Etc. – The Rhetorical Situation

Spring Quarter 2023

Contents:

End of the Year Letter
Highlighting our Faculty:
- Accomplishments
- Summer Dreaming
- Loves of our Lives

End of the Year Letter

Dear Writing Program Faculty and Staff,

The PDC wanted to take the time to thank you all for a great year and for your participation in our professional-development and community-building events. A few highlights:

The 2nd-Annual WP Mini-Conference

This Spring Quarter, the PDC hosted our annual Writing Program “Recycled Writing” mini-conference. For the second iteration of this conference, the PDC wanted to open up the conference to celebrate and highlight all types of writing that we are doing—from pedagogy-focused to independent research to creative writing and journalism. We had the pleasure of having a special keynote speaker, our very own Farnaz Fatemi, the current Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate. (Link here to the schedule and description of presentations.) We look forward to the 2024 conference.

Thank you to the nearly 30 of you who attended at least some part of the conference!

We especially want to thank all 12 participants for their insightful presentations:

· Farnaz Fatemi
· Kim Helmer
· Lindsay Knisely
· Madeline Lane-McKinley
· Phil Longo
· Brij Lunine
· Kate McQueen
· Roxi Power
· Kae Yuan Roybal
· Brenda Sanfilippo
· Heather Shearer
· Amy Vidali

Teaching Circles

The PDC additionally embarked on a “Teaching Circle” project this year to encourage and facilitate faculty learning from each other through low-time commitment, non-evaluative visits to each other’s classes (online or in-person), the exchange of syllabi and other teaching material, and informal chats on any aspect of teaching for the Writing Program.

We sent out surveys in Fall, Winter, and Spring to assess interest and gather information to pair up faculty with others with similar schedules and teaching modalities. In the Fall, we had 36 responses with 61% interested in participating. We sent the survey out again in the Winter and received 22 responses with 6 faculty reporting successful meetings the previous quarter, but learned that many of the planned meetings were derailed due to the strike. In the Spring, our survey resulted in 9 responses with 6 faculty reporting successful meetings the previous quarter. In retrospect, although only a small proportion of faculty participated in the program, all of the survey responses on the success of the meetings were enthusiastically positive.

We will send out another survey for teaching circles in the Fall. Thanks to all of those who helped make Teaching Circles a success this year!

Open Pedagogy Workshop

The PDC also hosted an online “Open Pedagogy Workshop” at the end of Winter quarter to which we invited those who had participated in the Teaching Circles and anyone else interested in informally discussing our teaching practice. About 20 of our friendly WP colleagues appeared on the Zoom screen. We began with Teaching Circle participants sharing some of their experiences and then moved to two breakout rooms: one focused on ChatGPT, and a second focused on post-pandemic teaching. The discussion was lively, informative, and a great opportunity to talk about all of those things we just don’t have time to address in Writing Program faculty meetings.

We are so grateful to work within such a wonderful community and look forward to continuing to support professional development and community in the Writing Program next year.

Sincerely,

The 2022-2023 PDC Committee

Lisa Schilz, Chair
Steve Coulter
Dina El Dessouky
Madeline Lane-McKinley
Kae Yuan Roybal

2. Highlighting Our Faculty

Accomplishments

Maggie Amis:

Nearly three years ago, in August of 2020, lightning struck, and sparked the fires that burned over 86,000 acres and 1490 structures–including the house we’d lived in for 30 years. The loss was manifold and incalculable. But, now, luckily, I am happy to say we’ve found a permanent house and garden!

“Awesome Coworker”:

Between January and April, my biggest achievement was preventing my life from getting washed downstream. What I’m most excited about is that my immediate family had no life-threatening medical crises during the academic year. (I might have lowered my expectations after the past few years.)

Gail Brenner:

I’m pretty excited about completing the 2nd (& extensively revised) edition of my book, English for Dummies (Inglés para Dummies) — written in English & translated by other folks into Spanish & other languages. (1st ed. 2003). 2nd edition available in August.

Steve Coulter:

I will be going back to Ireland with 25 students for a 5-week Writing 2 course in Dingle, Co. Kerry. My wife, Rachel Goodman, will be teaching a 2-unit podcasting course.

Kim Helmer:

I was proud to be an invited speaker at TESOL 2023 International Conference held in Portland, OR where I talked about Critical Language Awareness and my Writing 26 Linguistic Landscapes Project. I participated with a former PhD classmate, Estela Ene. We also presented at our FIRST academic conference together 20 years ago (also in Portland) and now in 2023, we were INVITED to speak! Kind of amazing! Also, I was super proud to give two presentations with two of my Writing 26 students: Melissa Hernandez and Adit Mandal.

Kristen Kennedy Terry:

In March, I submitted a manuscript for a monograph on social network analysis and second language acquisition that I have been working on for the last two years. It was recently accepted by the series editors (phew!), so it is now in press. It feels great to have my life back! For family news, my older daughter, Katherine, spent a year studying abroad in France and my younger daughter, Ciara, is finishing her first year at UCLA this month.

Taylor Kirsch:

Things I’m excited about accomplishing this year: Making some key innovations & improvements in my classes & teaching in community with others in the WP. Taking care of my health better than I did last year. Helping out with my brother’s wedding and my grandma’s 100th birthday celebration!

Lindsay Knisely:

I won the 2022-23 Excellence in Teaching Award!

Madeline Lane-McKinley:

My book came out in November, and I had a blast on a short book tour promoting it. I also finished a book I co-authored with my friend Max, which will be coming out next year. Lots of writing, gardening, swimming, and cooking too.

Brij Lunine:

Nothing prestigious to note. I’m happy to have had great classes of Writing students, despite the continued super challenging circumstances. Even though a disproportionate number of our students are having significant problems, I enjoyed supporting them as best I can, and we also had some great times in class. I also enjoyed co-chairing the C committee with Brenda and working with Joy, Mark, & Chris.

Kate McQueen:

I’m excited to report that I am now the holder of the Cowell College Gary D. Licker Memorial Chair, from July 2022 to June 2025. I’m using the resources from this award to work on a book project. This spring I presented some early research at an international literary journalism conference in Poland. I’ll be doing archival work in Germany this summer and fall, and am slated to teach a future Cowell College class related to the project (likely on biographical writing). I hope to reveal a book title for you all soon 🙂

Ellen Newberry:

On April 25 I became a great aunt to the absolutely cutest kid in the word: Camila Rose Balassone. I have already given her a San Francisco Giants onesie.

Tina Osborne:

My 11-year-old daughter Skylar climbed both Yosemite Falls and Nevada-Vernal Falls over Memorial Day. The thunderous waterfalls were epic from all angles!

Sarah-Hope Parmeter:

This year’s accomplishments have been of the avoiding-the-worst-case-scenario kind. We made it through four potential flooding evacuations this winter, along with all three cats. Our home and one of our two cars made it through intact, which is an excellent result given what many have been dealing with. In the fall, I took a fall, put my teeth through my upper lip and had fractures below both elbows, but I did not break glasses/teeth/nose, which strikes me as pretty darn felicitous overall.

Roxi Power:

Poetry book to be published August 2023: The Songs That Objects Would Sing.
Panel accepted at Associated Writers and Writing Program Conference, Seattle, March 2023: Rhizomatic Literary Communities: from the Local to the National.
Invited to perform my Neo-Benshi show of A Streetcar Named Desire at New Orleans Poetry Conference, April, 2023

Heather Shearer:

I became a rider-of-bikes.

Tiffany Wong:

UCSC Global Engagement Collaborative Online International Learning/Virtual Exchange (COIL/VE) Travel Award
Humera Foundation Contemplative Award
Cultivating Compassion Daylong with another 8-week Cultivating Compassion Training (CCT) being offered Fall 2023, September 5 through October 24, Tuesdays from 6-8pm.
BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and Allies Mindfulness and Self-Care Group, Thursdays from 6-7:30pm.
“Listening to the Earth, Listening to Each Other,” Half Daylong for BIPOC and Allies, Sunday, June 4th from 9am-1pm (Free/Donation). For the Schedule and Registration visit https://www.watsonvilleinsight.org/
Young Rhetoricians Conference, Organizing Board Member and Facilitator, 2023 Conference Thursday and Friday, June 22-23. For Registration visit https://youngrhetoriciansconference.com/
Designing and Building a Kinetic Sculpture, https://kineticgrandchampionship.com/

Summer Dreaming