EGSA Digest 12.06.13

EGSA,

I know you’re busy. After all, it’s about time to start researching for that seminar paper due next week. But grading and Writing Center reports can (generally) wait, and theses and dissertations can (always) wait, so take some time to look over these announcements and save yourself the embarrassment of having your work completed before absolutely necessary.

Announcements

Profiling

• I told you this would happen. To all of you who doubted the mighty reach of EGSA’s authority and influence and failed to submit a bio previously, just read this, from Denise Crews:

Good news: grad students are now going to be featured on the main English department website!  You don’t have to toil in the shadows anymore.

This new page will list profiles of us as a way to publicize our program and as a networking tool for us.  Potential employers and other professional contacts can look us up and see how accomplished and nice we are, and prospective students will be attracted to Baylor by reading about us.  The first step is collecting bios for the page.

Many of you have already submitted your bio to EGSA, the Writing Center, or have written one for a conference or publication. You should be able to reuse the one you have, perhaps with a bit of tweaking.

Suggestions/Guidelines for your Bio:  
-about 100 words (a little more or less is fine)
-use a professional tone
-also feel free to include human interest stuff such as hobbies, family, where you’re from, etc.
-include your scholarly interests & specialties (you may also want to include your thesis or dissertation topic or title if relevant)
-include impressive factoids such as your degrees, honors, scholarships, and publications
-explain your job here at Baylor as well as your background: what you have taught or done in the past that is relevant to English
-perhaps state your professional goal/dream

Please email it to me, denise_crews@baylor.edu, in the next couple of weeks (before the end of the semester).  The text of an email is preferable to an attachment.  If you want me to use the one you already submitted to EGSA or the Writing Center, just let me know.

Thanks so much!

• So, your job prospects just got better and you now have another excuse to procrastinate writing your seminar papers. Not bad.

Departmental Tea, Today, 2–3pm, CS 4^th

• This is your last chance to drink tea and eat goodies. With lots of people from the department. In a place where you can’t really hear much and the roof leaks. Before Christmas. This year.

19CRS, Today, 3:30–4:30pm, ABL Lecture Hall

• English Graduate Student Conference:
  • Melinda Creech, “Grace Notes: The Provenance of a Fragment of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ ‘The Loss of the Eurydice'”
  • Michael Milburn, “Emerson’s Negative Capability and Keats’ Self-Reliance”
• Go support your colleagues; ask irrelevant, meandering questions; and pat yourself on the back for your commitment to scholarship. And feel free to learn something, if that interests you.

Upcoming Event

a Party at Christmas; or, a little Christmas Party, Fri., 13 Dec., 7pm-ish, Watsons’ (3821 Lasker)

• Don’t let the sentimentality or open robes dissuade you. It is not to be missed. Jim, of course, will be.

All right. Back to pretending to work.

Jeremy Leatham

EGSA Secretary