Professor Raymond Clemens, Department of History, has published his first book, Introduction to Manuscript Studies, coauthored by Timothy Graham. The book is an introduction to the field of manuscript studies, and has a wide audience, including beginning and advanced students of history, art history, literature, and religious studies. Topics covered include the process of manuscript preparation, the skills necessary to study medieval manuscripts, and descriptions of the most common types of medieval manuscripts, including Bibles, maps, and scrolls. The book also contains an extensive glossary, guide, and bibliography, and each chapter includes many color illustrations and examples. “What pleases me most about the book,” Clemens said, “is that there are no other books out there that allow people to teach themselves how to read manuscripts and how to conduct work in archives holding medieval manuscripts.”
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Joan Mullin, chair of the English Department, has co-edited the latest issue of Pedagogy, a journal published by Duke University Press that focuses on new discourse relevant to teaching in English studies. The journal covers all areas of English studies: literature, literary criticism, composition, cultural studies, theory, and practice. This special issue of Pedagogy focuses on faculty development.
In addition to co-editing this issue with Barbara Schneider and Margaret Marshall, Mullin has written an article featured in the issue. Titled “Inter-disciplinary Work as Professional Development: Changing the Culture of Teaching,” the article outlines how and why faculty development of any kind must include a mutual examination of instructor and student assumptions about “teaching” and learning” so that pedagogy evolves to accommodate new theoretical and curricular initiatives.
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Elizabeth Ortiz
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Representatives from the Illinois Latino Council on Higher Education (ILCHE) will hold a public forum to discuss issues relevant to Latino/as in higher education on Friday, October 24 at 12 noon in Room 132 of ISU’s College of Business Building. ILACHE aims to give a voice to Latino/as in higher education: students, staff, faculty and administrators. ILACHE also works with people who are interested in Latino/a issues in higher education, regardless of their own heritage and ethnicity—for example, administrators working on related initiatives. Members of the community with an interest in higher education are also invited to attend. The ISU session will open with presentations by board members Elizabeth Ortiz, who is currently the president of ILACHE, and José Perales, University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Patrice Olsen, Associate Professor of History, has published Artifacts of Revolution: Architecture, Society, and Politics in Mexico City, 1920-1940 (Rowman and Littlefield Press). This innovative history argues that we can understand important facets of the Mexican Revolution by analyzing the architecture designed and built in Mexico City during the formative years from 1920 to 1940. These artifacts allow us to trace and understand the path of the consolidation of the Mexican Revolution. Each individual building or development, by providing indelible evidence of the process by which the revolution evolved into a government, offers important insights into Mexican history. Seen in aggregate, they reveal an ongoing urban process at work; seen as a "composition," they reveal changes over time in societal values and aspirations and in the direction of the revolution. Artifacts of Revolution: Architecture, Society, and Politics in Mexico City, 1920-1940 received the Lewis Hanke Prize from the Conference on Latin American History and the Michael C. Meyer Award from the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies.
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Richard Martin and William Hunter
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Nearly 130 Illinois high school, community college, and university science teachers attended a conference held at ISU last week by the Illinois Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers (ISAAPT) and the Illinois Association of Chemistry Teachers (IACT). This conference was the first joint meeting between IACT and ISAAPT, and because of its success another joint meeting has been planned for autumn of 2009 at Illinois Central College in East Peoria. "IACT has been meeting regularly—every year—at ISU for the past 30 years,” said chemistry professor William Hunter. “With ISAAPT rotating to ISU this year, it seemed natural to try and help science teachers, particularly those who teach both chemistry and physics, combine their professional interests," he added. Richard Martin, Chair of the Department of Physics, said “The conference generated a lot of discussion and many new ideas, and we look forward to continued collaboration with both groups in the future.”
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Joan Miller
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E. Joan Miller, Professor Emerita of Geography, recently completed an account of her experiences as a student in England during World War II. Her alma mater, Girton College Cambridge University, requested the information, which has become a Memoirs enterprise and may be found online at http://www.geo.ilstu.edu/downloads/Miller.pdf . Four years of intensive research in the archives of ISU resulted in an article in the Journal of Geography which documented the work of Douglas Clay Ridgley, a famous teacher of geography at ISNU from 1913 to 1922. By invitation she presented the Ridgley Lecture at ISU in 2003. In her retirement she has also written a review of the second edition of the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names. She has also been actively involved in the establishment of the George J. Miller archives at Minnesota State University Mankato, writing the fifty years of history of the Normal Rotary Club, and expediting the relocation of their archives. In the College she initiated the Renaissance Retirees newsletter, which recognized for several years work of still active retirees.
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Angela Haas
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Angela M. Haas is a new Assistant Professor in the Department of English. She earned her PhD in Rhetoric and Writing—with concentrations in cultural rhetorics, digital rhetorics, and professional communication—from Michigan State University. Her current scholarship is concerned with investigating digital writing practices and the historical, social, cultural, and political contexts that shape those practices, as evidenced by her publications in peer-reviewed journals, such as Computers and Composition, Computers and Composition Online, and Studies in American Indian Literatures, as well as the forthcoming edited collection Webbing Cyberfeminist Practices. With over a decade of teaching experience, Angela has taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate composition, rhetoric, and technical communication courses. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, baking, traveling, hiking, and spending time with her friends, family, and two cats.
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