ENG-LIGHTENED CSU Department of English — Spring 2024 Newsletter

IN THIS ISSUE:

Faculty Recognition
Alumni Spotlight
Recent & Forthcoming Publications
Awards Season
Research Spotlight
CSU English in the News
Spring & Summer Graduates

Faculty Recognition

Mike Palmquist closes impactful career at CSU with prestigious Exemplar Award

Mike Palmquist, professor of English and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar, has retired from Colorado State University after 34 years of teaching, leadership, and innovation.

Read the full story on SOURCE

Composition faculty present at 2024 Conference on College Composition and Communication Convention in Spokane, WA

Kelly Bradbury and Genesea Carter presented and co-facilitated a round-table titled, "Abundant Opportunities for Adaptive Tactics: Strategically Integrating Linguistic Justice in GTA Development Across Contexts."

Sue Doe presented “How Writing’s Transfer Theorization Can Help Centers for Teaching & Learning—and the Universities They Serve” as part of the Standing Committee on Transfer. She also presented “Lessons from Indie (and Other Disciplinary) Statements” at the Labor Caucus panel.

Tobi Jacobi presented "Recognizing the Contributions of Global Prison Narratives" as part of the Prison Writing, Teaching, and Research Workshop.

Recent faculty news & accomplishments (March-May)

Fabiola Ehlers-Zavala delivered two refereed presentations and one invited talk at the annual meeting of TESOL International held in Tampa, FL—including, "Preparing TESOL Professionals to Decolonize our Educational and Leadership Praxis."

Naitnaphit Limlamai and her colleague and collaborator, Christina Ponzio, were featured in American Educational Research Association (AERA) Educational Change Special Interest Group (SIG) newsletter on their presentation on antiracist organizational change.

Jenny Albright, Maurice Irvin, Lisa Langstraat, Karen Montgomery-Moore, Sean Waters, and Aly Welker were nominated for the CSU Career Center's 2024 Career Impact Award.

Dan Beachy-Quick served as the translator-in-residence for the journal Ancient Exchanges at the University of Iowa, and gave a reading for the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Ryan Claycomb was interviewed by Michael Humphrey, assistant professor of journalism & media communication, for the Storylisteners Podcast. As part of a three-part series on listening and democracy, Ryan discussed his book, In the Lurch: Verbatim Theatre and the Crisis of Democratic Deliberation, and the roles of empathetic listening and our collective fantasies of the public sphere.

Todd Mitchell participated in this year’s Colorado Teen Literature Conference held in Denver as part of the Keynote Author Panel and as a teen encounter presenter.

Ricki Ginsberg and cookie b egret have been selected as the latest Reader in Residence and Writer in Residence (respectively) at Wolverine Farm Publick House.

Camille Dungy (for Soil), Ramona Ausubel (for The Last Animal), and Vauhini Vara (for This is Salvaged) are all finalists for the Colorado Book Award — along with colleague Ann Claycomb in the CLA Dean's Office (for Silenced). Winners will be announced Friday, June 21, 2024 at Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Auraria campus.

Sasha Steensen participated in the Art to Live Event at the Lyric Cinema Café. As part of her Overland project, she shared audio-visual components during the reading.

Tatiana Nekrasova-Beker, Anthony Becker, Kiley Dickerson, Elizabeth Pedrotti, Lauren Mangus, and Thomas Viney delivered their panel, titled, "A Graduate Teacher-Training Workshop in ESP: Challenges and Lessons Learned from Curriculum Development Projects" at the 7th International Symposium on Languages for Specific Purposes hosted by George Washington University.

slp led "Madness & Rhythm: A Making Workshop," hosted through Cass Eddington's Vocational Poetics.

Camille Dungy was the Commencement Speaker for Western Colorado University and was also just awarded an Honorary Degree from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Rosa Nam will present her paper, “Using the Racialized Reader Response Framework to Build Student Racial Literacy Through Youth Literature: Success and Failures,” at the Korean Association for Multicultural Education International Conference at Seoul National University May 30- June 1.

Alumni Spotlight

Allison Clark (B.A., '13) applies liberal arts skills daily at her job in Colorado’s State Court System

English alumna Allison Clark, Jefferson County’s newly appointed Clerk of Court, reveals how her degree helped open doors to a judicial career in public service.

Read the full story on SOURCE

Recent & Forthcoming Publications

Scholarly Work

Cindy O’Donnell-Allen and Antero Garcia’s second edition of their best-selling book, Pose, Wobble, Flow: A Liberatory Approach to Literacy Learning in All Classrooms was released recently by Teachers College Press.

Erika Szymanski, alongside co-authors Josh Evans and Emma Frow, have published a new article, “Beyond Control” in the "Networks Issue" of the biodesign magazine GROW.

Fabiola Ehlers-Zavala’s proposed co-edited collection titled, "Innovations in the Teaching of English and World Languages from a Decolonial Perspective" is forthcoming by Springer Nature.

Creative Writing

Sasha Steensen's sixth book of poetry, Well was published by Parlor Press.

Hannah Barnhart's short story, "You Can Pretend" was recently published in the spring issue of Beloit Fiction Journal.

Matthew Cooperman has two new poems forthcoming by Lana Turner, "Whole Wheat," and "Suburban Inevitability."

Devon Fulford's poetry chapbook, the skin song was recently published by Bottlecap Press. This 16-poem chap features stream-of-consciousness coming-of-age poetry from Devon's forthcoming collection, gulp (Red Ogre Review, 2024).

Andrew Altschul's essay, "The All-American Father," about fatherhood and masculinity, was published this spring by Esquire and chosen as an Editors' Pick by Longreads.

Julia Marquez-Uppman's essay, "An Abrupt Break in Thought" — her first published piece — was published in The Offing.

Nina McConigley has an excerpt from her forthcoming novel, The Call of Migratory Things, published in the latest issue of Ploughshares. She also has new essays in Alaska Quarterly Review and High Country News.

Laura Roth's poems will appear this summer in the "Dream Issue" of F(r)iction Magazine.

Journals

The newest edition of Greyrock Review is out now! Purchase your copy or read the issue at the link below.

2024 Greyrock Review

The Spring 2024 issue of Colorado Review is here! Browse the table of contents and get your subscription at the link below.

Colorado Review Subscription

The Fall 2023 / Spring 2024 issue of SpeakOut! has arrived! This issue, titled "The Soul Speaks," includes writing and art from writers at Aspen Ridge Recovery, Larimer County Alternative Sentencing, Work Release, and Community Corrections, and Harvest Farms. Copies can be found around town and on campus.

Learn more about the journal and the work of the Community Literacy Center at the link below.

Get to know CSU's Community Literacy Center

Awards Season

Department Awards

Thank you to all students, faculty, scholarship committee members, donors, and staff who were able to celebrate with us at the 33rd Annual English Department Awards reception on April 15, 2024! At the ceremony, students were personally recognized by faculty members while accepting competitive scholarships and awards for writing and creative artistry.

Across the board, English undergraduates and graduates hold a total of 183 University and departmental scholarships and 6 literary awards for the 24-25 academic year. In addition, the English Department selected 16 winners of the Creative and Performing Arts Awards.

View the complete list of recipients on the 2024 Department Awards webpage

CURC Winners

On April 18, 2024, Colorado State University undergraduates showcased a range of scholarly work across disciplines at the annual Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity showcase hosted by CSU’s Office for Undergraduate Research and Artistry, or OURA. This year's winners included three English majors:

Best in Show: Creative Writing — Izabelle Hood for “Burnt Songs"
Excellence in Liberal Arts Research — Ali Niaz for “The Rocket Scientist vs. The Journalist: A Battle Within Culture"
College Honors — Alex Mccraw for "For Dear Life"

Read the full story on SOURCE

College Awards

Presented April 25, 2024, the All-College Awards recognize faculty and staff for their outstanding contributions to their units, the college, the university, and to their colleagues and their discipline. Congratulations to the following Department of English award winners:⁠⁠

⁠Tatiana Nekrasova-Beker received the Excellence in Graduate Mentorship Award⁠
Cindy O’Donnell-Allen and Ted Fabiano received the Carl A. Bimson Humanities Seminar Award⁠
Tobi Jacobi alongside Suzanne Faris (Art & Art History) received the Ann Gill Faculty Development Award for Collaborative Projects⁠

See full list of CLA winners on SOURCE

Celebrate! Colorado State Awards

Each year, Colorado State University celebrates the teaching, research and service achievements of CSU students, alumni and friends, academic faculty, administrative professionals and classified staff as part of the Celebrate! Colorado State Awards. This year, the English department was represented by the following recipients:

The Interdisciplinary Scholarship Award – Team was presented to the Microbiome Initiative team, including Erika Szymanski.

The Distinguished Administrative Professional Award was presented to Lillian Nugent, finance manager in the College of Liberal Arts.

See the full list of winners on SOURCE

2024 Best Teacher Awards

Each year, students, faculty, and alumni nominate teachers who’ve inspired them and made an impact in their lives. This year, the recipients of the Best Teacher Awards represent five colleges and six departments across the university— including our own Assistant Professor of English Education Rosa Nam!

One of her nominators wrote, “Dr. Nam goes above and beyond to ensure that every student gets what they need out of the class and teaches with equity and respect. Dr. Nam’s class is the one I look forward to in my day because I know I will truly be learning.”

See the full story in SOURCE

Research Spotlight

A Posthumanist Walks into Bioengineering: Seriously Joking About Humans, Cellular Machines and Other Fictional Beings

Associate Professor of English Erika Szymanski works at the intersections of rhetoric and science, of metaphor and meaning, of human and post-human, and of questions both serious and—occasionally—silly. In this presentation (given at the April Insights Speaker Series event on humans and the environment), she takes us on a short tour of her work—jokes included, questions encouraged.