Professor Seibler Receives MLK Drum Major for Justice Award

On January 31, Dr. Kay Siebler was recognized for her work with Missouri Western Students by the Center for Multicultural Education with an MLK Drum Major for Justice Award. According to the CME,

 

The MLK Drum Major for Justice Award is for citizens who live ordinary lives but do extraordinary acts of service with reliability and commitment. The award is presented annually to one student, one Missouri Western employee, and one member of the St. Joseph community who are committed to social justice and multicultural education and service. 

Director of Developmental Writing Dawn Terrick, a previous winner of this award, introduced Kay by saying that Dr. Siebler "is a passionate and relentless voice for the voiceless and the work she does in the classroom proves this.  Her students read authors from different races, cultures, sexual orientations and, in these readings and class discussions, students grapple with topics of history, education, abuse, gender and sexuality, body image, feminism, racism, homophobia, classism, poverty and mass incarceration.  Dr. Siebler’s syllabi state, “Think before you write,” and this is what drives her; she encourages and guides her students to think critically about the world and its injustices and then to act on those injustices just like she."

The banquet featured student dance, spoken word poetry, and song. Dr. Vartabedian was honored with a special award in recognition of his work in social justice on campus.

According to some reliable reports, there were THREE kinds of pie for dessert.

Kay Siebler and Dawn Terrick

 

The Faculty Have Been Up To Something

 

Dr. Mike Cadden has had an edited collection accepted for publication by the Modern Language Association. Teaching Young Adult Literature, co-edited with Karen Coats and Roberta Seelinger Trites, will be published in 2020 in the "Teaching Options" series.


Dr. Elizabeth Canon’s linguistic textbook was approved by the external board of Routledge Press and is now under review by the editorial board.
 

Dr. Canon organized a panel on language and dialect prejudice in higher education for the Linguistic Society of America’s national conference in December.  The panel has been approached by Routledge Press to publish a book on that subject.  She also chaired an additional panel at the LSA conference.
 

Dr. Michael Charlton had three book chapters published:

 

"The Image of the Pirate in Adaptations of The Adventures of Tintin.” Pirates in History and Popular Culture.  Ed. Antonio Sanna.  McFarland.  October 2018.

 

“Tickled to Death: The Happiness Patrol and Female Dystopias.”  Handmaids, Tributes, and Carers: Dystopian Females’ Roles and Goals. Ed. Myrna Santos. Cambridge Scholars Press.  September 2018.

“Dumbo and the Circus of Childhood.” Circus Space: The Big Top on the Big Screen.  Ed. Teresa Cutler-Broyles.  McFarland. December 2018.

Dr. Marianne KunkeI gave a reading from her new book, Hillary, Made Up, on Dec. 5 at the meeting of the St. Joseph chapter of Persisterhood.

 

Dr. Kay Siebler presented at the international Gender and Education Conference at Newcastle University in Victoria, Australia on Dec. 3. The title of her presentation was "You're a Buck Nutty, Liberal, Feminist Woman." Being an Out Activist Teacher in Rural U.S."

 

Dr. Siebler was elected chair of the St. Joseph Human Rights Commission, a mayoral commission dedicated to addressing social justice issues in the city of St. Joseph, and she was awarded the Drum Major for Social Justice Award from the MWSU Multicultural Center.  The award was presented at the annual Martin Luther King banquet on Jan. 23.

 

 

 

 

Prairie Lands Writing Project Holds Workshops

On December 5, Prairie Lands Writing Project Co-Directors Josie Clark and Elisabeth Alkier facilitated the Scholastic Writing Workshop at Bode Middle School for writers in grades 7-9. This workshop focused on what it takes to write a piece for submission for the Missouri Writing Region of the Scholastic Writing Awards. Participants examined mentor texts from previous Scholastic Writing Award winners in order to try new writing techniques in their own pieces. They learned how to sign up on the Scholastic Workshop and shared some of their writing in a mini open mic. The workshop brought together 17 young writers and 4 teachers from 6 different St. Joseph schools.  

 

Prairie Lands Writing Project's latest issues of their annual newsletter features stories about twelve new Teacher Consultants from the 2018 Summer Institute, a book club for ENG 100 instructors hosted by Dawn Terrick (MWSU), the Summer Elementary and Middle School Writing Projects at Bode Middle School led by Elisabeth Alkier and Josie Clark (SJSD), writing marathon sessions presented at regional conferences by  Amy Miller, Brooksie Kluge, and Susan Martens (MWSU), workshops at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education led by Dana Barnes (Excelsior Springs), the annual writing retreat at Conception Abbey facilitated by Susan Martens (MWSU), recent MAS in Assessment of Writing graduate Trudy Ferrier (Mark Twain Elementary, SJSD), and Teacher Consultant Spotlights on Tonya O'Boyle (Cameron High School) and Jerri Fischer (Lindbergh Elementary, SJSD).