Department Faculty & Students Present @ Harvard, UMass, etc.

“Afro-Puerto Rican Testimonies” tours Boston!

MAEE candidates Irmaris Rosas and Fabiola Barrera, faculty member Jocelyn A. Géliga Vargas, and community leaders Alfredo González and Carlos Delgado recently traveled to Boston to present our ongoing research, Afro-Puerto Rican Testimonies: An Oral History Project in Western Puerto Rico. We were invited by a diverse group of scholars, community activists and educators.

Our first speaking engagement was coordinated by the Latino Heritage Month Committee of the Massachusetts General Hospital and took place on October 14. The following day we offered a more extensive and intensive presentation in the W.E.B. Du Bois Fellows’ Colloquia, organized by the Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. On October 16, we were invited by the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts-Boston to offer a formal presentation to students, scholars and community leaders and to lead a “conversatorio” or discussion with Latin@ high school students and their mentors. Finally, on October 17, we concluded our tour with an engaging and festive presentation at La Hora del Café, a monthly community forum devoted to the dissemination of Latin@ art, culture and education initiatives.

Earlier in October, we presented our project at the 8^th Puerto Rican Studies Association Conference in San Juan, PR. Last June Afro-Puerto Rican Testimonies traveled to Cuba to present our work at the Nuevos Talleres Internacionales de Estudios Regionales y Locales, held at the Universidad Central Marta Abreu de Las Villas in Santa Clara.

MAEE Comprehensive Examination

The Graduate Committee of the English Department wishes to announce that the policy and guidelines pertaining to the Comprehensive Examination degree completion option (”Option III”) have been modified. The revised policy updates the version included in the MAEE Graduate Student Handbook (August 2008 and prior editions) and will go into immediate effect. The document has been sent via e-mail to all faculty and graduate students, and can also be obtained here:

Comp Exam Policy & Guidelines Rev Oct 08

If you have any questions about the changes please contact the GC Coordinator ( jgeliga at uprm.edu) or any other member of the Committee.

New Short Course: Film and Philosophy, November 7-9

CINE4025: Temas Especiales en Cine
Cine y Filosofia

Download flyer.

Rock Series Draws a Crowd

The Reading Rock Series in PR, organized by MAEE candidate Karrieann Soto Vega, and taking place the week of October 6th through the 10th, drew students and faculty from both the Department and across the campus.  Overall, over 300 attendees participated in this interactive dialogue with performing artists from the local area. Graduate Teaching Assistants Emily Aguiló, Jessica Lauer, Yolanda Padilla, and Wilfredo Mercado took their INGL 3103, 3201, and 3202 classes, while a number of other Departmental students and faculty also attended. For the artists, the series offered a unique opportunity to personally interact with Colegio students and to experiment with acoustic sound in the Anfiteatro Figueroa Chapel. Participating students remarked on the unconventional educational setting and made dynamic connections between traditional literary writing processes and the artists’ collaborative production of lyrics and music. Karrieann would especially like to thank the Department of English for its generous support of this activity, which represents a significant component of her MAEE thesis research, and Professor Guillermo Gomez, in particular, for facilitating the presentation of his documentary on the punk scene in Puerto Rico.

Audience on first day of Reading Rock in PR series

Blindfold Drive's bass player, Victor Marini

Octavo Día plays in Anfiteatro Figueroa Chapel

Join us on October 22

engl 6006 guest speaker series

22 October 2008

Understanding Bullying

Within Puerto Rican

Cultural and School Contexts

Dr. Bernadette Delgado

Department of Social Sciences

UPR-Mayagüez

CHARDÓN 318 @ 6:30 p.m.

ABSTRACT:

This presentation will discuss a research project that examines the phenomenon of bullying within the Puerto Rican socio-cultural and school context, based on ethnographic interviews conducted with intermediate school students, parents and teachers. Results of this study support the difficulty of finding a term in Spanish that conveys bullying as described in the American and European literature. Attendees will learn how the phenomenon of bullying is conceptualized within the Puerto Rican cultural,social and school contexts. Furthermore, they will understand the relationship between culture and bullying behaviors in order to design interventions that are culturally sensitive.

INFORMATION:

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

Attendees will receive one-credit hour of professional development, certified by CEP.

Professionalism and Presentation Skills Workshop with Dr. Shannon Bischoff

RUMEGA cordially invites undergraduate and graduate students to attend a workshop by Dr. Shannon Bischoff on Professionalism and Presentation Skills that are useful to anyone interested in presenting at professional and academic conferences. The workshop will take place on Friday, October 17th, from 4:30 to 6:30 in Ch-319. Aside from this, any student who attends this workshop and afterwards submits a proposal for the 1st Annual Conference for Undergraduate and Graduate Students of English (English as a Field of Flow and Change: Contemporary Practices and Research in English Education, Literature, and Linguistics),will receive special consideration in the review process.

New Date for Mazak’s “Negotiating ‘el difícil’” Presentation

Dr. Cathy Mazak’s presentation, “Negotiating ‘el difícil’: English Language Acquisition in Rural Puerto Rico” formerly scheduled on September 22, 2008, and subsequently cancelled due to inclement weather, has been rescheduled for Monday, October 6, 2008 (from 6:45-7:45 p.m. in Chardón Room 318). CEP hours will be credited for attendees and we will serve light refreshments. Please share this information with your students and encourage them to attend.

Reading Rock in Puerto Rico

Graduate MA Candidate in English Education and INGL 3202 instructor, Karrieann Soto Vega, invites you and your students to attend a series of Reading Rock in PR workshops emphasizing the use of rock as a resource in literature-based composition courses. For her MAEE thesis research, Ms. Soto Vega is exploring the possibilities of incorporating rock music and videos as texts in the undergraduate classroom and in fostering literacy practices more generally.  This series will offer a unique opportunity for the academic community to engage with local artists involved with the production of rock music in Puerto Rico. The three-part series will involve presentations by two rock groups, Octavo Día (on October 6th) and Blindfold Drive (on October 10th), as well as the formal discussion and partial viewing of a recent documentary, La escena, about the punk scene in Puerto Rico with guest speaker and documentary producer Prof. Guillermo Gómez Álvarez (on October 8th). Each of the workshops will take place in the Anfiteatro Figueroa Chapel from 3:30-4:30. Feel free to distribute this flyer.

Introducing the 3103/3104 Course Blog for Faculty and TAs!

Dr. Mary E. Sefranek, Course Coordinator for INGL 3103 and 3104, invites you to peruse the new 3103/3104 Course Coordination weblog for Faculty and TAs. She welcomes your comments and suggestions, and hopes it will prove to be a useful resource for new instructors as well as those who have been teaching the course for a number of years.

Seeking Research Assistant

Dr. Mary E. Sefranek will be conducting interviews in the upcoming week (Tuesday, September 30th) for an undergraduate or graduate research assistant to support the activities related to the National Council of Teachers of English Research Foundation Grant, Sowing and Cultivating Local 21st Century Literacies in Rural Puerto Rico. This is a jornal (minimum wage) position without tuition credits, but nevertheless offers a unique opportunity for students to engage in a  year-long research project with a faculty member and gain invaluable experience conducting research in the public school system of Puerto Rico. Please share this flyer with interested students and encourage them contact Dr. Sefranek for further information and/or to schedule an interview at their earliest convenience.