2001-2002
Contents:
What's New in the English Department
In brief: Faculty & Graduate Student Professional Activities
What's New in the English Department
Prize Winner: Poet Pete Fairchild added to his considerable list of honors the Arthur Rense Poetry Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The $20,000 award, first given to James McMichael in 1999, recognizes consistent excellence over a long career. Pete, who was honored at the Academy's annual ceremony in New York on May 15, also received the College of Arts and Letters award for outstanding professional development.
Golden Apple: CSUSB's annual Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Teaching this year went to the deserving Margaret Doane. Margaret joined the CSUSB faculty in 1976, after earning her Ph.D. at the University of Oregon. University President Al Karnig informed Margaret of the honor in a surprise announcement during one of her classes, and she received her award on March 21 at the Radisson Hotel at a dinner hosted by the San Bernardino Education Roundtable. In addition to her stellar teaching, Margaret has published articles on Robert Browning and published and presented more than 20 papers on Willa Cather. Margaret also received this year's College of Arts and Letters Teaching Award.
Farewells: We're saying goodbye to Aaron Race, who has accepted a tenure-track position at Crafton Community College, where he was recently named "Adjunct Professor of the Year." Aaron says "I am excited and saddened at the same time. I received an A.A. at Crafton in 1992, and I am happy to return to serve the students. I have worked there as an adjunct for the past three years. What saddens me is that I will teach only minimally at CSUSB. My teaching experience at Cal State has been amazing, and I love and will miss the department. However, I will hopefully still teach on Saturdays at CSUSB. I appreciate both as a former student and current instructor the help and encouragement given by the terrific members of the English department at CSUSB. They have really help me grow in many ways." We're fortunate to have had Aaron here in both his roles, and wish him all the best in his new post.
More Farewells: Congratulations to Richard Colby and Rebekah Shultz, who will begin the Ph.D. program in Writing and Rhetoric at Bowling Green State in Fall, and will be leaving CSUSB for Ohio in August. Richard is this year's Outstanding Graduate Student for the College of Arts and Letters, and was honored at the June 16th commencement ceremony. His thesis, completed in the program's Composition concentration, is entitled "Computers and Composition Communities: Solidarity as a Research Paradigm." Rebekah's thesis focuses on the work of novelist Amy Tan, looking at "The Directional Influence of Mah Jong in The Joy Luck Club." Both have been offered full scholarships and teaching assistantships at Bowling Green--"the whole shebang," Richard notes.
Rayburn Award: The first recipient of the Kellie Rayburn Memorial Award was linguist Miguel Reed, for his thesis on "Men's Gossip." This year's award went to Omar Moran (BA '98, MA '01) for his thesis "The Representations of Masculinities in the Works of Ernest Hemingway and Willa Cather." Omar has been accepted into the Ph.D. program at Claremont Graduate University, where he plans to specialize in 19th- and 20th-century American literature and gender-related issues. He has spent this year teaching at CSUSB and San Bernardino Valley College, and he'll continue teaching at CSUSB while attending CGU. Omar says, "I feel passionate about teaching here at CSUSB, and wouldn't mind teaching here until the day I die, or get fired--whichever comes first."
News from our Department Office Staff: Our congratulations and a big cheer for Michelle Mendoza, who worked as a student assistant in the Department office and aided instructors teaching large lecture courses. Michelle graduated this June, receiving her B.A. in Business, and plans to return to CSUSB in Winter for her M.B.A. And Dottie Cartwright's daughter Yvette also graduated (from preschool--it'll be a few years yet before she's a freshman at CSUSB, but she's on her way).
Greetings from the Chair
We've had another good year. In some ways, each year seems so eventful--lots of things happen of course--and yet one could also say that, overall, from year to year nothing changes very drastically as good old CSUSB continues doing what it does best.
After last year's massive recruiting effort, this year our goals were more modest. We were unsuccessful in hiring a new creative writer, so we will re-open that search in the fall, but we have hired two new assistant professors. Oddly enough, both have Ph.D.s from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Kimberly Costino, a specialist in composition and English education, is finishing her dissertation on literacy narratives and will teach composition classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as English 510 (Teaching English in the Secondary Classroom). And Suzanne Lane, a visiting assistant professor here during 2001-02, will help us out by teaching and doing research in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, including Native American and African American literatures.
As readers of the Department's website already know, we are mourning the death last November of another long-time member of our Department, Kellie Rayburn. To honor our memories of Larry Kramer and Kellie, we have set up two memorial awards: donations to the Kramer fund will allow us to give a yearly prize to the best work published in The Pacific Review, and donations to the Rayburn fund will allow us to reward the best thesis in our M.A. program each year. If you want to contribute to either account, send your check (made out to The Foundation for CSUSB) to me, specifying which account.
On a much more upbeat note, one member of our Department received special recognition this year, and we are all very proud of her. Margaret Doane was given the Golden Apple Award by CSUSB for being the outstanding teacher on the campus. If anyone ever deserved this award, it's got to be Margaret.
In addition to the publication of numerous articles, book chapters, short stories, poems, reviews, and other shorter pieces, this year has been a remarkable year for faculty members to publish books and to have their book manuscripts accepted for publication. All four of our tenure-track creative writers have hit pay dirt with another volume: within the next twelve months, Jim Brown's memoir, Juan Delgado's next book of poetry, Pete Fairchild's latest volume of poetry, and at least one more young adult novel by Alexandria LaFaye will be published. The literary critics have not been slacking off either: Jennifer Andersen's co-edited volume, Books and Readers in Early Modern England, was published this winter, and Holly Henry's study of Virginia Woolf, modernism, and astronomy has been accepted for publication. (Although no book contract yet exists, rumors abound that Rong Chen has written a book-length manuscript on inversion in English.)
So, as you can see, we're keeping busy, not only with writing and publishing but also with those crucial things like teaching classes, advising students, doing outreach work, and serving on committees. Despite all that, we always love to hear from you. Write, call, email, stay in touch. In case you've forgotten, we're at 5500 University Pkwy, SB 92407, or (909) 537-5824.
Phil Page
Remembering Kellie Rayburn
Kellie Rayburn, who died at her home on November 9, grew up in our local mountains, attended Rim of the World High School, and graduated from CSUSB in 1985 with high honors. In 1988 she received her M.A. in English Composition from CSUSB--again, with high honors--and the next year began her career as a full-time lecturer in the CSUSB English Department.
Rarely would Kellie limit herself to one path if, with greater difficulty, she could figure out some way of exploring two or more simultaneously. As an undergraduate, she excelled at two majors, English and Political Science. While a graduate student, she became a successful teacher--and worldwide promoter--for the American Culture and Language program. One of a remarkably talented cluster of student writers, she was fiction editor of the Pacific Review in 1987 and editor in 1988; to the first of these she also contributed both a poem and a short story. The research for her M.A. thesis on Flannery O'Connor also led to her winning first place in the system-wide graduate student research competiton in Humanities. She launched herself into the Ph.D. program at UC Riverside, and for a while managed to juggle a full-time teaching appointment here and full-time graduate study there.
Lecturers are sometimes thought of as marginalized waifs. Kellie was never a marginalized waif. Her teaching load was heavy and, of course, multifarious: composition at all levels, drama, film and literature, a variety of American and world literature. At the same time she hurled herself into the activities of the English department. She served on innumerable committees, particularly those involving graduate studies and composition. She kept breathing life into the Graduate Student Association. She cajoled her colleagues into giving Friday Forum presentations. She took the initiative when she sensed that something useful needed to be done--in the last few years, most notably, to strengthen the links between the English department and the local high schools. She organized essay contests. Putting her political skills to work, she served as an effective and articulate lecturer representative to the Faculty Senate. Her rapport with graduate students led her to be a reader on an inordinate number of M.A. theses.
Kellie had an assortment of passionate attachments, which she always hoped others would share: for the Dodgers, for dogs, for kiwi fruit, for Faulkner, for such musical favorites as Elton John and U2. She took for granted that everyone would be as devoted to National Public Radio and its luminaries as she was, and would care as intensely about the events in the great world.
In many ways she made the English department part of her extended family, and her colleagues feel a quasi-familial grief at her loss.
--Peter Schroeder
Congratulations to Jenny Anderson, awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor rank. A specialist in early modern literature, Jenny joined the faculty in 1996. She earned her B.A. from UCLA in Classics and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University.
Kudos to Yvonne Atkinson, Dave Carlson, and Jackie Rhodes, who were awarded Summer 2002 Course Development Grants.
Juan Delgado received the 2002 Outstanding Latino/a in Cultural Arts Award from the Hispanic Caucus, part of the American Association for Higher Education, this February in Chicago. Juan has recently given poetry readings at Monroe College and Northampton College in Pennsylvania. Closer to home, he continues his work with the Inland Area Writing Project with teachers, collaborating this Fall with Vision Community Day School in Colton, introducing poetry into their curriculum.
Best wishes to Ellen Gil-Gomez and her husband Kelly Alls, who welcomed their third daughter, Marisa Constance (9 1/2 lbs, 21 inches), on December 28th.
Sunny Hyon and Renée Pigeon were selected to represent the College of Arts and Letters (along with Tom Provenzano of Theatre Arts) as members of CSUSB's new "Teaching Academy." Sunny will attend the American Academy of Higher Education conference in Mount Snow, Vermont this July as part of the CSUSB team. And she will take over from Ron Chen next year as Assistant Graduate Coordinator for the TESL track in the M.A. Program.
Congratulations to lecturer Tim Melnarik, who completed his Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate University with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies.
Karen Paley, a Visiting Assistant Professor in the department this year, will move to Providence, Rhode Island to take a job as Assistant Professor of English at Rhode Island College, teaching writing and literature courses and, most likely, assuming responsibility for the freshman composition program. Karen adds that "this move places me closer to my sons and their families and my father and the Boston Red Sox."
Jackie Rhodes made her first trip to Europe last summer, going to the Netherlands, London, and Wales. This spring, she made her second trip--this time to Paris and Versailles. (She's fiddling with her digital camera at Versailles in the photo here). This summer, she says, "I'm only planning a short trip to Montana, since I'm planning on being busy--I got a Course Development Grant for this summer so that I can prepare for the new Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies course for the Women's Studies program, I'm teaching summer school, and I'm waiting with bated breath for any response from publishers re: my book proposal."
Change lobsters and dance: In the next academic year, Salaam Yousif will replace Ron Chen as Associate Chair of the Department, and Ellen Gil-Gomez will be the first coordinator of Ethnic Literature. Holly Henry, Suzanne Lane, and Gwen Binks will shepherd the English Club.
Hurray for adjunct lecturer and MA program alumnus Bruce Wolcott, who has accepted a tenure-track position at Victor Valley College.
This year's cadre of Teaching Assistants (Gwen Binks, Elizabeth Davis, Sandy
Halsey, Jennifer Gross-Mejia, and Rebekah Shultz ) just completed a successful year of teaching English 101. Our Composition TAs for next year are Anne Cox, Kathy Hansler, and Nancy de Brown, and our first Literature TA is Angela Bullard, who'll be teaching a section of English 170. More information about our M.A. program and our teaching assistantships is available on the Graduate website. (Photos: Elizabeth Davis, above left; Gwen, Sandy, Rebekah and Jennifer, right)
Recommendations from the English Department of noteworthy books & web resources. Alumni & friends, please send us your recommendations, too.
Books
Juan Delgado:
- Through Naked Branches, a book of poems by Tarjei Vesaas. He is a modern poet whose work is not grounded on the "self" and his poetry dealing with nature is interesting and unique.
Pete Fairchild:
- Pattiann Rogers, Song of the World Becoming: New and Collected Poems (Milkweed) and James Lasdun, Landscape with Chainsaw (Norton).
Bruce Golden:
- Katherine Duncan-Jones, Ungentle Shakespeare: scenes from his life (London: Thomson Learning, 2001) accomplishes exactly what the dust jacket blurb promises, "weaving [topics and
issues associated with particular phases of Shakespeare's life] into a complex narrative which brilliantly carries the reader into the complexities of life in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean England. A key component is her analysis of Shakespeare's dealing with fellow writers [Ben Jonson, John Marston, George Wilkins] with whom he collaborated and competed." The book is particularly dense reading, packed with information, but it's full of imaginative reinterpretation of familiar material.
- Larry McMurty, Walter Benjamin and the Dairy Queen: reflections at sixty and beyond (New York: Simon and Schuster, BA '99) and Roads: driving America's great highways (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000). McMurtry's two, relatively unnoticed nonfiction works were, for me, terrific reading. The first is beautifully written and full of fascinating stuff on book scouting, buying, selling, and collecting in addition to being an interesting and frequently touching memoir of his family. The second is similarly autobiographical, but framed by his passion for driving, mainly, interstate highways (in a rented Lincoln). McMurtry's glances at American popular culture provoke, inform, and entertain more gracefully and ironically than any other contemporary American essayist.
Karen Paley:
- David Bleich and Deborah Holdstein, Personal Effects: The Social Character of Scholarly Writing, (Utah UP, 2001), a collection of essays engaging in the current debate around "the personal": Brenda Daly's piece on "radical introspection" is about using academic work to attain "insight toward social action." Other writers are: Louise Smith, Victor Villanueva, Richard Ohmann, and Karen Paley.
- Beth Boquet, Noise from the Writing Center (Utah UP, 2002) deals with her work as director of a Writing Center at Fairfield in Connecticut and the Writing Center at Rhode Island College. It is a fine example of creative non-fiction using metaphors from noise and music (Jimi Hendrix) to explore the role of a Writing Center in the university, particularly the training of tutors.
- Jay Lamar and Jeanie Thompson, The Remembered Gate: Memoirs of Alabama Writers (U Alabama P, 2002), a collection of memoirs from black and white writers looking back on race relations as they were growing up.
Jackie Rhodes:
- Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (HarperCollins, 2002)
- Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (Metropolitan, 2001); Both books offer very readable critiques of corporate America, Schlosser with a bit more factoid-and-polemic style, and Ehrenreich with a personal narrative. Good reading (beware: you'll never eat hamburger [or sausage] again).
Web Resources
Gwen Binks:
An online newsletter called The Dangling Modifier allows writing tutors a discussion forum to share information. Picturing Hemingway not only gives a good biography of Hemingway but includes pictures of him working and playing.
Renée Pigeon:
The American branch of the Richard III Society's site is nicely designed, has good links, and if you're a true Ricardian, they invited you to indulge your angst by rearranging Henry Tudor's face (weird but fun). And check out Shakespeare's narrative poem, Venus and Adonis, in a visually impressive e-version illustrated with depictions of the goddess of love.
Jackie Rhodes:
Froguts.com is a virtual frog dissection. I know my high school biology experience would've been much less disgusting if we'd had this website (instead, Mrs. Brass had to kill a bunch of frogs for us). Disgruntled Housewife.com says that it's "your guide to modern living and intersex relationships." And so much more! It has absolutely no academic value, I'm afraid.
In Brief: Recent Professional Activities of Faculty & Graduate Students
Faculty & Graduate Student Publications
New assistant professor Dave Carlson published "'Indian for a while:' Charles Eastman's Indian Boyhood and the Discourse of Allotment" in American Indian Quarterly 25.4 (Fall 2001).
The March 4 issue of the New Yorker featured a poem by Pete Fairchild, "Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest."
"'Salpicando La Salsa' and Spicing up the Text: Power and Consumption in Latina Food Culture" by Ellen Gil-Gomez, was published in Voces: A Journal of Chicana/Latina Studies.
Alexandria LaFaye's short story "Testing 1, 2, 3 ..." was accepted for a literacy anthology to be published by Simon and Schuster in 2003. In 2004, Simon and Schuster will also publish Alexandria's latest novel,Worth.
Department Chair Phil Page published "Furrowing All the Brows: Interpretation and the Transcendent in Toni Morrison's Paradise," African American Review 35 (2001) 637-650.
Karen Paley's I-Writing: The Politics and Practice of Teaching First-Person Writing was published by Southern Illinois UP last spring.
Renée Pigeon contributed entries on the films Becket and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex to the Encyclopedia of Stage Plays to Film (Facts on File, 2001) and reviewed Martin White's book Renaissance Drama in Action for the journal In-Between: Essays in Literary Criticism.
Jackie Rhodes' article "'Substantive and Feminist Girlie Action': Radical Feminism and Network Textuality" has been accepted for publication in College Composition & Communication (forthcoming September 2002), and her "Copyright, Authorship, and the Professional Writer: The Case of William Wordsworth" has been accepted for publication in Cardiff Corvey and will appear this June.
Faculty & Graduate Student Conference
Presentations & Other Professional Activities
Writing Center tutors Angela Asbell, Angela Bullard, Goli Mohammadi, and Rebekah Shultz, along with Director Carol Haviland, presented a workshop session at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) March 20-23 in Chicago. Their session, "Negotiating Our Ways into New Streets and Texts," dealt with ways writing tutors can help both student writers and faculty members shape texts and assignments to more fully represent diverse voices.
Jenny Andersen had a busy conferencing season this winter and spring. At the Huntington Library Renaissance Literature Workshop on January 26th she presented "Predestination, Prodigies and Popery in Middleton and Rowley's Changeling." To the British Studies seminar at Princeton University she presented "Calvinist Theater: Predestination and Prodigies in Middleton and Rowley's Changeling" on February 8th. On March 22nd she presented "The Mechanics of God's Revenge in Middleton and Rowley's Changeling" at the Shakespeare Association of America. She is obviously obsessed with this play The Changeling and is now working to turn these papers into published articles. Finally, at the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies on April 6 she presented "The Estate Poem and the English Civil War," which, despite the title, looks at Andrew Marvell's imagery of mirrors and lenses in 'Upon Appleton House'.
Suzanne Arakawa also had a busy year of conferencing, presenting "Race and Nation in World War II Combat Films, 1940s to Saving Private Ryan" at the Society for Cinema Studies Conference in Washington, D.C. in May 2001, "Mapping Japanese American Internment Literature" at the PAMLA Convention in Santa Clara in November, "In the Narrative Space of the Social Imaginary: Re-Situating Asian American Mystery Conventions," at the MLA Convention in New Orleans in December 2001.
In February, Dave Carlson presented "Lord Dunsany's Don Rodriguez and the Rebirth of Romance," Luanne Castle presented "From Subject to Object: The Decline of Animal Subjectivity in Children's Literature" and Chuck Murillo presented "Chicana/o Literature, Composition Theory, 'Basic' Writers, and Street Textuality: Angels with Hidden Faces" at the Southwest /Texas Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Luanne also presented "Refugee Voices: Memoirs of the Holocaust for the American Child" at the ALA Conference, in Long Beach on May 30.
Ron Chen (shown here enjoying the refreshments at the June 7th Friday Forum and basking in the certainty of a Lakers three-peat) and Sunny Hyon presented a paper at the American Association for Applied Linguistics conference in April . Their paper, "Faculty Evaluative Writing as a Genre System," explores intertextuality and writer stance in retention, promotion and tenure (RPT) reports.
Carol Peterson Haviland will chair the 2003 CCCC Intellectual Property caucus section on plagiarism, pedagogy, and student writing.
Grad student Chuck Murillo presented "Chicana/o Literature, Composition Theory, Basic Writers: La Nueva Voz Textual del Barrio Chicano" at the III Congreso International del Literatura Chicana Universidad de Malaga in Spain and at the Fifth Congress of the Americas in Oaxaca, "The Other within the Other: Chicana/o Street Texts, Literature, and Composition Studies" at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in Chicago, and "Las Communidades Textuales Adentro de la Frontera Nueva:Chicana/o Literature, Composition Theory, and Bi-Polar Border Pedagogy" at the Spring Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in Portland, Oregon.
Renée Pigeon chaired a session on "Anxiety and Politics" at the annual Southwest Regional Renaissance Conference at the Huntington Library in May 2002.
Grad student Linda Preciado presented "Tia Chela from Oaxaca Meets the Teacher: Writing from the Space In-Between" at the Spring Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in Portland, Oregon, and at the Gender on the Borderlands Conference, held at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio.
Another very active conference-goer, Jackie Rhodes presented "Representing the Other: Our Students, Our Writing Centers, Ourselves" at the first conference of the European Association of Teachers of Writing/European Association of Writing Centers at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands last June; "Class, Authorship, and Women’s Work in the Furies Collective (1970-1973)," and "Queerness, Identity, and Composition Classrooms: A Workshop for Developing Strategy and Response" at the March CCCC in Chicago, and wrapping up the academic year, "Narrative Revolutions: The Rhetoric of Consciousness-Raising in Second-Wave Feminism," at the National Women's Studies Association Conference in Las Vegas this June.
On March 23, Peter Schroeder gave a talk called "A-words and adjectivehood: alike, apart, or askew?" at a Studies in the History of the English Language conference in Seattle, Washington, and on May 4, he presented a paper entitled "Lancelot as casuist" at a session on philosophical issues in Malory, part of the giant International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Sarah Trainin, who's completing her M.A. thesis on detective fiction, presented "'There’s a Woman in It!': The Mass-Market Introduction of the Female Operative through the Detective Fiction of Rex Stout" at the 2002 American Culture/Popular Culture Associations Conference in Toronto. She also presented "Inventing the Electronic University" at the Central New York Conference on Literature and Language in Cortland, New York, and for the CSUSB Student Research Conference a paper entitled "Electronic Discourse Communities."
Department Events in 2001-2002
The Department's calendar of events for the academic year came to a close on June 7th with a Friday Forum reading by Jim Brown from his memoir, soon to be published, The Los Angeles Diaries. After sharing a powerful and moving excerpt about his childhood, Jim fielded questions from the audience. Other Department-sponsored events this year included readings by writers Katherine Kurtz, Stephen Cooper, DeWitt Henry, and Allan Wier, English Club Film and Literature presentations by Dave Carlson (The Last of the Mohicans), Clark Mayo (The French Lieutenant's Woman), and Gwen Binks (A Farewell to Arms), and a series of talks by part-time faculty, including Nancy Best and Tim Melnarik.
Creative Writing Contest
Creative Writer and Children's Literature specialist Alexandria LaFaye oversaw the annual Creative Writing Contest with able assistance from Christi Rucker. Alexandria reports that "this year we had a record number of entries (600+) a fabulous speaker for the awards presentation, Janet Wong, and a lot of high school students so enthused about writing that they started asking questions about coming to school at CSUSB to take writing courses. The contest is a great opportunity for young writers to display their talents and take the next step toward developing a career in the field."
Commencement Ceremony
The Department's graduating students donned their caps and gowns for the College of Arts and Letters commencement ceremony on June 16th in Coussolis Arena. A brushfire in the Cajon Pass made reaching CSUSB difficult for some students and faculty, and Carol Bachofner arrived just in time to represent the Department as our student speaker, thanks to her husband's determined driving. Golden Apple Margaret Doane carried the ceremonial mace and officially convened the ceremony. (Below : M.A. students assemble before the processional).
The following students earned Departmental Honors during this academic year by maintaining a 3.5 or better GPA in the major and taking English 517, the "Honors Project," requiring the completion and presentation of a 15-page paper. The Department congratulates these fine students on their achievement:
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Summer 2001: Sarah Huckeba Antoinette Oliver Fall 2001: Zannell Blahut Angela Bullard Rebecca Dell John Garcia
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Jason Jones Rebecca Marsh Shawn O'Connell Winter 2002: Angela Asbell Carol Bachofner Kathryn Carpenter Alice Griffin
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Scott Jester Alexandra Lindstrom Denyse Loeb Rebecca Russell Donna Seckrater Spring 2002: Matthew Applebee Sean Banister
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Susana Brower Heather Caldon Andrew Carroll Kristine Casler LaShawn Cole Rebecca Dominik Deborah Draper Tatyanna Eley
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Patricia Telles Geraldine Tyler Cynthia Zavala Mayra Frias James Griffin Duane Land Jacquelyn Lepore Celeste Migliaccio
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Coral Miller Michael Payne Renee Randolph Leonard Sanchez Joseph Stone
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Alumni Spotlight: Christy Nichols
Christy Nichols (BA '01) has had an exciting time since her graduation last March. She's back in San Bernardino after spending four months living in Herstmonceux Castle in Hailsham, England, 2 hours south of London. She explains, "I was able to do this through the Study Abroad program at Queen's University in Canada. From there, I was able to travel all over England and spent many weekends in London, and one in Canterbury. I also had the opportunity to visit Ireland, Scotland, France, and Brussels." Christy is currently working on campus as secretary to Undergraduate Dean Milton Clark, but loved her experience in the UK so much that she is returning this Fall to work at Herstmonceux as assistant to the Field Studies Coordinator and chaperone to other overseas students. Christy has also been accepted to the University of Sussex, where she plans to pursue her M.A. in English Literature.
Alumni Spotlight: Joe Notarangelo
Congratulations to Maria and Joe Notarangelo (MA '01) on the birth of their second child, Joseph Mario, born September 21, 2001 (9lb, 1oz), just as Joe began his first year in UCR's Ph.D. program. He writes that "with every passing quarter I am more thankful for the excellent education I received from the CSUSB M.A. in English Composition Program. One of the things I've noticed in the Ph.D. program is that I can not focus solely on scholarship and be successful; I have to be able to teach effectively at the university level and know how to navigate any number of administrative issues as well. The CSUSB Master's Program helped me develop all three areas by teaching advanced academic skills for the post-graduate classroom, emphasizing the teaching skills necessary in the university composition classroom, and by providing a talented--and accessible--faculty from which I could learn to effectively manage this part of my career. Again, thank you all for all your help."
Our best wishes go to Gwen Binks (BA '98, MA '01) who will marry college sweetheart John DiPonio on August 3rd. They plan a Jamaican honeymoon. Gwen, who has just completed her TAship, will be teaching composition for the department next year.
Chad Davidson (BA '93) flourishes in his last year of the Ph.D. program in creative writing (poetry) at New York State-Binghamton, having just returned from a year in Italy on a Rotary Fellowship.
Seta Ghazarian (BA '99, MA '01) is currently at work on her teaching credential at Chapman University.
Congratulations to Omar Moran (BA '99, MA '01) and wife Ivonne, celebrating the arrival of their second daughter, Melanie, born June 1st (8 lbs, 21 in). Elder sister Marlene is 6. Omar writes "We are outrageously happy to have this addition to our family, and [paraphrasing King Lear] we certainly took great sport in her making."
Famed prize-winning student poet Laura Redford writes from Severn, Maryland, that she is compiling her first book of poems, Learning the Language.
We heard from Lisa Marie Rollins (BA '98) who completed her M.A. in Cultural Studies at Claremont Graduate University, and is now in her first year in the African Diaspora Studies Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley, with a concentration in American and Caribbean literatures. She writes that "I'm also working on many multimedia projects and publishing an online and print journal, The Ethiop's Ear. I love the Bay area but still hope to move back to Southern California when I'm done."
Lynn Rudloff (BA '91 , MA '93) who completed her Ph.D. with a dissertation on Larry McMurtry at UT Austin, was just appointed to a tenure track position as Assistant Professor, English Writing and Rhetoric at St. Edward's University, Austin, Texas.
Ron Shaw (BA '85) is now a supervisor in the County Jobs and Employment Department. He writes "If anyone reads this and knew me back then, I would be pleased to hear from you. Please write to me at east_highland@yahoo.com."
Mary Rose Toll (BA '01) writes that "I have survived my first year of teaching. It has been more difficult than I imagined, but I do like it and will continue in the profession. I completed my credential program in January and have two more classes to complete my CLAD certificate and Master's in Teaching. I want to come back to San Bernardino and get a Master's degree in either Literature or Compostion when I complete the program this summer. I have been hired in the Antelope Valley and would be willing to commute."
Many of our alumni, Margaret Doane reports, are teaching locally. Chris Allera (BA '87) teaches at AB Miller High School; Joan Bain (BA '91) teaches fifth grade at Camino Real Elementary School. Ryan Black (BA '01) is teaching at Rim of the World HS and is married to Morgan Crabtree (BA Art, '00); Vanessa Chambers (BA '98) is at Fontana High, where Patricia Lindsay (BA '87) is chair. Susan Coykendall Murray (BA '92) teaches at Centennial HS, and Jennifer Varney currently is student teaching there. Carol Culligan (BA '96), Marc Pollitt (BA '99; now in our MA Program) and Gail Paine (BA '96), the new department chair, are at San Gorgonio HS, where Linda Preciado (BA '95; now in our MA program) is a counselor. Dougie Douglas-Colten (BA '99) and Darlene Dolan Cunningham (BA '99) teach at Pacific High; Dorothy Familetti Taglieri (BA '81) teaches at Canyon Springs, and Dona Hines (BA '96) at Bloomington. Toni Robinette (BA '87), who won the award for the most outstanding high school teacher in California, teaches at Apple Valley High, along with Liane Streubing (BA '86). Christopher Lee (BA '00), Eileen Potterton (BA '82), and Wray Finks (BA '00) are at Colton High, along with Darcy Vickers Salvadore (BA '95), who is currently teaching our English 510 class. Sandy Alps (BA '84, MA '90) is at Eisenhower, and Lynne Barnett (BA '86, Liberal Studies) is an administrator at San Bernardino High, where Karen Kessinger (BA '77, French) teaches.
Julie Tilton (BA '77, MA '82) teaches full-time at San Bernardino Valley College, as does Judith Ashton (BA '82, MA '85). Both have won the Golden Apple Teaching Award, and Judith is the incoming department chair. A bit further afield, Sue Bechtel (BA '84) is chair of the English department at a community college near East Glacier, Montana. Susan Fullerton (BA '82) says she is doing a Ph.D. at "an online university in Minnesota." Louise Harrington (BA '98) teaches at a continuation high school in Utah. Debbie (DJ) Morales (BA '81) lives in San Jose. Cynthea Preston (BA '91, MA '92) is a professor in the English department and is currently Acting Dean of the School of Natural Sciences & Technology at Lake Tahoe Community College. Louise Rodriguez Connal (BA '83, MA '89) received a Ph.D. in Composition from Arizona State University. Angela Cardinale Bartlett has just been accepted at Columbia. And closer to home, Julie Bealer (BA '98) lives in Hemet and works as a manager at Gottschalks. Kerry Branch (BA '94) continues at the law firm of Morrison and Forester in Los Angeles.
We love to hear from our alumni. Send an e-mail with your news to rpigeon@csusb.edu, or write to : Prof. Renée Pigeon, Dept. of English, CSUSB, 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino, CA 92407-2397. And please remember that when you contribute to the University's Annual Fund, you can designate the English Department to receive your contribution.
Special thanks for their assistance with this issue of English News to Dottie Cartwright, Bruce Golden, Margaret Doane, and Jackie Rhodes.
English News Editor: Renée Pigeon