Dear Students,

I'd like to invite you to a focus group next Monday, January 27th, @ 6pm in the English Lounge (12th floor POT). This discussion is co-sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta.

I'm eager to hear your thoughts on how to make improvements to the program. If you're interested in sharing your ideas -- and meeting other English people -- please consider attending.

Questions to consider below.

Thanks!

Dr. Sizemore

Courses:

• How do you choose your courses? Do you prioritize the course topic, the instructor, how well it fits into your schedule, other?
• What kinds of courses do you find appealing? Are there certain topics, authors, questions, literary traditions, etc. you would like to see?
• Do you feel you have enough course choices every semester? 
• How could the curriculum be more flexible? How could course scheduling be more accommodating?

Student Life

• Do you think there could be more extracurricular opportunities for English-oriented students? If so, what kinds of activities, groups, clubs, initiatives would be welcome?

Recruitment

• The department has a lot of ideas about how to encourage more students to take ENG classes and to major or minor in ENG/Creative Writing. Why do you think students are likely to enroll in an ENG class or to major or minor in ENG/Creative Writing? What do you think prohibits them from doing so? What recommendations do you have for reaching more students?

Career Guidance

• If the English Department organized some career conversations, forums with graduates from the program, resume workshops, etc., do you think students would be interested enough to attend? And even if there's interest, do you think students are likely to attend given busy schedules and competing commitments?

Other

• Are there other initiatives or improvements you'd like to see?
• How else can the department support its majors and minors?

Michelle Sizemore

Associate Professor

Director of Undergraduate Studies

Department of English

University of Kentucky

https://english.as.uky.edu/user/2185

Part of the Africana Saturday School Double Lecture Series.  

Social media has become a tool used to create academic communities that literally have no boundaries. Beginning with blogs and community building websites, specifically platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr, individuals from underrepresented minority groups have collaborated with like-minded individuals for academic purposes, support, and true advocacy of neglected populations.

Mr. Zamora’s workshop will use headlines regarding immigration to lead students and other attendees in creating their own micro-poems. The workshop will conclude with an opportunity for attendees to share their work and a Q&A with the poet.

Event speaker: Javier Zamora holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied and taught in June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program and earned an MFA from New York University. His poems have been featured in Granta, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, The New York Times and many others. Zamora has received many honors, including a 2015 NEA fellowship, the 2016 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, a 2016-2018 Wallace Stegner Fellowship, among other accolades. He’s a founding member of the Undocupoets, a group dedicated to promoting undocumented poets and raising awareness of the structural barriers they face in the literary community.

Scholars mix book sense with sage wisdom handed down by the people who raised them.