Women's Studies courses are eligible, and the amount of the award is generally $100.

A reading honoring 7 Outstanding Undergraduate Writers was held on May 3 at the Willis Building.  The honorees included: Carol Ann Gore, Katie Kokinda Baldwin, Amber Carpenter, Lorian Long, Holly O'Neal, Phil Quam, and Ben Ward.

Congratulations to Christy Baker who received her MFA in Creative Writing in mid-March from Goddard College.  Her creative thesis is a novel titled And When the Owls Cry.

Calling Cards: Theory and Practice in the Study of Race, Gender, and Culture (SUNY 2005) was selected by the College English Association of Ohio for the Nancy Dasher Award.  The Nancy Dasher Award recognizes outstanding publications in three areas: creative writing, professional and pedagogical issues, and literary scholarship (including theory).  The year 2005-2006 award was in the category of Pedagogy.   Patrick Bizzaro's "Men as Cautious Feminists: Reading, Responding, Role-Modeling as a Man," Resa Crane Bizzaro's "'Making this Country Great': Native American Educational Sovereignty in North Carolina," and Joyce Middleton's "Toni Morrison and 'Race Matters' Rhetoric: Reading Race and Whiteness in Visual Culture" were essays included in this collection.

During the 36th annual PCA/ACE Conference in Atlanta, April 12-15, Don Palumbo was elected to the Popular Culture Association's/American Culture Association's Executive Board (which has a dozen members).

Tom Douglass has been selected to be an NEH Scholar to the attend the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute at Ferrum College -- "Regional Studies in the Humanities: an Appalachian Exemplar."  Ferrum, VA is in the Blue Ridge Mountains.