8-26 Digest
EGSA-
Welcome (back) to Waco everyone! We academics love summer break—it’s why we’re all here, right? And we have to actually WORK some of the year in order to enjoy the time off, right? RIGHT? Ha, many of us have been quite busy this summer, but we all get a bit of a fresh start this week. Some of us are in a new city, some of us new jobs, teaching and taking new classes and meeting some new people if not a LOT of them. We returning students want the incoming class to feel supremely welcome, so let us know how we can best do that! And don’t be afraid to introduce yourself around campus and Carroll Science.
Okay, down to business. I have attached the minutes from the EGSA Council meeting on Aug 25 so you guys can know what we’ve been talking about and so that you can contribute however you see fit. We have plenty to discuss at the start of a new semester, so bear (sic ‘em) with me.
EGSA President and VP, Danielle and Nathan, will be meeting with Drs. Barcus and Vitanza this week, and they will relay pertinent information—so be on the lookout.
FIRST EGSA 11-12 MEETING: 2:30pm on Thursday, September 1 in Carroll Science G-03.
PROFILES/INTEREST INFO: If you haven’t already, please send Julie_Ooms your longer profile for the EGSA member list to be posted online. Also, please send your updated info for the spreadsheet (copy and paste this into an email to sarah_aspen@baylor.edu) unless it is already correct in the Baylor English Graduate Student List.
HETC: We are excited about the opportunity to participate in the Graduate School’s Higher Education Teaching Certification program, and EGSA would like to put on some events to assist peers with pursuing some of its objectives, so keep an eye out for those! If you’re not yet aware of HETC, visit http://www.baylor.edu/graduate/index.php?id=81885 for more information.
DUES: Every EGSA member needs to pay $10 (cash preferred) to Heidi Seelke in CS 406 by Thursday, Sept 1.
ATTENDANCE: We would like to cordially invite you to so many English Department and EGSA events, and we would love even more YOUR ATTENDANCE. As this year begins, we are working on keeping an up-to-date calendar of events on the EGSA calendar so we can notify you of upcoming events. Please try to commit to attending 2-3 events every couple weeks. We are all busy (or about to be), so we know you can’t go to everything. Please, just go to some consistently.
INTEREST GROUPS: Ask, and you shall receive. Here are three special interest groups for this semester. Want to add to the list and appear on EGSA digests? Email sarah_aspen@baylor.edu with group name, contacts, and a description.
Medieval Reading Group – The Medieval reading group focuses primarily on oral/aural readings of important texts from the medieval English world (primarily shorter poetic works). If you don’t have background in Middle English, don’t worry – the more experienced among us are willing and able to help! Contact David Clark (D_Clark@baylor.edu) or Adam Marshall (adam_marshall@baylor.edu) for meeting times and to be added to their mailing list.
Religion and Literature Special Interest Group – This group will meet bi-weekly over lunch to discuss texts written by Baylor faculty (and perhaps others) that either theorize how Christianity can inform the study of literature or that exemplify different ways of developing such readings. Hopefully, these discussions will provide an informal context for us to work out some of the different ways that our faith can inform our profession. At our first meeting, we will talk about which works we want to start with; possible authors include David Lyle Jeffrey, Ralph Wood, Luke Ferretter, Susan Colon, Phillip Donnelly, Stephen Prickett, and Peter Candler. If you are interested, email either Jeff (jeffrey_bilbro@baylor.edu) or Steve (steven_petersheim@baylor.edu).
19th Century Research Seminar Group – meets 4 times a year and its purpose is:“The nineteenth-century research seminar at Baylor is an interdisciplinary group of faculty and graduate students who meet to share and discuss original research in all areas of nineteenth- century studies. In addition to providing a forum for Baylor faculty and graduate students to present their work, we invite presentations from scholars outside the university who have distinguished themselves in our various fields of interest. The Armstrong Browning Library already attracts many accomplished scholars of nineteenth-century literature and culture from around the nation and the world, and we will often collaborate with the library to plan special meetings with these scholars. While some seminar presentations will be formal, we expect that most will be examples of research in progress, and we especially hope this seminar will enable presenters to receive respectful critical feedback on ideas they are still developing. We will not hold formal writing workshops, but we encourage seminar members to exchange works in progress outside of our meetings. By establishing a community of scholars at Baylor dedicated to study of the nineteenth century, we also hope to increase our communication with related groups at other universities and academic institutions.†Contact Melinda_creech@baylor.edu for more info.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS: A friendly reminder to file the proper documents for credit for your foreign language classes you took this summer (or before).
NEW STUDENTS: Here’s a link to information for new students about the foreign language requirements: page 47 of the Graduate Catalog http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/142349.pdf).
RETURNING STUDENTS: The petition needed for foreign language credit is attached to this email and under the “Links†section of the EGSA website. Nathan has been nice enough to provide some instructions.
The process is fairly simple: Fill out the form, detailing in the “justification” section whether or not the course was taken at Baylor during the summer or whether it’s from undergraduate coursework; transcripts need to be attached– if they are from the Baylor summer course, an unofficial print out from bearweb is fine, but official transcripts from an undergraduate institution would be required for the other option. Then, take the completed form with transcripts to Lois. She will pass it along to Dr. Barcus. Then, drop it off at the graduate school in Morrison Hall.
CALL FOR PAPERS: Conference on Christianity and Literature | Western Regional Meeting | May 24–25, 2012|Seattle Pacific University* – Seattle, Washington. PLEASE SEE ATTACHED PDF.
Thanks, everyone! Have a great week!
Sarah Aspen
Graduate Assistant for the Honors Program Baylor University
sarah_aspen@baylor.edu