Improving the writing skills of our students across their four years is a cross-campus shared responsibility. Fortunately, both faculty and students have an enlightened resource – a common campus handbook – to help foster a shared vocabulary, writing strategies, and documentation expertise. The most recent update of this blazingly necessary resource offers faculty the chance to (re)familiarize ourselves with its holdings. Kirszner & Mandell’s Pocket Cengage Handbook, 7th ed. offers a buzzing hive of resources: click here for a quick overview. For information contact Lars Erik Larson, English, at larson@up.edu.
Lars Larson
Poetry Reading: Kate Gray, Oct. 5
Portland poet and writer Kate Gray will visit the UP campus on Wednesday, October 5, at 7:30 p.m., in the Pilot House bookstore to read from her work. Gray is the author of the Oregon Book Award nominated Another Sunset We Survive (poems) and the novel Carry the Sky. Her work thinks through conditions of vulnerability, loss, and ethical justice, and her current novel-in-progress explores a connection between Sylvia Plath and a sister of William Buckley, Jr. A short interview with Gray can be found here on the English department blog, and a PDF sample of her work is also available.
For details contact Lars Erik Larson, English, at larson@up.edu or x7267.
Integrated Writing Program Changes, Summer Availability
Cara Hersh has replaced Lars Larson as the University Integrated Writing Program director. For questions regarding the Writing Center, the campus writing handbook (The Pocket Wadsworth Handbook, 6th ed.), Turnitin.com, or other campus resources for writing assignments, contact Hersh at hersh@up.edu.
The Integrated Writing Center (in Franz 120, the Learning Resource Center) is available to Summer Session II students as a resource for writing assignments. In contrast with regular semesters, where students make appointments via an online schedule, summer appointments are made via e-mail to writing@up.edu on an as-needed basis. Summer writing assistants are Megan Lester, Sara McCrohan, Erin Savoia, and Andrea Turel. See the Writing Center website at www.up.edu/lrc/writing/ for information about UP writing resources. For questions contact Cara Hersh at hersh@up.edu.
Larson, Hiro Receive Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grants for 2014-2015
University professors Lars Erik Larson and Molly Hiro have been selected to receive Fulbright U.S. Scholar Teaching Grants to India for the 2014-2015 academic year. Larson and Hiro are both English professors at the University, and a married couple as well. They joined the faculty in 2005. Larson and Hiro anticipate that they will serve for one semester at a university or set of universities in India, possibly New Delhi. The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board will inform them of their destination at a later date.
Hiro was an award-winning teacher at UCLA before coming to UP, and currently serves as chair of the English department. Her academic areas of expertise include African-American writers, American women writers, multi-ethnic American literature, American literature and social change, nineteenth-century American literature, and American modernism.
Larson also taught at UCLA before coming to Portland, and his academic interests include twentieth-century American literature, nineteenth-century American literature, western American literature, literature and the visual arts, cultural geography, literature of the environment, and spatiality nonfiction. He received the University of Portland Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award in 2013.
Since 1996, there have been a total of 13 Faculty Fulbrights awarded to professors at the University of Portland, including business professor Arjun Chatrath in 2005; English professor John McDonald, education professor Blaine Ackley, and business professors Richard Gritta and Mark Meckler in 2007; and biology professor Katie O’Reilly in 2012.
The United States Fulbright program began in 1946 after World War II to “assist in the development of friendly, sympathetic and peaceful relations between the United States and other countries of the world” through the exchange of students, scholars and professionals. The program operates in more than 140 countries worldwide.
For more information contact Molly Hiro, English, at hiro@up.edu.
Peer Review Strategies Workshop
The Writing Resource Center and Teaching and Learning Collaborative invite all faculty to a workshop, “Using Peer Review Strategies to Improve Student Writing and Learning,” on Wednesday, April 17, from 4-5 p.m., in Shiley Hall room 319, according to Karen Eifler, education. This will be a hands-on session, with input from panelists Lars Larson, Elayne Shapiro, Lisa Reed, and Karen Eifler, and time for questions, discussion, and practice. Light refreshments will be served. For more information contact Larson at larson@up.edu or Eifler at eifler@up.edu.