Biosophilia

New Job

Well, it's official. I will be teaching at ULM this fall in the English Department. I got my schedule today. I have three sections of 090 remedial English. One of them is M-F; the others are two-day jobbers--M/W, T/TH. For some background on the English Department, here's an excerpt from an article in the recent Words and Letters, the department newsletter. It's written by Dr. Jeff Galle, Head of the department, and is titled, "Excellence and Creativity in Every Area":

The fact that our cadre of English instructors is exceptionally productive in comparison to other instructors at universities across the state adds another dimension to ULM English. According to a recent dissertation that examines working conditions and productivity of the instructors across the state's colleges and universities, ULM English instructors are the most productive. Dynamic professors teaching undergraduate and graduate courses and the most productive group of instructors in the state—these are the faculty of ULM English.

The department also operates the university's Writing Center, two student groups, two student publications, and a cluster of computer composition classrooms for English classes. The Writing Center currently posts a 95% excellence rating by the students who frequent it. The technology classrooms have grown both in number and in general use in recent years. We also continue to offer a larger number of distance education and online classes each year.

ULM English student groups are increasing in membership and in activity both in service to the larger community and to the student body here at ULM. In one year, English majors won all of the awards, save one, for paper presentations in Arts and Sciences at the ULM Research Symposium. English graduate students submit papers for refereed consideration to conferences on every level. Students have delivered work most recently in North Carolina and Oklahoma. Graduate students regularly deliver papers at the statewide LACC conference and at the ULM-LTU graduate student conference.

I'm really excited about working with Dr. Galle. He's been the Acting Head or Head of the English Department since before I began my ULM career as a student. He's got a good eye for people, and he knows how to work with a team and how to motivate others to work as a team.

I'm also excited because it puts me back in the academic world, which I so love. Lord willing, I'll be moving on after a couple years to pursue a PhD, but I am really looking forward to teaching for a while.

Another notch in the old CV Belt.

Posted by Courtney Huntington at July 12, 2005 03:01 PM