Awards & Appointments

Congratulations to Olivia Everett, the 2010 Outstanding Graduate Student in English, and Stephen Mason, the 2010 Outstanding Senior. The Department awarded its first PhD degree to Carolyn Kusbit Dunn, and 33 BA and 24 MA degrees at the ceremony held May 7 at Hendrix Theater. In addition, the Department of English awarded 3 certificates in Technical and Professional Communication, and 5 certificates in Multicultural Literature. Congratulations to all of the graduates!

Welcome to Jeffrey Johnson who has accepted the position as Chair of the Department of English.  And congratulations to Stacey Atkinson who has been offered the position of Administrative Assistant to the Chair replacing Brandy Dashnaw. Good luck and welcome!

Congratulations to Kathryn Jackson, winner of the department's 2009-10 Pall Farr Memorial Essay Prize for her essay "Porsum's Private Life: Private Porsum's Quest for Self-fulfillment in At Heaven's Gate."  The prize carries a $100 cash award. The Paul Farr Memorial Essay Contest was established by Paul and Marie Farr before Paul's death in 1976. The contest encourages excellence in undergraduate expository writing, particularly emphasizing clarity and elegance in prose.

Best wishes and good luck to Donna Lillian who has accepted the position at Appalachian State University as Director of the Women's Studies program.

Best wishes and good luck to Gregg Hecimovich who has been appointed Chair of the English Department at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, which has 175 undergraduate and 20 graduate students. He will oversee a department of 19 full-time and 10 part-time faculty.

East Carolina University has received a North Carolina Quality Educators Through Staff Development and Training (NC QUEST) competitive grant in the amount of $261,204 for Project CEO. The NC QUEST grant is a competitive process though which funds are awarded to Schools of Education in North Carolina for use in providing staff development and training to staff of targeted North Carolina school systems. Applications were submitted December 15, 2009 and the decisions were announced Thursday, February 25, 2010. The grant, Project CEO, was written and submitted by Marjorie Ringler and by Debra O'Neal. Project CEO is a professional development grant in partnership between the College of Education, the, College of Arts and Sciences, at East Carolina University and Pitt County Schools. The purpose of Project CEO is to change the perceived role of the principal from the "booking agent", the one who manages the building, the schedule and the professional development to the "CEO-Chief Educational Officer", the instructional leader who will facilitate, lead and participate in professional development for his/her school with the goal of improving student academic literacy across the content areas. As a learning community, ECU faculty and a team of principals and lead teachers from Pactolus K-8 school and Wellcome Middle school will learn, implement, and coach content based instructional strategies through implementation of the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model. Leading the effort  for Pitt county schools will be Dr. Joseph Nelson, principal of Pactolus K-8 School and Jeff Theus, principal of Wellcome Middle School.