MAEE Meet & Greet

Graduate Students and Faculty:

Please join us on Friday, September 12, 2008 at 4:30 pm in Ch-326 for our bi-annual MAEE Orientation and Reception!

For more information, contact J. Géliga (jgeliga@uprm.edu) or the Department of English (ingl@uprm.edu)

Join us on 9/17/08

engl 6006 guest speaker series

17 September 2008

“Flexible Like Water”:

The Bruce Lee School of Linguistic Inquiry

Dr. Shannon T. Bischoff

Department of English

UPR-Mayagüez

CHARDÓN 318 @ 6:30 p.m.

ABSTRACT: In the summers of 1927 through 1929 Gladys Reichard, at the request of Franz Boas, recorded some forty narratives of Tom Miyal and Dorothy Nicodemus, the last speakers of the Coeur d’Alene language, and edited the materials with several Coeur d’Alene community members. Unfortunately, the narratives were never fully analyzed, published, or made accessible at the time. This talk discusses recent efforts to make these materials available to the Coeur d’Alene community for revitalization purposes and to the linguistic community for research purposes. The presentation focuses on the link between revitalization efforts (a largely applied linguistic, socio-linguistic, and language policy task) and research strategies employed primarily within the following three sub-fields of linguistics: anthropological, theoretical, and computational. It also discusses a number of unexpected challenges which, in the words of Bruce Lee, require one to be “flexible like water.”

INFORMATION: Contact Jocelyn A. Géliga Vargas (787-832-4040 ext. 3096/3064; jgeliga@uprm.edu)

CGS recognizes MAEE graduate Aleida Ferrer!!!!

MAEE graduate Aleida Ferrer was recognized in a recent publication by the Council of Graduate Schools (Washington, DC). Her thesis project (“The Design and Creation of a Bilingual Phonemic Awareness Test for Puerto Rico”) was the only one from Puerto Rico listed in the CGS publication Making a Difference: A Selection of Graduate Degree Holders and their Contributions to the Public Good. Congratulations to Ms. Ferrer, to the Chair of her committee, Dr. Elizabeth Dayton, and to her committee members, Drs. Eileen Blau and Billy Woodall.

Article Published in CENTRO

My very first peer-reviewed article was published in the Spring edition of CENTRO, the journal for the Center for Puerto Rican Studies.  The article represents the core of my dissertation work, and is titled “Negotiating el difícil: Uses of English text in a rural Puerto Rican community.”  -Cathy Mazak 

Review of CENTRO in El Nuevo Día

The recent issue of the journal CENTRO, in which both former MAEE student Kevin Carrol and I have an article, was reviewed this week in the newspaper El Nuevo Día.  You can read the review, where it mentions our names, at the following link:http://www.elnuevodia.com/diario/noticia/revistas/revistas/revistas_recientes/397096-Cathy Mazak 

Assessment Loop Summary

As of close of business today, April 18, the English Dept has done a fabulous job! Some other faculty are still working on projects. Below is the list of people who have completed all required paperwork & thus their papers are ready to go forward to the Assoc Dean, Mario Nunez.
 
Faculty who completed loops or workshop:
Liz Dayton
Shannon Bischoff
Ellen Pratt
Mary Sefranek
Rosa Roman
Larry Chott
Ray Knight
Betsy Morales
Gayle Griggs
Cathy Mazak
 
TAs who completed Loops or did extra work:
Wilfredo Mercado
Filimon Orozco
Karrieann Soto
Monica Ng
Stephanie Sanchez
Maria Quintero
Jessica Lauer
 
TAs and MAEE Students who have 1 hour workshop credit:
Judy Flores
Alexandra Tubens
Marien Villanueva
Giselle Munoz
Jasmine Rivera
Jennifer Matos
Nora Falvey
Robert Haithcock
Emily Aguilo
Yahaira Rivera
Jeanette Perez
Yadira Altiery
Wilmarie Cruz
 

Article of interest…

“…The bleaker it looks for English departments, the more desperate they become to attract attention. In other words, the profession’s intellectual agenda is being set by teenagers.”

From “Professing Literature in 2008? by William Deresiewicz, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080324/deresiewicz — Thought some might find it interesting.

Casa Abierta

On March 14, 2008, the institution opened its doors to 9th, 10th, and 11th graders of Puerto Rico’s private and public schools. Over 2000 students from around the island were welcomed into Coliseo Mangual to learn about the diversity of our faculties and departments.

Representation from the Department of English was immense and faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduate students collaborated in making this all-day event an overwhelming success!

Amongst the English faculty members were Roberto López, Iris Toro, Myrna Rivera, Carmen Maldonado, Betsy Morales, Stephanie Cardona, Raymond Knight, Waleska Morciglio, Gayle Griggs, Rosita Rivera, Sandra Ríos, Mary Leonard, Jocelyn Géliga, and Aixa Rodríguez.

Way to go, Department of English!

Honor Roll Ceremony

This past Thursday, March 27, 2008, exemplary students from Arts & Sciences received special recognition for their academic excellence.

Please help us to congratulate the following students from the Department of English who, through their hard work, are on the Honor Roll!

Isabel Abón, Emily Aguiló, Adriana Caraballo, Christopher Hernández, Marshley Márquez, Angel Matos, Leslie Mendoza, Juan Ñeco, Yolanda Padilla, Ileana Pagán, Lorianne Ramírez, Gabriel Romaguera, Katherine Rosa, Astrid Sambolín, Julio Vega, and Roxana Velázquez.

Congratulations to María Quintero!

Maria Quintero, T.A. for the English department, has had an article entitled “Life at the University of Puerto Rico’s Arts and Sciences English Writing Center,” accepted for publication in The Writing Lab Journal, an affiliate of NCTE from Purdue University. 

Her research, an ethnographic study of the peer tutors in the writing center, explores the unique ESL scenario in the only Writing Center in Puerto Rico, an island that due to its historical context, does not fall into any typical category in the tutoring of English writing.