2010.  Wow.

I can’t think of a decade that went by faster than this past one.  I’ve spent 7 1/2 years of the ’00′s in Pennsylvania.  That means that I have lived here longer than DC (3years), Oxford, OH (4 years), and almost as long as I lived in Syracuse (8 years).  Pretty wild.  And…what’s really got me thinking…of my 7 1/2 years at Kutztown University, I’ve been the coordinator of composition for all but two of those years.  That’s right…I’m one of those people who took on the reigns of writing program administration well before I was tenured.  I’ve been a tenured coordinator of composition for only a year and half.   Believe me, I was told all during grad school that taking on WPA duties before tenure was a bad idea.  Practitioners in our field also recommend strongly against it.  But, at the time it didn’t feel like there was too much choice if I was going to be able to help build our composition program–one of the key reasons I came to KU.

At the end of my second year, ten faculty in our department retired; one tenure-track faculty member got married and joined her husband on the West Coast; and, our then Chair decided to tell us during finals week that he had accepted a new job and would not be with us the following fall.  He even passed around pictures of his new house in Michigan.  I remember that moment as both daunting and exciting.  Daunting in that our faculty was gutted by almost a third and we had to scramble to elect and new chair and figure out how to staff all of our courses by the fall semester.  Exciting because many of those people who were retiring were the very faculty members who seemed committed to internal factionalism and personal conflict.  In one fell swoop, that dysfunctional departmental dynamic would be gone for the most part.  We had the opportunity to build a new, collaborative department.

Our coordinator of composition at the time decided to run for department chair.  She and I had talked about me taking over the coordinator position, but this would mean I would do so a year ahead of time.  I didn’t see any real alternatives, no matter how conflicted I was about my premature entry into the world of writing program administration. I can’t pretend that my first couple of years at the coordinator were easy.  It was a huge adjustment that was marked by my own, at times, ambivalent relationship to administrative work.  But, in looking back on these 5 1/2 years, I think I can say that I’ve been able to do some pretty good things here.

I think my biggest contribution has been to privilege growing the program.  This has meant: 1) prioritizing building a core faculty in composition and rhetoric; 2) cultivate intellectual spaces to support that core faculty and all faculty teaching composition; and 3) build an undergraduate (and eventually graduate) concentration in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies (the name came later, actually). Since I took over in 2004, we’ve hired three new faculty in composition and rhetoric and we are in the middle of hiring our fourth.  We’ve also converted a temporary faculty member–who is completing her PhD in composition and rhetoric–to a tenure-track position.  So, by fall 2010 we will have increased the number of comp/rhet faculty from three to eight.  Not bad.

In terms of creating an intellectual space, I started a reading group in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies that meets monthly to discuss current scholarship in the field.  Thanks to the great work of Amy Lynch-Biniek and the Composition Conference Committee, we’ve expanded our annual undergraduate composition conference to include students taking composition and rhetoric courses at all levels.  We’ve also brought in keynote speakers such at Keith Gilyard, Rosa Eberly, and Steve Parks–and this spring Susan Wells will be joining us.

We have also revised and added several new courses to the department’s offerings.  In my first year as coordinator, we added ENG 430 “Rhetorical Traditions/Contemporary Renditions.”  Last year, we added my course ENG 316 “Rhetoric, Democracy, Advocacy.”  And this past semester, we added ENG 260 “Issues in Composition and Rhetoric” (Lynch-Biniek) and ENG 274 “Women, Writing, and Rhetoric” (Cullum).  Linda Cullum also worked with Lisa Weckerle from Speech/Communications to update ENG/SPE 335 “Rhetoric of Literature.”  Thanks in large part to our Chair (and fellow compositionist) Janice Chernekoff, ENU 405 “Teaching of Writing” runs every semester and is a required course for all Secondary Education/English majors.  All of these new courses are part of our proposed concentration in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies, which I expect to have cleared all the curricular hurdles by the end of spring 2010 semester.  It’s really been quite an amazing run so far.

Like anything else, I could also list the many things I wish I had done, done better, or didn’t do.  But, I’m pretty good at beating myself up about those things on a daily basis.  In the spirit of the New Year, I thought I’d cut myself a little slack, look back at some accomplishments, and remind myself that the work is worth it.  Now I can actually begin planning for the next step!

Hmmmmm….where can we go from here?

Welcome to APSCUF-KU XChange. This blog is an unofficial, member-initiated blog for APSCUF-KU members (and others) to discuss all issues related to working at Kutztown University.  For the uninitiated, “APSCUF-KU” stands for the Kutztown University Chapter of the Association of Pennsylvania State Colleges and University Faculties.  APSCUF is the union that represents the faculty at Pennsylvania’s 14 State owned universities.

Why is this an “unofficial” blog? Well, for starters, I don’t think a blog devoted to discussion among members should have to have the approval of local or State leadership.  I believe that a strong union has its roots in an active membership.  And by active membership, I mean members who are invested in discussing issues that directly affect their work-lives and organizing collectively to solve problems, resist injustice, and improve work-life quality.  An active membership does not wait for dictates from its local or State union leadership before it acts–just the opposite.  An active membership organizes in order to set the agenda for its local and State leadership.  An active membership also privileges member-to-member communication.  Member-to-member communication is one of the best ways we have to keep on top of administrative decisions, to build solidarity, to gain a more complete understanding of the workings of our university, to develop effective responses to abuses of our contract, and to educate each other on 0ur contract and what it means to be an academic union member.

This blog can serve as a means for determining the merit of rumors that might affect our work lives (e.g. “Did anyone else hear that they were shutting down program X?” “What ever happened to the university’s plans to build a conference center?” “Someone told me that our State union is selling its building…is that true?”).  Sometimes rumors amount to nothing.  Other times, these little whisperings might key us all into something important.  The key is to separate the rumors with merit from the BS.

This blog can also serve as a clearinghouse of information about our union, our university, and the state of higher education.  Eventually, I hope that other members become interested in posting here too.  If you are interested in becoming a contributor to APSCUF-KU XChange, drop me an email at deepdemocracy@gmail.com.

Here’s to the discussion.

That’s right folks.  APSCUF entered YouTube in September 2008.  Here’s the link <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6EInZfXYUw> and here’s the video:   

OK…so, I wrote a book review for Blue Angel: A Novel (P.S.) for my “visual bookshelf” on facebook (didya follow dat).  And that review has got me thinking about a whole range of issues…including proposing a paper for the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference @ Michigan State in October (deadline is coming up, so I’ve got to decide quickly whether or not to propose a paper…hence this entry).  In addition to the issues I raise in the review, there are a whole range of issues having to deal with creative non-fiction and it’s role in truth-telling.I’m not going to try and tackle all of that in this post, but to give you an idea what I mean by that I have been thinking a lot about Don Delillo’s Libra.  Libra is a historical novel that focuses on the Kennedy assasination (I am being reductive, yes).  When I read that text for a class back in grad school, I considered it the best history and explanation of the Kennedy assassination that I had ever read.  A lot of that had to do with the ways in which narrative allows for multiple agencies and threads…even truthS.  So, that’s on my mind.Also on my mind are several essays I read recently arguing for rethinking the faculty-student relationship prohibition.  I remember the first one being by Laura Kipnis in The Thomson Reader, which I was considering for a class (that essay was one of the reasons I chose not to adopt the text).  Anyway, to put it bluntly…I find the arguments raised in these essays infuriating.  And yet, they all seem to follow a similar logic–be they written by cultural critic or legal scholar. So, that’s what I’ve got to work with…and will be working with over the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime, here’s the review I wrote (for those of you who are not stalking my Visual Bookshelf on facebook :

Review of Blue Angel: A Novel, by Francine Prose

OK…Some context. For the past couple of years I have been going full-throttle at work (Kutztown University). We’ve rebuilt our union, organized for a strike, held a vote of no confidence against our university’s president (and were successful in getting some major agreements once the administration finally sat down with us). This past summer I moved and this fall my wife and I had a baby. In short, I was pooped and looking forward recharging and just getting some down time.

 The past couple of semesters have also been fraught with some “scandals” on our campus (academics, surprise, surprise). In one case, it was one of those faculty-student-behind-closed-doors kind of things. That one really pushed me over the edge. You see, there is no greater sin–yes, I’ll use the word sin–than for a faculty member to violate what I see as a “sacred” trust. In short, you don’t sleep with your students. You especially don’t sleep with students who are currently enrolled in your class. When such a case was brought to my (and many other faculty members’) attention by students it cut deep. You see, in my book, once a faculty member does that, they shouldn’t be teaching. At the very least, they should not be allowed to continue on where they are currently teaching. Harsh? Perhaps. But, that’s how I am wired as a professional. The power relationships between teachers and students, the psychology of pedagogy, and the consequences of carrying on a sexual relationship with a student were issues that my fellow graduate students and I at Syracuse and Miami were thoroughly briefed and instructed on when we took on our first teaching assignments. These issues are so second nature to me by now that they feel hard-wired. In any case, I’ve had this pit in my stomach this past semester because of the issue of a particular faculty member’s transgressions. I had hoped that once the issue was reported (as it was) that the process would work. That all the evidence would lead to a necessary conclusion. Good bye. But it didn’t. The process failed. And I had to get my mind (and stomach) away from that garbage for a while.

 So, what does all this have to do with Francine Prose’s novel Blue Angel? Way too much as it turns out. You see my wife’s family and I do a polyanna for Christmas (you know, “secret santa”). I put a range of “academic novels” on my list as a way to get some perspective on academic trials and tribulations. If you’ve read Richard Russo’s Straight Man or Jane Smiley’s Moo, you know that there are some great academic satires out there–most of them written about English departments since that’s where most creative writers are housed. That kind of satire was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to read over break. So, I searched for other “academic novels” that I hadn’t read or even heard of. I didn’t spend a lot of time reading reviews or anything–back covers were enough for me; I wanted to be surprised.

 My list included David Lodge’s A Small Place, James Hynes’s A Lecturer’s Tale, and Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe. And it also included Francine Prose’s Blue Angel. [I also suggested these books to my ENG 502 students as some good "break" reading] My polyanna couldn’t find the first three in the bookstore. He did, however, find Blue Angel. So, that’s where I would begin. On the day after Christmas I dug in and looked forward to my little literary vacation. As fate would have it, Blue Angel was not going to be a vacation. It was going to take me right back, smack dab in the middle of the faculty-student-behind-closed-doors all over again. Another chance to revisit the issue. Yes, Blue Angel is about a English department faculty member who “falls in love” with one of his students. Theodore Swenson is not only the faculty member in question, he is the narrator. So, we get to inside the head of this man as he “falls in love with,” or “is seduced by,” or “is manipulated by” (all incarnations included in the novel) a young, gothic-esque student with facial piercings (believe me, you hear about them a lot in the novel). Yes, it’s a story of a fall from “grace” (although given the pathetic nature of Swenson, it’s not a very far fall). Unlike the real world, however, Swenson DOES fall. The Administration at his college DOES pursue charges against him and fires him. The system worked (despite Swenson’s repeated chastising of the Women’s Alliance and political correctness). Unlike the real world, the system worked. There was clear wrong-doing and the university fired the faculty member, his wife left him, and his daughter (the same age as the student he sleeps with) is outraged. Again, this is fiction.

The thing is, I had no sympathy for this character. None. I found his internal dramas pathetic. His indecision annoying. His lack of critical consciousness shameful. And his willingness to paint himself as a victim embarrassing. Perhaps some of those faculty members who have chosen to sleep with their students might have insight into Prose’s portrayal of her adulterer narrator. I’ll leave it to them to make that case. I, however, found it infuriating–a kind of anti-feminist, pro-old boys story about their Paradise Lost. The student in question, Angela Argo, is also positioned not only as the instigator (that little temptress) but as a cunning manipulator who crafted Swenson’s downfall. We even get Eve imagery…like the Garden of Eden and the Apple…not exactly a soft touch here.

In short, there is so much I want to say about this novel (I’ll add more), not so much for its literary achievement, as for allowing me to revisit the real in a fictional form.

 For now, I’ve got to log off. More to come!

As we get closer to the beginning of the semester, I expect that many faculty members–new AND returning–will be looking for ideas for their college composition courses. Those of you who have been around for a while might remember the faculty/student/grad student resources pages that I had on our old web site. Well, I am slowly but surely rebuilding them on our new site.

Early today I posted a “Resources @ KU” page which contains a link to “Faculty Resources.” Over the next several weeks I will be (re)building resources pages for students and grad students. But, given that faculty are beginning to think about their fall courses I wanted to post some sample syllabi asap.

So, if you are looking to switch up your composition classes this fall, or you are one of our new faculty members who will be teaching composition here in the fall, please check out our Faculty Resources Page!

Our new faculty search is afoot.  Kutztown has posted our job ad to its website:

***************************************

Kutztown University of Pennsylvania enrolls approximately 10,000 students in graduate and undergraduate programs. The University is located in the borough of Kutztown in a charming rural setting, and is within 20 minutes driving time of the diverse metropolitan areas Allentown/Bethlehem and Reading, and within 60 minutes of the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The University is very interested in hiring employees who have had extensive experience with diverse populations.

The English Department invites applications for a tenure-track position in Composition and Rhetoric beginning Fall 2009.  Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric preferred, ABD accepted with completion of dissertation before second year of appointment.  Demonstrated experience and research in one or more of the following areas a plus:  History of Composition and Rhetoric, Classical Rhetorics, Multicultural Rhetorics, Visual Rhetorics, Writing Program Administration, Assessment of First-Year Writing, or WAC.  Strong applicants will also be committed to a “stretch model” approach to introductory composition courses. 

The 4/4 teaching load will include College Composition, Introduction to College Composition, Honors Composition, and Advanced Composition with opportunities to develop and teach upper-level and graduate courses in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies. Three (3) years of college-level teaching experience required with significant experience teaching Composition.  Successful interview and demonstration of teaching abilities required. 

Send a letter of application, vita, three current letters of reference, and all official college-level transcripts to Dr. Kevin Mahoney, Chair, Composition Faculty Search Committee, 241 Lytle Hall, English Department, Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA 19530.  Only complete application packets will be considered.  Review of applications will begin November 14, 2008 for MLA interviews and will continue until the position is filled.  For more information on our program, visit our website at: http://kucomprhet.wordpress.com or contact the Committee Chair at Mahoney@kutztown.edu.

Kutztown University of Pennsylvania is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer and actively solicits applications from women and minority candidates.  Kutztown University of Pennsylvania is a member of the State System of Higher Education.