Faculty and Student Accomplishments in February

Dr. Cynthia Jenéy presented her paper "Reading the Medieval Horse: Xenophon, Dom Duarte, Theomnestus, The Boke of Marchalsi, and 1,001 Hoofprints in the Historical Record" at the 19th Annual conference of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Phoenix, Arizona on Friday, February 15, 2013. 

On Saturday, Feb. 9, in cooperation with the American Association of Teachers of French, Professor Susie Hennessy hosted a day-long immersion workshop for French teachers. Participants engaged in a variety of language activities to enhance oral proficiency. French instructor Claudine Evans was a presenter for the workshop.

Congratulations to Prairie Lands Writing Project Teacher Consultants: Sara Capra of Park Hill High School, Josie Clark of Bode Middle School, Brandon Haskey of Central High School, and Janet Jelavich of Maryville High School whose students won a Missouri Writing Region Gold Key in the 2013 Scholastic Writing Awards Contest. From nearly 700 entries submitted, sixteen works received Gold Keys after four rounds of blind judging. These works have been submitted to the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers for national competition. Students of Prairie Lands Writing Project’s teacher/consultants Diane Guill, Heidi Mick, Deana (Judah) Bindel, Haskey and Jelevich earned Silver Keys while students of Lori Burns, Tia Frahm, Vickey Meyer, Guill, Clark, Haskey, Bindel, Capra, Jelevich and Mick picked up Honorable Mention awards. In all, students of Prairie Lands teachers accounted for 30 awards. The students and their teachers will be honored at Missouri Writing Region Award Ceremony on March 1 at the Write to Learn Conference in Osage Beach, MO. The Missouri Writing Region is coordinated by the Prairie Lands Writing Project at Missouri Western State University.

Assistant Professor Bill Church was awarded a PORTAL grant for a summer research project leading a student team to compile oral histories of elderly African Americans. Church and the students will work with News-Press reporter Alonzo Weston, who mentioned in a column that he hoped to find time to compile an oral history for the Black Archives Museum.

Sarah McClure Wins Greef Award

Mr. Tom Pankiewicz and Ms. Sarah McClure

Sarah McClure, BSE English senior, received the 2013 Robert J. Greef Award as Missouri Western's outstanding English teacher education graduate for 2012 -2013.

Sarah and the other outstanding graduates from around the state were honored at the Write to Learn Conference at Osage Beach, MO, on March 1. The Missouri Association of Teachers of English (MATE) sponsors the annual recognition ceremony for outstanding English teacher graduates; the Greef recipients received a free membership in MATE.

EFLJ offers congratulations to Sarah!

French Instructor is Certified

Ms. Claudine Evans, an instructor of French at MWSU, has been certified as a tester in French. The certification comes from the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Ms. Evans can now conduct oral proficiency interviews and will use a scale designed by the U.S. government to assess interviewees' speaking proficiency in French.

Congratulations to Claudine on her achievement!

Kragel Defends Thesis

Ms. Jeanette Kragel successfully defended her thesis for the MAA in Written Communication - Technical Communication Emphasis on March 6th. Jeanette's thesis, entitled Proposal Readability: Does It Really Make a Difference?, investigated dozens of grant proposals to see whether or not the complexity of the language used influenced decisions to fund the proposals.

Dr. Bergland, Dr. Rosenauer, Dr. Charlton (committee chair), and Ms. Kragel

 Jeanette's committee included Michael Charlton (chair), Bob Bergland, and Ken Rosenauer, who all highly applauded both the thesis itself and her oral defense. She is now looking for publication and presentation venues for her research. We would like to thank all of the non-profit organizations who participated in this study.

A Call to Psalms

Alumna Jessica Rice Is Not Reading About Puppies and Rainbows.

Come and read your lovingly-honed words aloud to a throng of souls thirsty for the nourishment that only poesy can provide. Yes, First Thursday Open Mic (née That Poetry Reading Series) is upon us. It is March. Spring is near. Come and swell our hearts with visages of verdant meadows and maidens. Or maybe you could just use this as an ironic opportunity to make fun of poetry readings through your own reading. Or perhaps you could share a nice story about your cat (the internet, while designed for the purpose of sharing cat pictures, is not sufficient as a medium for praising cats, some believe). It is also a great time to meet up with like-minded people over refreshments. Whatever your motivations, it's a good time.

Foster's Martini Bar
6-8 PM
Thursday (hence the name), March 7

See you there.
Unless you're, well, chicken.

Are ya?

Welcome, Year of the Snake!

The campus and St. Joseph communities gathered on Monday, February 11 to celebrate the Chinese New Year, saying "farewell" to the year of the Dragon and welcoming in the year of the Snake.

Visiting Professor Juan Wang from Xidian University enlisted the help of her students and friends from the international community to run the event.

The crowd of adults and children, while sipping Chinese tea and munching wonderful dumplings, enjoyed traditional Chinese music played by Dr. Junping Yang and Mr. Chris Wang.

The room in Blum Hall was decorated with posters and streamers. We enjoyed the Lantern Festival Parade (Shehuo Parade) before heading outside to release lanterns in the the cool evening air.

Festival attendees were given the opportunity to learn about Chinese zodiac animals, and traditional tea service. Other activities included folk-art paper-cutting and instruction in drawing Chinese characters.

Prairie Lands Writing Project Receives More Grant Money

According to National Writing Project Executive Director Sharon J. Washington, Prairie Lands Writing Project has been awarded $105,000 of federal funds for the site’s 2013  National Writing Project College-Ready Writers Program (CRWP) Study and Planning Grant proposal.

This Study and Planning Grant award provides local Writing Project sites and partner districts time and resources to plan for learning about teaching analytic, informational, and argumentative writing and to analyze each district’s specific strengths and challenges with teaching writing. During this planning phase, local Writing Project sites and partner districts will co-design professional and leadership development programs for at least 80 percent of the district’s English Language Arts teachers in grades 7-10 for a minimum of 90 hours over the two years of professional development from 2013-2015.  

Prairie Lands will be working with Breckenridge R-I School District, Hamilton R-II School District, Braymer C-4 School District, Osborn R-0 School District, Trenton R-IX School District, and Winston R-VI School District.

 

Congratulations to Tom Pankiewicz and Jane Frick for their work on the grant application!