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Reaccreditation These are exciting days at The Communications Department, and the main event for the spring semester has been the national reaccreditation process. The department is accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
A four-person site review team visited our department on Feb. 10-13 and recommended that we be fully reaccredited. The team represented universities in Colorado, North Carolina and South Carolina, along with a major TV station in San Francisco. That site team's report was then forwarded to the 15-member ACEJMC accrediting committee, which met on March 15 in Chicago and further recommended our reaccreditation.
The final decision will be rendered on May 3 in Arlington, Va., when the 35-member ACEJMC accrediting council votes on the recommendation from the committee.
Our accreditation cycle takes place every six years. The department was first accredited in 1996 and reaccredited in 2002. We take that national accreditation very seriously and strive each day to uphold the nine standards on which we are reviewed, ranging from our budget and facilities to our leadership, our faculty and curriculum, our scholarly/creative activity, inclusiveness, public service, assessment and student services.
The ACEJMC currently has placed its national stamp of approval on only 110 journalism and mass communication programs nationally, which is slightly more than two per state. The rigorous review underscores the value of a Communications major and a degree from UT Martin.
In many ways, the 2007-2008 school year has been less eventful than recent years: we have stayed in one building and we did not make any major changes to the program. But don't worry, we have stayed busy. We sponsored Writers' Guild and Sigma Tau Delta; we showed four films, all “writing outside the margins;” we participated in the Interdisciplinary Writing Conference and sponsored the English Department Writing Awards; faculty members published and presented their work; and we all talked about literature and wrote—a lot.
Faculty Many of our faculty were busy this summer with projects that have reaped rewards during the school year. Leslie LaChance and Tim Hacker, as part of a grant with the Telamon Corporation and Tennessee Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, worked with the children of migrant laborers in West Tennessee and had the children document their community through pictures and words. In October, the photography exhibition “Growing Tennessee: Rural Youth Cultivate Common Ground,” incorporating work from the summer program, was on display at the West Tennessee Regional Art Center. Also this summer, Jenna Wright completed her MFA in fiction and creative nonfiction and this fall she began teaching our fiction writing workshop and this spring offered our first workshop in creative nonfiction.
There have also been a few changes among the faculty. Margrethe Ahlschwede retired in July. She and Bill, who taught for us as an adjunct, returned to Nebraska where their children and grandchildren now live. We miss them. Laura Jarmon has told us that she will be retiring in May, but she will continue to teach for us part-time. We have also gained a few people. Rob Franks joined us this fall. He is primarily teaching first-year composition through dual-credit classes. Also joining us is Carolyn Turner, who is teaching first-year composition and sophomore-level literature.
Highlights of the West Tennessee Writing Project in 2007-2008 The West Tennessee Writing Project (WTWP), a site of the National Writing Project that has been housed in the English department since 1993, had a busy 2007 and is offering exciting programs for 2008. Sixty teachers gathered at UTM on August 18, 2007, for the WTWP Fall Workshop, “Every Child Has a Song (And Every Teacher Too): Writing and Music in Every Classroom.” Participants enjoyed breakout sessions on poetry, music, blogs, classroom inquiry, and more. The Caixa Trio, a group of professional percussionists and teachers, led participants in interactive sessions using percussion to inspire creativity. WTWP's new program for young writers launched its second year of operation with a Young Writers Summer Camp at UTM June 18-22, 2007 and four Young Writers' Clubhouse Saturday workshops in 2007-2008. Open to students in grades three through eight, the Young Writers' Clubhouse series are held on Saturdays at UT Martin and led by WTWP TCs. A week-long Young Writers Summer Camp will be offered again in 2008. WTWP plans to offer a new program in 2008 for teacher-consultants who have participated in the Summer Institute: the Advanced Institute for Teacher Inquiry. For TCs who want more of the classroom inquiry experience that has become vital to WTWP, this is a weeklong chance to write, research, and share work in progress with like-minded teachers. Applications are currently being accepted for Summer Institute 2008. For more information on WTWP, please visit the web site: www.utm.edu/organizations/wtwp/index.php.
English Department Hosts Second Young Writers Conference The department hosted our second Young Writers Conference in October 2007, with nearly 100 area high school students and their teachers in attendance. This one-day conference, designed for students in grades 9-12, offered a diverse series of writing workshops taught by UT Martin faculty and visiting author Gloria Ballard, a freelance travel writer from Nashville. Workshops given by UT Martin faculty included “So…What's the Story You Want Tell?” by Jenna Wright; “ Blogging 101: A Rhetorical Approach to Writing Online,” by Beth Powell; “ The Power of Words,” by Heidi Huse; “ You Can Hear Me Now: The Poem Aloud,” by Leslie LaChance ; “Expanding the Senses: Explorations in Poetry,” by Anna Clark ; “Courting the Muse: A Songwriters Workshop,” by David Carithers ; “The Photoessay,” by Tim Hacker. Visiting author Gloria Ballard gave a workshop entitled “Creative Nonfiction: Truth and Art,” and gave a reading from her own work in the afternoon. Following Ballard's reading, over 30 students participated in an open mic, many of them reading pieces they had created in the workshops that day. The department is currently planning its next Young Writers Conference, scheduled for October 2008. We're looking forward to expanding our workshop offerings, giving students even more opportunities to participate.
It has been an active and eventful few months in the Department of History and Philosophy, with another successful Civil Rights Conference, three new faculty positions established, program reviews in History and International Studies, and more fine scholarship from our talented faculty. The department also saw major increases in student credit hour production and in new majors. All in all, 2007-2008 proved to be another banner year for the department.
Civil Rights Conference The annual Civil Rights Conference, spearheaded by Dr. David Barber, Assistant Professor of History, focused on the state of Civil Rights in America forty years after Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. This year's event featured the usual array of outstanding speakers, panel discussions, and a keynote address by nationally know civil rights advocate Kathleen Cleaver. We can't mention the Civil Rights Conference without noting the selfless efforts of Dr. Alice-Catherine Carls, Tom Elam Distinguished Professor of History, who founded the conference and oversaw it for its first seven years before handing it off to Dr. Barber.
Faculty Under the leadership of Dr. Nathan Howard , Assistant Professor of History, the department conducted a successful search for a new history professor, and we are thrilled that Richard Garlitz, who is completing his doctorate at Ohio University, will be joining us in August, bringing a new emphasis in Middle Eastern History. This constitutes a second new position in history during the academic year. Working with ECCE and UT Online, we were able to create a full time position for off campus and online instruction, and we are thrilled that Dr. Timothy B. Smith, a nationally recognized Civil War historian will be expanding our off campus presence at the McNairy Center while continuing to offer terrific online courses. Finally, Merry Brown, who has taught adjunctively for us in the Philosophy Program, will come on board full time in August. Merry's position, though, was made possible by the retirement of Professor Norman Lillegard, who after almost two decades of great teaching and world class scholarship has opted for retirement. But Norm isn't going far. After a semester in China, he will return in a part time role, for which we are thrilled. David Barber saw the publication of his first book, A Hard Rain Fell: The SDS and Why It Failed, from the University of Mississippi Press. This controversial treatment of the radical 1960s group has already received national attention, garnering a mention in the New York Times. Department Chair and Interim Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts David Coffey published a chapter in a new anthology from Texas Christian University Press and the Center for Texas Studies at TCU titled Gone to Texas: Five Centuries of Texas Maps. Coffey's chapter covers the years 1865 to 1900. Also of note, Brent Cox , a lecturer in History, was appointed by Governor Phil Bredesen to serve on the Tennessee Historical Commission, quite an honor for this dedicated historian and leader in the Native American community. Among the other happening this spring, Professor Stan Sieber completed a monumental review of the International Studies major, and a review of the History Program is forthcoming. The History Program in conjunction with Phi Alpha Theta International Honor Society in History will host a regional PAT conference on the UT.
A New Minor This spring the Department of Modern Foreign Languages has just established a new minor program in Japanese (Banner Code: 2540). This minor program will be included in the 2009-10 UTM Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog . The establishment of this program will bring the number of programs offered by the department to six: Spanish (major and minor), French (major and minor), German (minor), and Japanese (minor).
Films In other news, the department has organized its Foreign Film Series for the spring. MFL will offer six films this semester, including the highly acclaimed German film The Lives of Others (2006, shown on Friday, February 15 at 7 pm), Hula Girls (Japan, 2007, Friday, March 28 at 7 pm), All About Our House (Japan, 2001, Wednesday, April 2 at 7 pm), Rashomon (Japan, 1950, Friday, April 4 at 7 pm), The Boy from Lebanon (France, 1994, Friday April 11 at 7pm), and Volver (Spain, 2006, Friday, April 18 at 6:30 pm). All films will be shown in the Watkins Auditorium in their original languages with English subtitles. As always, MFL foreign language films are free and open to the public.
Study Abroad MFL is actively promoting a new Study Abroad program in Toledo, Spain. Famous for its winding streets, medieval architecture, and exquisite art, Toledo has been registered as UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. UTM students may earn between six and eight credits for their participation in the four-week summer program. More information is available at: http://www.utm.edu/departments/chfa/modlang/toledannounce.pdf
Faculty News Randal P. Garza , an assistant professor of Spanish, has just published a new book entitled Plague Literature: The Medical and Imaginative Texts of Medieval Spain (New York: Peter Lang, 2008). Other MFL faculty members have recently published online articles, book reviews, and are scheduled to present papers at several regional conferences.
People and Events The Department of Music has kept its usual busy pace this semester, hosting the annual UT Martin Honor Band, as well as events for the West Tennessee Vocal Music Association and the West Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association. The Honor Choir was snowed out for the second year in a row, but was rescheduled for April 11-12. The Faculty Recital Series continues during the spring semester, with performances by Dr. Amy Simmons on March 18, Dr. Amy Yeung on April 1, and the University Trio on April 10. Remaining guest artists for the spring semester include Meredith Zara, who will give voice masterclasses on March 19 and 20; pianist and poet Oni Buchanan on April 3; and percussionist Morris Palter on April 27. Information about these events and all other Department of Music events can be accessed at the Department of Music website (www.utm.edu/music).
Artists of the 21st Century A record seven UT Martin Visual Arts students were selected for the annual "Artists of the 21st Century Exhibition" held at the West Tennessee Regional Arts Center in Humboldt TN. The "Artists of the 21st Century Exhibition" is a regional competition sponsored by the Department of Visual and Theatre Arts for college level students throughout the southeast. Art students from five states submitted works for consideration by this year's juror, Armon Means, Gallery Director or the Renaissance Center in Dickson, TN. The UT Martin Visual Arts students selected for this year's exhibition include Nicole Bell, Nicholas J. D'Acquisto, Laura Hensley, Chi-Yun Huang , David Klinkefus, John Mistric , and Daniel Rose . These students along with others selected will also be considered for several awards to be presented at the exhibition opening on Thursday, April 3, 2008 from 5:00 - 7:00 pm at the WTRAC Main Gallery in Humboldt, TN.
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