English News 2003-2004

2003-2004

What's New in the English Department

Greetings from the Chair

Faculty Features

Bruce Golden Retires

Worth Reading

In brief: Faculty & Graduate Student Professional Activities

Year-End Notes

Alumni & Other Friends

Write to us

Acknowledgments

What's New in the English Department

A Familiar Face as CSUN's New Provost: A former faculty member, associate dean, and department chair many of our readers will remember well, Harry Hellenbrand, has been named Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Cal State Northridge. Harry received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1980 and joined our English Department in 1982, serving as Chair from 1990-1994. After leaving San Bernardino for the snows of Duluth and a position as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota in 1994, Harry returned to California in 1998 to serve in the same post at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. In his new post at CSUN, he will oversee more than 1,700 faculty and staff members in the Division of Academic Affairs. Harry sent greetings to English News, "I'm happy to be back in Southern California again, ten years after I left CSUSB. Being a city boy, I like the diversity and bustle of CSUN and the Valley. Now, if we only could do something about the summer heat . . . I cannot believe that it was twenty-two years ago that Clark Mayo hired me: where did THAT go? But it all comes full circle: I remember bringing on Ron Chen in '92 and even cheering for the Lakers with Yvonne Atkinson!"

Awards and Honors: Undergraduate student Alba Cruz-Hacker has been honored with a prestigious Pushcart Prize nomination for her poem “Pieces of Wood,” published in Disquieting Muses Quarterly (DMQ) Review. Her work has also appeared in a variety of journals, including The Caribbean Writer, Speechless, Poetry Repair Shop, Can We Have Our Ball Back, and The Pacific Review. Alba is completing her B.A. in English (Creative Writing--Poetry) and a minor in Spanish at CSUSB, and has served as Poetry Editor for The Pacific Review. Originally from The Dominican Republic, she lives in San Bernardino with her husband and three children. Read Alba's poem in The DMQ Review.

Two of our faculty were lauded by the Texas Institute of Letters: the 2003 "Best Book of Poetry" Award, a $5000 prize, went to the much-honored Pete Fairchild for Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest (W. W. Norton), and new Assistant Professor Bret Anthony Johnston was a finalist for the best short story award in both 2002 and 2003.

Lecturer Suzanne Arakawa was awarded an East West Players/David Henry Hwang Writers' Institute Playwriting Scholarship, and her full-length play, Protected by Law, received a directed reading in June at the David Henry Hwang Theater in downtown Los Angeles. The New York Times has called East West Players "the nation’s pre-eminent Asian American theater troupe.”

The department's Kellie Rayburn Memorial Award for the year's outstanding Master's thesis went to James Smart, for his thesis "Rhetorical And Narrative Structures In Hersey’s Hiroshima: How They Breathe Life Into The Tale Of A Doomed City." Rebecca Marsh received Honorable Mention for her thesis, "Refiguring Milton in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own." The award is in memory of the late Kellie Rayburn, an alumna of our undergraduate and graduate programs, and a vital part of the department for many years as a full-time lecturer.

Still More Awards: The Arrowhead Reading Council presented Alexandria LaFaye with the "Celebrate Literacy" Award for her efforts to do just that by promoting literacy in the community. The most recent book by the prolific children's author, Worth (Simon and Schuster, 2004), received a "starred" review from Booklist. And the College of Arts and Letters gave its annual Outstanding Service award to Sunny Hyon, who shepherded us through a very complicated curriculum revision as chair of the Curriculum Committee, while Jim Brown took home the Outstanding Professional Development award.

News from Our Office Staff: Hearty congratulations to Dottie Cartwright, our Administrative Support Coordinator, on receiving her Master's of Public Administration in December. Dottie next plans to complete a Special Education Teaching Credential in Mild/Moderate Disability. And a big cheer for Monica Orduna, a student assistant in our office for five years, who earned her B.A. this winter in Spanish with a minor in Latin American Studies and certificates in Bilingual/Cross-Cultural Studies and Public Service.
[top]

image of R. Chen Greetings from the Chair

The year of 2003-2004 has been good for us yet again, though eventful and difficult at times. The first event is the most obvious: greeting you now is me, the new Chair who feels truly honored for the opportunity to serve this remarkable department.

We all know the State budget woes. Despite the staggering budget cuts, however, we have managed to find ways to provide our students the kind of services that they have enjoyed all along. We are confident that our students are not going to feel many of the adjustments we have made and most of them can still progress and graduate according to their original plans.

Another major event in the past year is the redesigning of the undergraduate program, in part in response to California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC) standards. The new major, which is expected to be implemented in Fall Quarter 2005, will strengthen what we believe to be an already-strong program.

The faculty has been as productive as ever in their professional endeavors. In a span of 12 months—Fall 2002 to Fall 2003—the department turned out seven books. At least one book came from each of the four disciplines housed in the department—literature (Holly Henry), linguistics (myself), composition (Carol Haviland), and creative writing—and every one of the then-on-board creative writers (Jim Brown, Juan Delgado, Pete Fairchild, Alexandria LaFaye) put a book on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. In the 2004 Faculty Focus, Professor Peter Schroeder observes that seven is also the number of books produced by our “much larger and more leisured cousins”—the English faculty at UCLA—during the same period.

There have also been changes in the personnel of the department. Professor Bruce Golden, a founding faculty member of CSUSB, has decided to retire, after 39 years of service to the university and the department. Thankfully, he will not disappear from us, though, as he will still be teaching for us part time since he is participating in the Faculty Early Retirement Program. We have also added a new member to the department: Professor Caroline Vickers will be joining us in Fall, 2004, as Assistant Professor in linguistics. With a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona, Caroline brings with her a wealth of experience teaching courses in composition as well as linguistics.

The next year promises to be another challenging year, but we know we will not compromise our mission of providing students with a valuable education. We will be happy to hear from you. My email address is rchen@csusb.edu and my phone number is (909)-537-5834.

[top]

Faculty Features

Three cheers for Alexandria LaFaye and Jacqueline Rhodes, both newly tenured and promoted to Associate Professor rank.

In summer 2003, thanks to cat-sitting duties for an English Blue cat named Henry, Jenny Andersen had the thrill of staying in London for six weeks, of doing research at the British Library for the first time and of attending plays at the outdoor Globe Theatre (a reconstruction of the Shakespearean original).

Congratulations to newlyweds Mary Boland and Dan Provost, who were married on August 21st on Long Island, NY. Mary says that although torrential rains washed out their planned garden ceremony, "It was really a joyous, wonderful event. My favorite part? Everyone involved with the ceremony came down the aisle while our guests sang 'Goin' to the Chapel of Love' with gusto." She adds that despite receiving lots of mail addressed to "Mrs. Provost," while she's newly married, she's still Mary Boland.

Jim Brown's memoir The Los Angeles Diaries was named one of the "Best Books of 2003" by Publisher's Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Las Vegas Mercury and Seattle Weekly and film rights have been optioned by director Lisa Cholodenko of "Laurel Canyon" and "High Art." The American trade paperback will be released this coming September, and Jim will be off on on a book tour to New York, Boston, L.A., San Diego and San Francisco. GQ Magazine will be publishing a new essay from Jim this summer or early fall.

When the city of San Francisco issued over 4,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples early this year, those participating in the "San Francisco Wed-In" included Jackie Rhodes and Aurora Wolfgang (left) who tied the knot on February 15th, and Kim Costino and Monika Hogan (right), who followed suit on March 8th. Our best wishes to all four.

Juan Delgado spent Winter and Spring 2004 as a visiting professor at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, where he had the opportunity to teach in their MFA program. This Fall, Juan says, he is looking forward to teaching English 601, a graduate poetry course centered around identity and place. In addition to his latest book A Rush of Hands, he recently published a poem, "Metamorphosis," in The Melic Review, an on-line journal. (You can read Juan's poem at http://www.melicreview.com/ current/juan%20delgado.htm). And Juan will be kept busy during the 2004-2005 academic year serving as the interim chair of the Communications Studies department.

Bret Anthony Johnston, who joined our stellar Creative Writing faculty in 2003-2004, has completed his first year at CSUSB and is celebrating the publication of his first collection of short stories, Corpus Christi. Mark Rozzo, reviewing the collection for the Los Angeles Times, writes "The 10 stories that make up Bret Anthony Johnston's auspicious debut collection attempt to map Corpus Christi, Texas, and its environs, 'where the heat is wet and exhausting, and the land feels as wide open as the ocean.' It's hurricane country, and Johnston's exquisitely drawn men and women are riders on the storm, coping with an iffy emotional landscape that mirrors Corpus Christi's own, where the past is too easily washed away and the ocean has no memory." You can read more about Bret and Corpus Christi at his website, www.bretanthonyjohnston.com.

Phil Page, shown here with current chair Ron Chen, reports that he's really enjoying his return to teaching. Says Page, "Four years as chair were enough."

Professor Emeritus Bob Lee, who retired from the English Department in 1992, and wife Gloria have funded an endowed professorship in Shakespeare and a student scholarship in art history at the University of Oregon. The University of Oregon reports that "the position will be named in honor of A. Kingsley Weatherhead, an emeritus professor of modern literature who was Lee's teacher and adviser when he was pursuing his doctorate in English at the UO from 1961-66." The first Gloria Tovar Lee Scholarship in Art History will be awarded for the 2004-2005 school year. The Lees live in Santa Cruz.

[top]

Bruce Golden Retires

On June 6th, the department assembled in Gabrielle Halko's verdant backyard to honor Bruce Golden, retiring after 39 years at CSUSB. Professors Emeriti Schroeder and Mayo welcomed Bruce to their ranks with Schroeder reminiscing about those early days at CSUSB and Mayo's reading of the Faculty Senate's Resolution in honor of Bruce, which praised his "polymathic interest in such sundry subjects as Shakespeare, Milton, Critical Theory, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and Woody Allen" and lauded his role as a founding father of the M.A. program and "a tireless and sympathetic mentor to generations of graduate students."

Bruce will also be joining Schroeder and Mayo as a "FERP-er," participating in the Faculty Early Retirement Program, and English News asked him to share his thoughts about his new role. Bruce responded, "I've been asked to say something about retiring from full-time teaching after 39 years at Cal State. Many have asked why I didn't hold on for one more year to complete an even forty. I'm not superstitious about numbers, so there seemed to be no good reason not to enroll in the Faculty Early Retirement Program and happily accept the opportunity to continue to teach two classes each fall and winter term for the next five years. Some of that time I'll spend figuring out what I'll do when I finally leave the classroom. Meanwhile I'll continue to work on unfinished critical essays and begin research on some newly hatched notions I'll probably inflict on graduate students as I continue to teach graduate courses in The Western Rhetorical Tradition and Critical Approaches to Literature along with the undergraduate courses in Shakespeare and Literary Criticism. One huge advantage to the FERP program is that it allows me to remain active in the English department which has provided wonderful colleagues and exceptional students, even though the University claims I've retired."

[top]

Worth Reading

Recommendations from the English Department of noteworthy books & web resources. Alumni & friends, please send us your recommendations, too.

Two books that I've recently loved are Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty: A Friendship (Dimensions, 2004), a nonfiction book about female friendships, and Ian McEwan's Atonement (Nan A. Talese, 2002), a novel. --Bret Johnston
The wonderful "Thursday Next" series by Jasper Fforde, beginning with The Eyre Affair (Viking, 2002). Set in an alternate U.K. in 1985, a world where the Crimean War is still going on, and people take literature very, very seriously, The Eyre Affair introduces heroine Thursday Next. It combines "elements of Monty Python, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking and Buffy the Vampire Slayer," said The Wall Street Journal, "but its quirky charm is all its own." The fourth and most recent installment of Thursday's adventures, Something Rotten, was published in the U.S. by Viking in August, and Fforde has a feature-packed website at www.thursdaynext.com. I also recommend In the Kingdom of Ghengis Khan by Stanley Stewart, a moving, often funny account of the author's journey on horseback through contemporary Mongolia. --Renée Pigeon
A book I'd recommend to readers is the late James Welsh's The Heartsong of Charging Elk. Welsh, one of the major Native American novelists since the "Renaissance" of the 1960s, passed away last year. This novel, which came out in 2000, is his last book. It is a beautifully written work of historical fiction (equally able to evoke pictures of the Western Plains or of Marseilles in the late 19th century). For lovers of the "fantastic" in literature, I'd also recommend John Crowley's Little, Big (now back in print after a long absence). Crowley is very "literary" (his work is highly allusive, metafictive, and lyrical), so those whose taste in fantasy is limited to Tolkien rip-offs will find something rather different here. Readers willing to invest the time and mental energy are in for a treat, though. In my humble opinion, this book is one of the five most original, brilliant works of fantasy of the 20th century.--David Carlson
Two great memoirs: Jim Brown's The Los Angeles Diaries (William Morrow, 2003) and Judy Blunt's Breaking Clean (Knopf, 2002). --Jackie Rhodes

[top]

In Brief: Recent Professional Activities of Faculty & Graduate Students

Faculty & Graduate Student Publications

Books, 2003-2004

James Brown. The Los Angeles Diaries. William Morrow, 2003.

Ron Chen. English Inversion: A Ground-before-Figure Construction (Cognitive Linguistics Research 25). Mouton de Gruyter, 2003

Juan Delgado . A Rush of Hands. University of Arizona Press, 2003.

B. H. Fairchild. Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest. W. W. Norton, 2003

Jeffrey R. Galin, Carol Peterson Haviland, and J. Paul Johnson, eds. Teaching/Writing In the Late Age of Print. Hampton Press, 2003.

Holly Henry. Virginia Woolf and the Discourse of Science: The Aesthetics of Astronomy. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Bret Anthony Johnston. Corpus Christi. Random House, 2004.

Alexandria LaFaye. Worth. Simon and Schuster, 2004.

Forthcoming Books

David Carlson has secured a contract with the University of Illinois Press for his study of Native American autobiography and the law.

Jackie Rhodes' Radical Feminism, Writing, and Critical Agency will appear from SUNY Press in December, and she is also at work on a collection of essays co-edited with the University of Cinncinnati's Jonathan Alexander, entitled The What Next? Generation: Emerging (Re)visions of Composition Studies.

Other Publications

David Carlson's "Lord Dunsany and the Great War: Don Rodriguez and the Rebirth of
Romance," will appear soon in Mythlore.

Three of the essays Ron Chen published in the late 1980's have been reprinted in a collection of "Classical Essays in Pragmatics," by Shanghai University of Foreign Studies.

Willa Cather scholar Margaret Doane contributed "Life Is but a Dream: Reality Romanticized in A Lost Lady" The Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial Newsletter (Spring 2004), and her "Action without Reaction: Cather's Use of Violence as a Device for Revealing Character" appears in Teaching Cather (Spring 2004).

Jackie Rhodes founded a new online journal named Meat: A Journal of Writing & Materiality (http://www.meatjournal.com) gathering an editorial board, filing for an ISSN, assigning articles, and building a subscriber base. The first issue comes out in January 2005.

Monika Hogan's “‘Something so visceral in with the rhetorical’: Race, Hypochondria, and the Un-Assimilated Body in American Pastoral” will appear this Fall in a special issue of Studies in American Jewish Literature on "Philip Roth’s Narratives of America," edited by Derek P. Royal. She also contributed “‘Still Me on the Inside, Trapped’: Embodied Captivity and Ethical Narrative in Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues” to /thirdspace/ (March 2004).

Phil Page has a chapter on John Edgar Wideman's memoir Brothers and Keepers coming out in a soon-to-be-published volume of essays on Wideman.

Faculty & Graduate Student Conference Presentations & Other Professional Activities

Jenny Andersen varied her teaching year at San Bernardino with junkets to such exotic locales as Portland, Oregon, San Diego, Berkeley, and New Orleans. There she presented papers on such topics as “Cliques and Critics: Rhetorics of the Regulation of Taste in Stuart England” (North American Conference for British Studies, October 24, 2003), “Andrew Marvell and the Confused Burlesque Reaction to News Culture” (MLA, December 28, 2003), “Middleton and Rowley’s Changeling: a Mockery of High Calvinist Conversion?” (Shakespeare Association of America, April 8, 2004), and “Why did Thomas Nashe Get in Trouble for Christ’s Teares over Jerusalem?” (Pacific Coast Conference for British Studies, March 26, 2004).

Last November, Suzanne Arakawa was Presiding Officer of the Asian literature session at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Association (PAMLA) conference at Scripps College and was a panel presenter at the conference's Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States (MELUS) "Writing Identity" session.

In December, Ron Chen, journeyed to China to attend the the 8th Conference on Pragmatics and the Founding of the Chinese Association of Pragmatics, where he delivered a keynote address, "Universalism versus Particularism: Whither Pragmatics?"

Margaret Doane presented "Storytelling and Female Identity in Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping" at the Pacific Northwest American Studies Association Conference, April 2004.

Holly Henry gave a paper titled "From the Top of Mont Blanc: Leslie Stephen Seeing Globally" at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, in Honolulu, Hawaii in January 2004.

Sunny Hyon and Kim Costino presented "Listening to ESL Students Across Composition Courses" at the CATESOL conference in Santa Clara in April 2004:

Last October, Kim Costino and Mary Boland, shown here doing some last minute collaborating, gave a collaborative presentation, "Reframing Our Houses: Using Feminist Theories to Reshape English Departments and Universities," along with Carol P. Haviland and Andréa Davis at the Feminism(s)/ Rhetoric(s) Conference in Columbus, Ohio.

Monika Hogan had a busy conference year, presenting “Re-Membering the Dead Girls: Ethical and Embodied Contact in Toni Morrison’s Paradise” at The International Narrative Conference in Burlington, Vermont, April 2004; “Composing that Matters: Writing About Bodies in the Multicultural Classroom" at The Conference for College Composition and Communication, San Antonio, Texas in March 2004, “Ethics and Embodiment in Toni Morrison’s Paradise” at PAMLA (The Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Conference) in Claremont, California in November 2003, and “Teaching Bodies: Ethics, Embodiment and Multicultural Narrative” at The National Women’s Studies Association Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana in June 2003.

At the American Literature Association conference in May, Phil Page gave a talk on another of Wideman's memoirs, Fatheralong, and co-led an open discussion of Toni Morrison's latest novel, Love.

As always, our faculty and graduate students were a significant presence at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), held this year in San Antonio, Texas. Carol Peterson Haviland, Nicole Khoury, Leslie Colern-Mulz, Joanne Maestre, and Marcy Trianosky presented "Composing Our Conflicted Selves: Learning from Our Journals and Online Lists" in the Writing Center Workshop Session; Mary Boland and Jackie Rhodes presented papers in a panel they organized entitled "Monster's Ball: A New Generation's Vision of Composition's Future"; Sunny Hyon and Kim Costino presented "'ESL? It Just Wasn't For Me': Student Self-Placement and Some Ideological Roots of Linguistic Identity" and "Understanding ESL Students' Perceptions of Basic Writing." Above right: alumna Rebekah Shultz-Colby (MA '02), Joanne Maestre, Leslie Colern-Mulz, Nicole Khoury, Sunny Hyon, Andréa Davis, and alumna Kristine Potter (BA '97, MA '02).

Carol Peterson Haviland is another busy conferencer: in addition to her efforts at CCCC, she presented "Writing Center and Classroom Faculty: Working Together on Intellectual Property" at the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing/European Writing Center Association meeting at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary in June 2003, "Plagiarism: Multiple Complicities, Needed Interventions" for the WPA/MLA Panel in San Diego in December 30, and Constructing Intellectual Property: Disciplinary Understandings of Ownership." at the 7th National Writing Across the Curriculum Conference in St. Louis, MO, last May 2004, in collaboration with Linda Bergmann, Lise Buranen, Joan Mullin, and Denise Stephenson.

[top]

Year-End Notes

Department Events in 2003-2004

Graduating students celebrated their achievement at the College of Arts and Letters commencement ceremony on June 13 in Coussolis Arena. The retiring Bruce Golden carried the ceremonial mace and officially convened the ceremony. Xiangmei Zhang joined other happy students awarded the M.A. in English Composition . . . more photos from commencement.

The American Seminar continued its series of meetings this year, focusing on biography and autobiography, reading Lewis Menand's Pulitzer Prize-winning work The Metaphysical Club (2002), Langston Hughes's autobiography The Big Sea (1940), and Edmund S. Morgan's new biography of Benjamin Franklin.

Our Friday Forum series was on something of a hiatus this year due to our many department meetings addressing the state budget and curricular issues, but on January 30th, Salaam Yousif and Jenny Andersen collaborated in leading a discussion of the book Reading Lolita in Tehran. The English Club, under the direction of Suzanne Lane, Gwen Diponio, and Holly Henry, continued its many activities, hosting a Graduate School Information session in May that covered all aspects of the admissions process, as well as providing general information about what students can expect from graduate school and how to choose a program. The Club's film series continued with David Carlson's presentation of "The Company of Wolves," and a series of "First Fridays at the Pub" were held, where students met to discuss literature, classes, grad school and teaching plans, and other things relevant to English majors. Two open mike nights where students performed poetry, dramatic monologues, and comedy were also sponsored by the Club.

[top]

Alumni and Other Friends

Alumni Spotlight: Kalinda Schreiber

We heard from Kalinda Schreiber, (BA '98), who has been working at the University of La Verne as the Literacy Clinic and Parent Education Coordinator since September 2001. Kalinda reports that while she's continuing to work on her own writing, she's also collaborating on a book about establishing a literacy clinic and program. "The thing I am most proud of," says Kalinda, "is my precocious daughter, Airin Cyrene (shown here with Santa) who loves books more than candy, recognizes many sight words, and spells her name like a whip." Airin turned 4 in March.

"Every time I visit the CSUSB English Department website," writes Kalinda, "I get sentimental. The passing of dear friends and former professors (like Kellie Rayburn), the MA graduation of former classmates, who left me in the dust, and the retirements of professors loved and feared make me realize, sadly, that 'you can't go home' is even correct about the college experience. Thankfully, I have Cindy Cotter and my best friend, Christi Kesig, (who graduated by my side in '98) to keep me with one foot at 'home.'"

Recent Grads

Jim Brown reports that two of our students have been accepted into MFA programs: Adolfo Mejia will enter the highly competitive MFA Program in Fiction Writing at UC Riverside, and Faith Dincolo has been accepted into the MFA Program in Film Writing at the prestigious American Film Institute (AFI).

Andréa Davis, who just completed her M.A. with a joint concentration in Literature and TESL, accepted an offer from Michigan State University and began a 4-year Ph.D. program this August. Andréa was awarded a TA position, a 1/1 semester load with stipend, tuition remission and full insurance package. She will be concentrating in cultural rhetoric and digital rhetoric, with a secondary track in TESL. An alumna of our M.A. program, Ellen Cushman, is a professor in this program and her husband, Jim Porter, is the current program director. And more good news, Andréa was accepted into the CSU Forgivable Loan program, with Jackie Rhodes as her mentor. Andréa writes, "It sure is wonderful to have such fantastic and supportive faculty! I hope that I can be as good when I become a faculty member."

Wedding bells rang on May 23rd in Oak Glen for two alumni, Rebekah Shultz and Richard Colby, who celebrated their big day with Bruce Golden, Peter and Kathy Schroeder, and Carol Haviland among the guests. After completing their M.A.s in English Composition, Rebekah and Richard are now Ph.D. candidates at Bowling Green State University. We wish the newlyweds every happiness.

Hooray for Jennifer Gross-Mejia, who has accepted a full-time position at Antelope Valley College, and Gwen (Binks) Diponio, who has a new full-time post at Crafton Hills College. And congratulations to M.A. program alumna Sally Anne Jackson, who just completed her Ph.D. at UC Riverside.

TESL concentration grad Elizabeth Davis (MA '03) reports she is "teaching part-time at Gavilan College in Gilroy--a community college with a great ESL program."

Rebecca Marsh (BA '02) capped off her completion of the M.A. in English Composition (Literature Concentration) with a trip to London to attend the Virginia Woolf Conference, before beginning to teach at Riverside Community College. Rebecca is also conducting poetry seminars in the Girls' Division of Riverside's Juvenile Hall, in partnership with the Riverside County Department of Mental Health.

1970s: "Just received the postcard asking for English news," writes Doug Edwards: "I graduated in the Winter quarter of 1970, continued at CSUSB in the teaching credential program and began my teaching career at Colton Jr. High. After three years in Colton, I transferred to Monterey County, teaching at North Salinas H.S. In 1985 I moved to Amador County and taught at both the Junior High level and High School in Sutter Creek. In 2002 I retired from the Amador School District and started using my M.A. (Claremont Graduate University) as a student teaching supervisor for Chapman University, Diamond Springs Campus, El Dorado County. I am still involved with active teaching as an adjunct instructor, teaching Eng. 104, "Writing About Literature." Part-time activities include writing my first novel about my experiences in Vietnam in 1965-66; title, Battle Tested, possible publish date, Fall 2004.

"About me - I graduated class of 1975! Whew! How long ago!" writes Doug Garrett. "I live in
Orange, am a Senior Vice President of Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services, selling office buildings in Orange County. I have two daughters, both attending UCLA. My true joy and work is with the Waldorf schools - over 800 schools worldwide (they're known as "Steiner" schools in many parts of the world). After serving as Board of Trustees President in two schools--Orange County and San Diego. I am now serving on the Board of The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, currently chairing the development committee. Waldorf strives towards an education of the head, the heart and the hands of the growing human being."

1980s: Randall Harris reports "I was promoted to the position of Applications Manager of Case Management Systems at my current company, GENEX Services, Inc., in Wayne, Pennsylvania, where I have worked for the past 10 years. In my role, I oversee new development and design of our international case management system and assure that procedures and processes work efficiently and smoothly. I also work as an adjunct instructor at Immaculata College in Immaculata, Pennsylvania, my other alma mater [master's degree], where I have taught for 5 years. In my role, I teach courses in management, staff development, adult development, performance assessment and life assessment. I live in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, with my wife, Joanne, and children: Kevin, who is 10 and Zoe, who is 6."

1990s: Courtney (Vansell) Hanes (BA '98) writes, "After graduating from Cal State, I got my secondary teaching credential from Humboldt State in Arcata, CA, and am now the Health and Bioscience Academy Coordinator and English teacher at Ramona High School in Riverside, my alma mater. (This is my 5th year teaching already!I have been married for 2 1/2 years; my husband Scott and I have a one year old son and a baby on the way. I also coach the girl's varsity volleyball team (in my spare time--haha!)."

Donna Guliano graduated from CSUSB in 1998. "I earned my teaching credential from the
CSUSB School of Education," she writes, "and have been teaching at Riverside Unified's Central Middle School since doing my student teaching there. This is my third year as the Language Arts Department Chair. I am planning to return to CSUSB in the next year for a Master's degree."

Nancy J. Pesta earned a B.A. in English in 1993 and an M.A. in Middle School Education in 1996. "Since 1994," she writes, "I have been teaching at Southridge Middle School in Fontana, CA. I teach sixth grade Language Arts and Social Studies. I love teaching and I want to thank my English professors for their excellent instruction and their ability to inspire. I became a proud first time grandma on March 3, 2004. My daughter gave birth to a beautiful little girl at Riverside Community Hospital. She and her husband are ecstatic, and of course we think she is the most gorgeous child ever."

2000s: Kudos to Carol Bachofner (BA '02), who received her M.F.A. from Vermont College this summer.

Diana Ramseyer (BA '83, MA '00) writes, "I am currently working on my first year of doctorate work in Higher Education after being accepted at Argosy University. My son returned home from "Operation Iraqi Freedom" after 8 months being deployed overseas. This is my second year as president of the union for part-timers (CWA) at MSJC. Still trying to get equitable rights for part time professors. Time does march on!"

Congratulations to Sherry Lynn (BA '02), who recently passed her state real estate licensing exam.

[top]

Write to us

Alumni Updates: Thanks for writing--we really do want to hear from you! Send an e-mail with your news & digital photos to rpigeon@csusb.edu, or write to : Professor 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.

[top]

Acknowledgments

Thanks for assistance with this issue of English News to Jackie Rhodes and Bruce Golden.

English News Editor: Renée Pigeon

© 2004 CSUSB Department of English

FastCounter by bCentral