Fall 2018 Open Classes

There are still some open classes in the English department for you to take! Remember, if the class you want is already full, put yourself on the wait-list–that is how the department knows to open up new sections! Visit the registrar’s website for the full registration guide. 

235 Early American Literature: T, R from 10:50-12:05pm  or 421 Early American Literature T 6-9

  • 200 Level
  • G1 – Arts and Humanities (for 235)

240 Introduction to Film: M from 2-5:20 with a recitation W from 2-3:30

  • 200 Level
  • G1 – Arts and Humanities

242 Reading Our World: Stranger Things: T, R from 2:35-3:50pm

  • G1 – Arts and Humanities
  • W – Writing Component

242 Reading Our World: Social Justice: W from 6-9pm

  • G1 – Arts and Humanities
  • W – Writing Component

274 The Craft of Writing: M, W from 3-4:15pm

  • G1 – Arts and Humanities

312 Technical Writing: W from 6-9pm or MUOnline

  • AW – Advanced Writing Component

313 Fundamentals of Journalism: R from 6-9pm or MUOnline

  • AW – Advanced Writing Component

316 Business Writing: T from 1:10-2:25pm; T, R from 8-9:15am or 9:25-10:50am

  • AW – Advanced Writing Component

319 Science Writing: MUOnline

  • AW – Advanced Writing Component

333 African American Literature 1: M, W, F from 1-1:50 or 10-10:50

  • 200 Level
  • G1 – Arts and Humanities
  • CDC – Diversity Requirement
  • W – Writing Component

424 Realism and Naturalism to 1920: W from 6-9pm

463 Applied Linguistics: T from 6-9pm

  • 200 Level
  • G1 – Arts and Humanities
  • W – Writing Component

466 Writing Studies Seminar- Environmental Advocacy: M, W from 4:30-5:45pm

  • W – Writing Component

482 Film and American Society: R from 6-8:55pm

  • 200 Level
  • G1 – Arts and Humanities

Student Profile: Kaylee Herndon

Kaylee Herndon
Kaylee Herndon

Kaylee Herndon, a current sophomore and Sports Journalism major at Millersville University, has been attending Bowers Writers House events for three years. The house, founded in the spring of 2010 right outside Elizabethtown College, is an interdisciplinary venue for expression, study, presentation and performance. The public events–usually between 12-15 each academic semester–are always free. From dramatic readings to musical performances to interactive panels, the Writers House’s program is diverse and welcoming to readers and writers alike.

Kaylee first got involved in Writers House because she lived so close to the Bowers Writers House. She has always been involved in the writing/journalism scene; she was the head editor of the E-town ExPRESSion, and wrote for both the Elizabethtown Advocate and The Torch. Also, she is a blogger on Figment, where she was a featured author in 2015. She has also been featured in the VOX magazine, a local publication of Elizabethtown College, and on The Virtual Cavern. Kaylee also runs her own personal blog where she posts articles and miscellaneous works of fiction.

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At Made in Millersville, Kaylee presented her feature-style profile piece “‘A Different Space: Inside a local Writers House.” The piece focuses on Elizabethtown College’s Writers House and its director, Jesse Waters. She explained what the house is, some of its struggles, and its connections with the local community and other writers houses. (You can find her abstract for the article on this site by searching “Herndon” at the top)

In the future, Kaylee will continue working with Writers House by finding events professors and students at Millersville would enjoy and organizing the Emerging Writers Festival.

 

Student Profile: Trevor Stauffer

Trevor Stauffer is in his last semester at Millersville University and has recently completed an internship at Merit Marketing. If you are a student looking for internships, visit this page to find more information. 

I put off my internship for a while. I always had excuses. I worried that I wouldn’t have enough time, that the pay wouldn’t be as good as my part-time job, and that my grades would suffer. Part of me even thought that I wouldn’t benefit from an internship. After all, school was going well, and the business world couldn’t be that different.

I was wrong. I’m a little over halfway through my copy-writing internship with Merit Marketing, and the experience is transforming my ability to write and edit in ways that formal classes never did (at least for me). In no way do I mean that traditional courses are less valuable; they are two totally different ways of learning.

F76A8222 (3)The internship atmosphere is different. In a college course, you are among peers. If you’re one of the more studious kids in the room, you may know a bit more about some topics, or pick up on lecture material faster. But no matter how much you stand out in the classroom, in an internship you know much less, and have much less experience, than anyone around you. In my opinion, this is a fantastic opportunity. You can ask for advice, learn from criticism, and foster connections with professionals. Be a humble sponge, soaking up the insights, methods, habits, and years of real-world wisdom around you.

An internship is also much more demanding than most college courses. There is both a much heavier workload and greater expectations on the quality of work. In an essay about Shakespeare, for example, you can probably get away with some awkwardly constructed, uninteresting sentences. And you’d probably be given at least a few weeks to write it. My copy-writing internship has been a great way to learn to write cleaner, leaner, more direct prose on a tight deadline. Professors are generally nice people, and don’t want to tear your heartfelt essay to shreds. But the real world is cruel. It doesn’t care how much introspective finesse you put into crafting that paragraph. Shorten it! Add more SEO keywords! Get to the point! While my mentors at Merit could not have been more polite or helpful, I did end up revising a lot. And that’s good: better to learn in an internship under friendly guidance than be called into a manager’s office at a real job.

F76A6164 (2)As different as my internship has been from previous classes, I know that without those classes, I would have been worse off. In particular, I think my journalism courses were especially good preparation. Because journalism stresses facts, readability, and topics that appeal to the public, I was able to use a lot of the skills I learned in journalism courses while writing blog posts for Merit.

My English degree has had less direct application, but it’s still been important. Pursuing an English degree has led me to care about language and literature. I’ve read many challenging works, become interested in different genres, and been absorbed in the power of history’s greatest authors. So while I’m far from a great writer, I’m a far better writer than I would have been without pursuing an English degree.

Another aspect of my internship I’ve really enjoyed has been writing blog posts from home. It’s been a lot more work than I expected, but that’s not a bad thing. Each week, I’ve been researching and writing one blog post for Merit’s website from the comfort of my own room. I’ve been able to cover a wide range of topics I previously knew nothing about, so it’s been a great way to expand my general knowledge of the business world. This from-home work has added extra credits to my internship and flexibility to my schedule: it could not have worked out better.

If you’re an English major on the fence, trying to decide if an internship is worth the extra work, I’d say go for it. You can earn credits, get paid, and, if your experience is anything like mine, you’ll meet great people and improve your writing dramatically.

—Trevor Stauffer

2018-2019 English Award Winners

Congratulations to the 2018-2019 English Award Winners!  Below are the scholarship recipients and the award qualifications. On May 1st there will be a banquet for the winners. Visit this website to see English major only scholarships and this website to see past award winners. 


Allison Rickert Memorial Award: Catherine Shehan

  • Awarded to a student from any class year with a minimum GPA of 3.0 or greater who contributes to the George Street Press or the Creative Writer’s Guild.

Dorothy J. Patterson English Award: Bryce Rinehart

  • Awarded to a rising junior majoring in the English teacher preparation program and working toward a Bachelors of Science in English Education with a minimum GPA of 3.0 in both the major and overall. The scholarship is renewable for two additional semester.

William S. Trout Memorial Award for English Education: Mariah Miller

  • Awarded to a senior English education major who has a cumulative GPA greater than or equal to 2.5, and 3.5 GPA in English courses. Candidates are required to document a commitment to creative writing through publication of original work.

Nadine Thomas Journalism Award: Vanessa Schneider

  • Awarded to a senior English education major who has a cumulative GPA greater than or equal to 2.5, and 3.5 GPA in English courses. Candidates are required to document a commitment to creative writing through publication of original work.

Eileen Carew Promising Writers Award: Shaakirah Ahmad-Tate

  • This scholarship is awarded to an English major with a declared Writing Studies Option who has achieved excellence or shows promise in writing. The student must have a minimum of a 3.0 GPA.

Dilworth-McCullough English Award: Mary Beth Nolt

  • Awarded to a student who has achieved excellence in English literature.

Class of 1910 Award: Amanda Mooney

  • Awarded annually for excellence in English to a student at the end of his or her senior year.

Frank R. Heavner Memorial Award: Maria Glotfelter

  • Awarded to the English major with the highest average in at least nine hours of linguistics courses.

Alice R. Fox Memorial Award in English: Emily Perez

  • Awarded to a student who, in the judgment of the English Department, has achieved excellence in English.

Class of 1917 Award: Matthew Moyer

  • Awarded at the end of a student’s junior year to a person who, in the judgment of the English Department, excels in the general field of English.

Class of 1922 Award: Hadassah Stoltzfus

  • Awarded to a senior who has demonstrated outstanding proficiency in the use of English.

National Day of Action

Friday, April 20th is The National Day of Action Against Gun Violence in Schools. Inspired by the brave students in Parkland, Florida, and across the nation, Millersville University students, parents, educators, school staff, administrators and community allies will join together to take up the students’ call of “No more” during the National School Walkout.

The last poster-making session will be on Tuesday, April 17th at 6pm in 310 Breidenstine. We will discuss the aims of Friday’s event, show examples of posters from recent anti-gun-violence rallies, and experts (art students) will be on-hand to help make posters. There will be plenty of supplies on hand courtesy of MU administration.

The group asks participants to research past shooting victims in advance, print out photos (with names, and which shooting) to bring to the poster-making session. These photos will go toward making a giant, participatory group collage, which will stand behind the stage on Friday, imprinted with the words: Enough is Enough! The New York Times published an article “After Sandy Hook, More Than 400 People Have Been Shot in Over 200 School Shootings” by Jugal K. Patel; the group recommends using this resource to begin researching.

On Friday, April 20th, the main event will be held in front of the Library (if rain, in the SMC) from 10am-1pm. The movement is powered and led by students around the country to protest congressional, state, and local failures to take action to prevent gun violence.

America is the only country in the world where so many people are killed by guns, and yet our leaders do nothing about it. In many states it’s more difficult to register to vote that it is to buy a rifle. Apparently to some politicians, a vote is scarier than a gun. We’re changing that. Our Mission

As of this publication, the MU event is sponsored by:

  • African American Studies
  • The Alliance for Social Change
  • American Association of University Women at Millersville University
  • Art Club
  • Center for Civic and Community Engagement
  • Center for Disaster Research and Education
  • Center for Public Scholarship and Social Change
  • The English Department
  • Frederick Douglass Black Culture Celebration
  • The Gender Issues and Social Justice Committee of APSCUF
  • The Honors College Student Association
  • The MU Philosophical Society
  • NAACP College Chapter at Millersville University
  • Office of Diversity and Social Justice
  • Philosophy Department
  • President’s Commission on Gender and Sexual Diversity
  • School of Social Work
  • Women’s and Gender Studies
  • The George Street Press

For more information on the national event, visit this website.

PEN World Voices Festival Trip

On April 19th, Dr. Jakubiak’s New Dimensions to World Literature class will go on a trip to New York City to see a panel of writers at PEN World Voices Festival. The panel, called Cry, The Beloved Country, consists of authors from around the world: Ryszard Krynicki from Poland, Serhiy Zhadan from Ukraine, Marcos Aguinis from Argentina, Ngugi wa Thiong’o from Kenya, Hwang Sok Yong from Korea, and Negar Djavadi from Iran/France. The panel’s web-page writes, ” No matter their origin, writers across the globe encapsulate the spirit of resistance by giving a voice to the oppressed. In an evening of solidarity and community, writers from seven countries share their stories of pain, rage, and suffering while living under oppressive regimes. Hear the voices of the unheard; join us in celebrating these moments of resistance.”

Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o Photo credit

The class has already studied some of the work of the renowned Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a novelist and theorist of post-colonial literature. Ngugi will discuss the role of literature in autocratic regimes with his fellow panel members. This experience will give the students, all BSE majors, an opportunity to broaden their knowledge of world literatures and interact with the authors of books they have studied and may choose to teach in the future.

In addition to attending PEN World Voices festival, the group will take a guided tour of the new Tenement Museum of Immigration on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which will give the students a hands-on lesson on the history of American Immigration. The tenements housed over 15,000 working class immigrants from over 20 nations while the tenements served as residences, according to the Tenement Museum’s website. The museum wishes to preserve the history of immigration and enhance appreciation for the role immigration has played and continues to play in shaping America’s evolving national identity.

Title Image Credit

MUsings: The Graduate Journal

The publication of MUsings: The Graduate Journal showcases the academic work of graduate students at Millersville University. The journal invites students to present highlights of their work in a venue that bolsters career-building experiences and celebrates their scholarly efforts. Graduate students from the English department serve on the Editorial Staff. Each issue may feature research articles, short stories, and literary essays. With this publication, MUsings seeks to encourage student creativity, commend innovative research, and generate student engagement in the academic and professional communities. Graduate students serve on the Editorial board.

This year, MUsings will appear at Made in Millersville. Graduate students Claire Porter, Rashid Noah, and Maria Rovito will present the Spring 2018 publication, showcasing the academic work of graduate students at Millersville University.

Submissions for MUsings will open in Fall 2018 for inclusion in the Spring 2019 Graduate Journal.

Photo courtesy of MUsings.

Made in Millersville English Events

There will be a strong representation of the English department at this year’s Made in Millersville. Read these quick summaries before you go check them out on April 17th in the McNairy Library! Visit this site for the full program list. 

Use and Perception of Google Translate in the Classroom: 8-9:15am Maria Glotfelter will present on the potential use of computer translators as instructional tools for learning languages. Past studies indicate that students frequently use computer translators and sometimes have inaccurate perceptions about them. Google Translate was chosen as a tool to gauge students perception and use of computer translators. Maria will analyze survey and interview data with the goal of making pedagogical recommendations for both teachers and students.

A Different Space: 8-9:15am Kaylee Herndon will present a feature-style profile piece on Elizabethtown College’s Writers House and its director, Jesse Waters. The story focuses on what the house is, how it connects with the local community and other Writers Houses, and some struggles it faces. She will go over the story’s content, the interviewing and writing process, and the design layout process in terms of layout for publication.

Writing Workshop Digital Portfolio Session: 10:50am-12:05pm Students in Dr. Farkas’ Writing Workshop class are going to be discussing the benefits of creating a professional portfolio and the different digital platforms available and which they recommend.  Students will also share their own processes of creating their portfolios, some of their writing samples that they are including in their portfolios, and examples of their digital portfolios.  Students in the course will be working in small groups of about three students each and will present these various aspects of the digital portfolio.

The Issue of the Lack of Feminine Products Available to Homeless Women: 10:50am-12:05pm Mary-Kate Helm, Jessie Garrison, and Eilish McCaul will present on why lack of access to feminine products in the city of Lancaster is such an issue through their collected research and interviews with women on their experiences. The students will also focus on what they did to make a difference in the community and their sustainable plan of action.

The Line: 10:50am-12:05pm Rashna Yousaf will present her short film The Line that revolves around the theme of racial discrimination and gender inequality.

The Final Phase: Millersville Strike Oral History Project and Its Aftermath: 10:50am-12:05pm Lauren Cameron and Ashley Sherman will present on the PA State system of Higher Education Faculty Strike in October 19, 2016 by commemorating the state system’s first actualized walk-out. The presentation reflects upon the findings of the project, examining the development of the interviewing team and the strike project, as well as the aftermath such efforts created and the subsequent importance of oral history.

Non-Western Literature Poster Session: 1:10-2:25pm All students enrolled in the class ENGL 336 New Dimensions of World Literature are participating in this poster session. The goal is to draw the attention of the university community to accomplished literary works from countries that are often overlooked in mainstream discussions about literature in America. Students, working with Dr. Jakubiak, will present on major issues raised by works of fiction, nonfiction and drama written by Maryse Conde (Guadeloupe), Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan), Wole Soyinka (Nigeria), Ngugi Wa’Thiong’o (Kenya), Mo Yan (China) and Samar Yazbek (Syria). They will also explore the rich cultural and historical contexts of these works.

Susquehanna Stories Panel: 1:10-2:25pm This panel will be a presentation of the “Susquehanna Stories” written by students from Dr. Mando’s last semester ENGL 466 Writing Studies Special Topics: Environmental Advocacy Writing. Maddie Giardina wrote a piece for the English Newsletter that explains the project in detail. The students who will be participating are Rylan Harvey, Caitlyn Tynes, Amanda Mooney, and Gabrielle Redcay.

Hip Hop and Intersectionality Panel: 1:10-2:25pm Hip Hop & Intersectionality is a panel of undergraduates exploring how rap music provides a site of cultural intersection between the marginalized perspectives that developed the genre and the mainstream perspectives that largely consume it. These students combine their knowledge of feminist theory with popular culture to bring revealing insights. Eugene Thomas, Stassy Bonhomme, Evelyn Dais, Sandra Molina-Hill, Diavian Gunner, Skyler Gibbon, and Elizabeth Wright are involved in the panel discussion.

Prisoner City: Lancaster City’s Role as a P.O.W. Prison During the American Revolution: 1:10-2:25pm Domenic DeSimone will present on Lancaster City’s role during the American Revolution. Unprepared for the sudden influx of prisoners they were being tasked to house, Congress instructed the citizens of Lancaster to let the prisoners walk among them in the town as a show of goodwill. The unique way that Lancaster dealt with their new identity as a prison town would drastically change the lives of the cities residents, forever altering the city that many of us call home today.

The Power of Creative Writing Class Presentation: 2:35-3:50pm Students enrolled in Dr. Jakubiak’s ENGL 421 Creative Writing in Fall ’17 will read their poetry, short stories, and creative non-fiction. The presenters are Brett Killian and Molly Landfried.

Spoken Word Event: 2:35-3:50pm The Spoken Word event will be students performing their work on the theme of what’s not spoken about in school.  They will give voice to what they think is important but not spoken about on campuses. These students are preparing an experience that will dramatize the theme, too. Skyler Gibbon, Sean Domencic, Krystal Lowery, Jessie Garrison, Rylan Harvey, Taylor Schaal, Kyle Copenhaver, Rachel Cubbage-Opaliski, Xiao Tian Wang, Alyssa Matchett, and Shamera Burbank Green will present.

& Joy: 2:35-3:50pm Catherine Dillon, in her dramatic performance session, will highlight the joy present even among the tragedies of life through a poetry reading/spoken word. The poet will share various poems discussing the mental health and familial relationships within the context of joy.

Student Perceptions of Student Driven Inquiry Projects: 2:35-3:50 Bryce Rinehart‘s study is meant to provide an understanding of students’ perspectives on their motivation during an IBL project in order to enhance educators’ understanding of how inquiry-based learning, especially student driven inquiry, can function within the classroom to address students’ need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness as they work.

For the Journal You’ve Never Heard Of: 2:35-3:50pm Shaakirah Tate, Alexandra Attinger, Daniel Dicker, Sara Lipski, and Mikayla Steele are interns for the Made in Millersville Journal and will unveil the new issue of the journal and display the student work submitted throughout the school year. It will also serve as the ‘Grand Opening’ for their new website and social media platforms. The presentation will integrate the journal with the conference as a whole. Visit this previous newsletter article for more information.

MUsings: The Graduate Journal: All Day Claire Porter, Jay Barnica, Rashid Noah, and Maria Rovito will present the publication of MUsings, showcasing the academic work of graduate students at Millersville University. The journal invites students to present highlight of their work in a venue that bolsters career- building experiences and celebrates their scholarly effects.