EML Celebrates Winter 2018 Graduates

Miranda Clark-Poulson and Stephaney Ferguson with EML faculty

Congratulations to our Winter 2018 graduates. on December 15, the following students glided across the stage to the cheers of their proud families and friends:

Master of Applied Science in Assessment, Writing: Trudy Ferrier

Bachelor of Arts, English: Miranda Clark-Poulson, Meranda Dennis, Skylar Nichols, Skylair Orr, Cassandra Robbins

Bachelor of Arts, Modern Languages: Crystal Encisco

Bachelor of Science in Education: Stephaney Ferguson

We look forward to hearing of your many successes to come!



Master's degree recipient Trudy Ferrier with Dr. Susan Martens

Dr. Moore Publishes on Heywood Drama

Fun fact: The Azores Islands rest on a triple junction of continental plates: the North American Plate, the Eurasian Plate, and the African Plate. Thomas Heywood, who wrote The Fair Maid of the West around 1600, did not know this fact. But he did seem to know that the Azores were a global cultural crossroads for early modern trade routes. So did pirates. Gaywyn Moore's recent article in Travel and Travail: Early Modern Women, English Drama, and the Wider World explores the Azores' role in conferring global citizenship in Heywood's delightful romp of a play about early modern female seafarers and a barmaid turned pirate who's plundering the new world wealth of Spanish trade ships while seeking her beloved's body to give him a proper burial (spoiler: he's not really dead). 

Siebler Presentation

Dr. Kay Siebler, professor of English, is presenting the paper "'You're a Buck Nutty, Liberal, Feminist Woman': Being an Out Activist Teacher in Rural U.S." at the international Gender and Education Association conference in New Castle, Australia on December 8.

Kay was also recently elected chair of the Human Rights Commission in St. Joseph, MO.

Arniecea Johnson Makes Good in the Windy City

Missouri Western's EML department extends a big congratulations to Arniecea Johnson, who graduated with an English degree with a concentration in creative writing and publishing in May 2018. She just began employment as a content strategist for UrbanMatter, an online media platform in Chicago. She will write and edit articles and pitch new ideas as well as travel to events.

Arniecea writes, "I would not have received this opportunity if it wasn't for all those semesters in The Mochila Review." Pictured below is Arniecea at one of her many opportunities with Mochila, speaking with Dr. Kunkel on St. Joseph's local KQ2 station to promote a campus reading by Nikki Giovanni.

We're so proud of you, Arniecea! 

Cerner Visits EML

Shawn Mitchell stands before the
picture of Bart German 

Two technical writers from Cerner, Bobby Stow and Shawn Mitchell, visited technical communication classes and talked to students about careers in technical communication, especially with Cerner. During their November 28 visit, Bobby and Shawn talked to Dr. Cools' ETC 200 Technical Communication class and Dr. Adkins' ETC 421 Technical Communication Research and Practice class. The department hosted a lunch for them that included faculty from other departments, Dean Nabors, and Provost Davenport. 

Cerner is a major employer of graduates of the English/Technical Communication program. Bart German (BA English/Technical Communication 2001) was the first Missouri Western technical communication student hired by Cerner, and he has paved the way for many others. Bart is still working at Cerner, and Shawn and Bobby were delighted to see Bart's picture in the hallway.

 

We look forward to building  our partnership with Cerner with opportunities for career shadowing and networking. 

Greg Stephens Publications

Gregory Stephens, part-time instructor of Spanish, has published two new pieces of literary nonfiction:

“Che’s Boots: Discipline and the flawed hero,” Intraspection (November 2018)

“Integrative Ancestors redux--A Child's story from the past to the future,” Dreamers Creative Writing (October 2018)

Stephens' book Trilogies as Cultural Analysis: Literary Re-Imaginings of Sea Crossings, Animals, and Fathering was published by Cambridge Scholars Press (Sept. 2018), and includes another literary nonfiction story, "Listening to Scripture with Father and Son."

In addition, his critique of cultural studies, utilizing ethnographic research in Puerto Rico, has been published as “Beyond the Romance of Resistance: Translating Stuart Hall, and Re-imagining Cultural Analysis” (Culture in Focus (2018).

 

Congratulations, Greg!

EML Faculty and Students Present at MMLA

EML Faculty and students presented their work at the Midwest Modern Language Association (MMLA) in Kansas City, MO, November 15-18. Dr. Whiteman sponsored students Cydney Puckett and Nick Reznick.



Dr. Miguel Rivera-Taupier, Dr. Caroline Whiteman, Cydney Puckett, Nick Reznick, and Dr. Gaywyn Moore (not pictured: Dr. Elizabeth Canon)

Dr. Moore presented "The King has Left the Building: Accumulating Henry VIIIs on the Early Modern Stage"; Dr. Canon presented "Gobbling Up Words: Latin Lexical borrowings in Early Old English"; Dr. Rivera presented "Addiction and Race in Consumption of Coca Leaves: López Albújar’s 'Cómo habla la coca'"; Dr. Whiteman presented "Consuming the Body: Literary Representations of Organ Donation and Transplantation";.Ms. Puckett presented " A Question of Character: at the Narratological Crossroads of People, Actors, and Characters"; Mr. Reznick presented "Modernizing and Minimalizing: Marie Redonnet’s Novel Approach to the Epistolary Novel"

Congratulations for representing EML at MMLA!








 

Day of the Dead 2018

 On Wednesday November 5th the Spanish Club held a Day of the Dead event. Like every year, the club put together a traditional altar, using marigolds, candles, decorated skulls and other things. 

This time, the altar celebrated late relatives of the club's members. Nayeli Romo shared with the audience her experience of Day of the Dead in Mexico, and Dr. Gregory Stephens talked about the meaning of death among Latin Americans.

After breaking up in teams to compete in a scavenger hunt, the students enjoyed the Hispanic dishes prepared by the club. 

New National Writing Project Members

Twelve new National Writing Project Teacher Consultants were honored at the PLWP Certification Ceremony and Open Writing Marathon held at MWSU on Oct. 6 as the final event of the PLWP Invitational  Summer Institute. Welcoming the new TCs were members of the PLWP Advisory Team: Susan Martens (MWSU), Amy Miller (MWSU), Dawn Terrick (MWSU), Dana Barnes (Westview Elementary in Exclesior Springs), Josie Clark (Bode Middle School, SJSD), Elisabeth Alkier (Bode Middle School, SJSD), and Christie Jackson (Elementary Curriculum Advisor, SJSD).  In addition to the re-certification of Carol Brown (Lathrop Middle School), who first completed the PLWP Summer Institute in 2014, the new TCs include:

Joy Durbin, Winston Elementary School

Erica Cook, Berry School, Platte County School District

Wendy Ezzell, South Holt Junior-Senior High School

Hanna Long, Savannah High School

Nita Lewis, Lathrop Middle School

Jade Lewis, East Buchanan High School

Cheyenne Wienke, Westview Elementary, Exclesior Springs

Susan Stuedle, Cameron Middle School

Lisa Elder, Oak Grove High School

Cindy Long, Westview Elementary, Excelsior Springs

Garrett Durbin, Braymer Junior-Senior High School

Angie Perkins, Smithville High School

Several PLWP Teacher Consultants also attended the Missouri Writing Projects Network's Leadership Retreat held in Boonville on Sept 7-8.  Attendees participated in a cross-site writing marathon with Teacher Consultants from other National Writing Project sites in Missouri, professional development activities, and grant writing. Participants included PLWP Director Dr. Susan Martens with Elisabeth Alkier, Dana Barnes, and Jade Lewis (mentioned above), as well as Elizabeth Hoskins (Bode Middle School, SJSD). 

Dawn Terrick Lecture on Frankenstein

On Saturday afternoon, October 27 2018, Advanced Instructor Dawn Terrick delivered a lecture at the East Hills branch of the St. Joseph Public Library. The lecture was in commemoration of the 200th Anniversary of Mary Shelley's publication of Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus.

Terrick shared information about Mary Shelley's inspirations for the novel as well as how the novel has been re-imagined over the centuries.

The Tiniest Haunted House

On Wednesday, Oct. 24, and Friday, Oct. 26, Reach (MWSU's literary and arts journal that publishes work by students, staff, faculty, and alumni) took over one of Murphy Hall's two elevators for a Tiniest Haunted House. 

Those who rode the elevator enjoyed hot cider, and Reach staff members reading spooky poems. This event was a riff on the traditional Tiniest Coffee Shop that Dr. Kunkel and her students have organized for the past four years. 


Thank you to all the MWSU community who supported it, and thanks to St. Joseph's News-Press Now for covering the event!

Dawn Terrick to Lecture on Frankenstein

Chinese Fall Festival 2018

On September 20^th, 2018, Missouri Western students and faculty gathered in Blum Union to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the most important celebrations in the Chinese calendar, second only to the Spring Festival.  The theme for this year was “family” because this traditional festival is not only about drinking tea, eating mooncakes, watching lanterns, or guessing riddles.  

The thing that is most highly valued is that families get together to enjoy an intimate and special bonding moment.  That is why this party was co-hosted by the Chinese instructor, Lili Wang, and her daughter.  

The celebration got started with warm speeches given by Dr. Nabors, the dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Bensyl, the Chair of English and Modern Languages. One of our Chinese exchange students, Anlan Liu, performed a beautiful piece of music on the violin.  “Liang Zhu” is well-known to almost every Chinese person.  

We also had a performance by Kelly, an exchange student from Malaysia, who is a professional dancer.  We ended our celebration with games, which were warmly participated in by the students and faculty and, of course, food such as moon cakes which are a mandatory part of the festival because of their round shape that symbolizes both the moon and family reunion.

If you missed the Mid-Autumn Festival, or if you would like to attend another Chinese cultural event, we will be celebrating Chinese New Year, also known as the spring Festival, next semester.  Come enjoy more traditional food and celebrations with us.

A Reading of Banned and Challenged Books, 2018

On Thursday evening, September 27, a few dozen gathered in the student union to mark American Library Association Banned Books Week with a reading.

Readers & Books

Ms. Rachel Hagen, MWSU Education student

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Rev. Brian Kirk, Pastor of First Christian Church, St. Joseph

• Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

Ms. Rachel Lundy, Special Collections Librarian, MWSU

• Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

Mr. Steve Booher, News Director, St. Joseph News-Press

• “Cry Cry Cry” by Sherman Alexie

Ms. Jade Lewis, East Buchanan High School and Prairie Lands Writing Project  

• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Dr. Robert Nulph, Chairperson of Communication and Journalism, MWSU

• Paper Towns by John Green

Dr. Elizabeth Thorne Wallington, Assistant Professor of Education, MWSU

• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The event was sponsored by EML, Prairie Lands Writing Project, MWSU Library, and the Education Department.

Professor Kunkel Launches New Book

On Saturday, Sept. 8, at 4 p.m., Dr. Marianne Kunkel of MWSU's English and Modern Languages department read poems from her new book, Hillary, Made Up (Stephen F. Austin State University Press). 

The reading, which took place at St. Joseph's Wyeth-Tootle Mansion, was followed by refreshments and a book signing. About 35 people were in attendance. 

Dr. Kunkel is grateful to all who attended or wished to attend!

Congratulations, Marianne!

Bill Church Recipient of Alumni Distinguished Professor Award

Eleven will be honored with Alumni Association awards at the 36th annual Awards Banquet on Friday, Oct. 12.  

Among the honorees will be EML's very own Dr. Bill Church, a 1989 EML alumnus and current associate professor of English.Bill is the 2018 recipient of the Alumni Association's Distinguished Professor Award.

Bill joins past department winners Dr. Susie Hennessy, Dr. Jane Frick, Dr. Betty Sawin, Dr. Jeanie Crain, and Dr. Isabel Sparks. 

Congratulations, Bill!

Recent Faculty Work

In July, Dr. Kaye Adkins, professor of English,  presented at the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) Professional Communication conference in Toronto; the conference is international, with attendees from North America, Europe, and Asia. Dr. Adkins was part of a panel that discussed the use of portfolios for evaluation of technical communication programs and of graduating students. Dr. Adkins explained the Missouri Western Technical Communication portfolio program, which has been in existence for over 20 years. The program was presented as a model for other programs.

In July, Dr. Adkins also participated in the iFixit EDU Symposium. iFixit, a leader in the Right to Repair movement, partners with technical communication teachers to provide students the opportunity to create repair manuals and publish them on iFixit's website, www.ifixit.com. Dr. Adkins was invited to participate as a veteran teacher, offering advice to teachers who are new to the program.

Prairie Lands Writing Project News

Co-Director Josie Clark(SJSD) and Director Susan Martens (MWSU) presented "Engaging Place, Empowering Writers: The Writing Marathon" at the Write to Learn Conference in Osage Beach, MO, on Feb. 16.

Co-Director Amy Miller coordinated the popular High School Writing Day event at MWSU on March 1 which brought approximately 200 high school students and their teachers from 17 area schools to our campus for a day of writing workshops, lunch, and an open mic session.  PLWP TC Terrance Sanders (Frontier STEM High School) served as Emcee.  Volunteer workshop presenters included PLWP TCs Dawn Terrick, Patsy Brost, Joe Marmaud, Reilly Maloney (East Buchanan High School), and Vickey Meyer (SJSD) as well as MWSU faculty members Meredith Katchen, Marianne Kunkel, Kaye Adkins, Bill Church, Michael Charlton, Bob Bergland, and Bob Nulph. English undergraduate students Michael Cullinane, Alexandria Null, Tiffany Rice, Brooke Howe, Lena Ashford, and Mandee Greer served as MWSU student guides and assistants. 

Co-Director Elisabeth Alkier (SJSD) coordinated another successful Summer Youth Writing Project for the Saint Joseph Public School District May 18-June 14.  SJSD teachers for this popular program, which served approximately 120 elementary students and 30 middle school students, included PLWP Teacher Consultants  Cindy Faucett,  Raelynn Stroud, Jolynn Venneman, Robin Pettegrew, and Josie Clark.

Director Susan Martens (MWSU) facilitated a Writing Retreat for area teachers at Conception Abbey in Conception, MO, on June 22-24. Marianne Kunkel (MWSU) served as Guest Editor.  

On August 4, Susan Martens and Amy Miller presented a session at the National Writing Project Midwest Conference in Madison, WI, titled "The Writing Marathon: Celebrating 25 Years."

Alumna Wins Langston Hughes Creative Writing Award

Mercedes Lucero, an alumna of our department with a degree in Literature and a minor in creative writing, is the 2017 recipient of the Langston Hughes Award in Creative Writing for her chap book In the Garden of Broken Things.

Mercedes has her MFA from Northwestern University and is currently working on her PhD at the University of Kansas.

This is the second time that a MWSU English graduate has won the Langston Hughes Creative Writing Award. Mary Stone is a previous recipient.

Visit her author page for more information about Mercedes' work.

Congratulations, Mercedes!

New Faculty in EML

We have more than a few new faces in English and Modern Languages this fall. Welcome to all of our new colleagues!

Janice Cools-Stephens, our new assistant professor in technical communication, was born in Saint Lucia, a Caribbean island. She earned her a PhD in English from the University of the West Indies-Mona and an MA in Rhetoric and Professional Communication from New Mexico State University. Her Writing Studies work in Composition and Technical Communication has appeared in CEA Forum, the Wisconsin English Journal, and book chapters. Her Men’s Studies and Masculinities work has been published in the Journal of Men’s Studies, and Culture, Society and Masculinity. Her research interests in writing studies include Academic Literacies, ethnography, and transferable skills. She is co-author with Gregory Stephens of Communicative Cultures in Writing Studies: Ethnographic Approaches, Transferrable Skills and Non-Academic Genres, forthcoming from University Press of Colorado.

Pauline Destouches is a French Fulbright teacher from Paris who recently completed her Master's degree in English studies, major Translation. She has always been fascinated by languages and especially English since her first foreign languages classes in primary school, and has since travelled to English-speaking countries as often as she could. After spending a year in Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland with the program Erasmus for her last year of degree, she has now come to Missouri Western to teach French to American students and learn about the Midwestern way of life!

Carla Kluth, a German Fulbright teacher, is originally from Cologne, a city located in western Germany. She strives to share her language and culture with students of Missouri Western State University. She has taught German as a foreign language to Chinese students in Guangzhou, China, as well as to refugees in Germany. At the University of Cologne Carla Kluth obtained her bachelor’s degree in English and Art. She majored in printmaking and is currently waiting for the results of her master’s thesis. At Missouri Western State University, Carla wishes to strengthen German language teaching and encourages students to learn any language apart from their own mother tongue.

Gregory Stephens, half-time instructor of Spanish, is on leave 2018-19 from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez, where he is an Associate Professor of English. He teaches Creative Writing, literature, film, and seminars in Cultural Studies and Writing Studies. Before grad school Stephens was an award-winning songwriter in Austin, Texas. He is the author of On Racial Frontiers: The New Culture of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Bob Marley (Cambridge UP). Trilogies as Cultural Analysis: Literary Re-imaginings of Sea Crossings, Animals, and Fathering is published by Cambridge Scholars Press (2018). The monograph Three Birds Sing a New Song: A Puerto Rican trilogy about Dystopia, Precarity, and Resistance, which combines ethnography and literary nonfiction, is in production with Intermezzo.

Alyssa Striplin, a new Instructor of English, is from Independence, Missouri, but she’s fresh off the plane from Minnesota after earning an M.F.A. in fiction from Minnesota State University, Mankato. She spent three years finishing the first draft of a novel about cryptids under three feet of snow, surviving only on hot dishes and horror movies. Before that, she received her bachelor’s and Master’s degree in English from Northwest Missouri State University. This means that she’ll have to splice a bearcat, a maverick bull, and a griffon together into some kind of beastly amalgamation of alma maters, which is to her liking. She’s a huge fan of monsters, mythology, magic, and the macabre. This is evident in some of her short stories, which have been published in The Molotov Cocktail, Luna Station Quarterly, Blue River Review, and Midwestern Gothic. Feel free to stop by her office in Eder Hall to hear stories about her black cat, Loki, and whatever horror movie she’s forced her partner, Kevin, to watch.

Lili Wang is our visiting professor of Chinese from Xi’dian University. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Northwest University (Xi’an, China) and Master’s Degree from Beihang University (Beijing, China) with a focus on American Literature.  She has been teaching at Xi’dian University, China for 10 years. She won the Second Place in the National Foreign Language Teaching Contest and the Grand Prize in Shannxi State Level College English Teaching Competition. She is a huge fan of the NBA, and Kevin Durant is her favorite player.

The Last of the Big Six: Dr. Jeanie Crain Retires



Jeanie shares a typical attitude with (and about) the photographer

This past spring, EML said, “Thanks, and come back and harass us” to Dr. Jeanie Crain. Jeanie is retiring after over thirty years of teaching at Missouri Western and is the last of the Big Six to retire, and presumably wins a bet (Drs. Frick, Fulton, Thorne, Rosenauer, Sawin, Crain).

 

After receiving her degree in English from Berry College, Jeanie collected a masters in management from Georgia College as well as a masters in modern drama and poetry from Purdue University where she received her PhD as well.

 

Jeanie has had a storied career at MWSU. She is the winner of the alumni association distinguished faculty award and has served as faculty senate president. In fact, Jeanie was instrumental in founding and serving as first president of the Missouri Association of Faculty Senates (MAFS).

 

It was Jeanie who began what was to become our program in technical communication (ETC). Jeanie designed and taught our first courses in the 1990s, and now we have a thriving undergraduate major and master’s program. Jeanie was also a pioneer in online education at MWSU and taught the department’s first online course.

 

Early in her career at Western, Jeanie served as the interim chair of the Department of Business.

 

In 2000, Jeanie began a ten-year stint as special assistant to the president of MWSU—first with Dr. James Scanlon and then Dr. Robert Vartabedian. In that role, Jeanie became an expert in assessment. She worked with the assessment organization AQIP (Academic Quality Improvement Program) with the Higher Learning Commission in Missouri. She was a systems portfolio reviewer, which took her to campuses around the state. She served on the AQIP advisory panel.

 

Jeanie’s love of literature and the Bible led her to a special scholarly project on combining those interests. In 2010, Jeanie published Reading the Bible as Literature: An Introduction as a way to introduce students to the common tools of literary analysis while also helping them understand the Bible as a literary text.  Her goal was to return the Bible to the common reader and to build in that reader an appreciation of a collection of ancient, literary texts.

 

"Dr Crain's book offers undergraduates an invaluable means of studying the biblical texts, systematically demonstrating how applying a host of different literary techniques can help illuminate the biblical writers' message. By analyzing the use of such rhetorical devices as image, metaphor, archetype, narration, and character portrayal, Dr Crain equips students to interpret the Bible responsibly and effectively."
Stephen Harris, California State University, Sacramento

 

In 2010, Jeanie returned from the fairy mound of administration in Popplewell Hall to her true home in Eder with the English faculty. There she concentrated on her courses in composition and literature until her retirement this spring.

 

We wish Jeanie all the best chasing after grandchildren, and we invite her to come by anytime for some bad coffee and pretty good gossip.