Thursday, April 9, 2009

The Skinny: Great Meeting and Speaker

Greetings Fellow English Grads!

For those of you who couldn’t make it, EGADS! had a productive business meeting followed by an even better speaker. There’s some things you need to know.

First, many thanks to Dr. Javier Martinez for his informative talk on the operation of the journal he edits, Extrapolation. It gave us food for thought both for getting published and running our own journal, the Journal of South Texas English Studies. “Our own journal?!” you say? Hah! Hooked you. But you’ll have to read further. (How’s that for meta-narration?)

We made some BIG DECISIONS last night. (I’m channeling Madeline Kahn in History of the World, Part I here.) We also made some small ones. Our secretary, Andrew Keese, will have the minutes in the record shortly if you want every detail, but here’s the important stuff:

Party: We’re having a barbecue/potluck/salon at Don Crouse’s house in Los Fresnos at 6:30 PM on Friday, April 17th. Jenny Ashley will be organizing the party to assure that things go smoothly and we don’t have five three-bean salads. Look for her communiques next week. Besides EGADS! members, we’ll be inviting our new associate undergraduate members, the graduate English faculty, and select VIPs. Be there or be square.

Conference: We are definitely putting on an English conference in February. Most likely, it will be open to English graduate students, undergraduates, faculty, and local teachers and professors. We’ll be forming a committee and getting to work when we return for the Fall semester. This is a great opportunity to have fun and enhance your professional development, i.e. pad your resume.

Journal: We are definitely starting a journal, the Journal of South Texas English Studies, in conjunction with the English department faculty. This is going to be a blind-peer-reviewed journal, the very best kind. Plan on submitting! Our student editorial board has been selected: Andrew Keese (editor), Jenny Ashley (associate editor), Don Crouse (associate editor). Drs. Murden and Dominguez will advise, and we’ll soon have a dedicated faculty adviser for the journal. The mission of the journal as we approved it is:

The Journal of South Texas English Studies was created by the UTB/TSC English Graduate Advancement and Development Society (EGADS!) in 2009. Its purpose is to provide a local, blind-peer-reviewed outlet for the academic study of English literature and rhetoric. The journal’s primary purpose is to serve UTB/TSC students and faculty, but it is open to all submissions. The journal is produced annually as a collaborative effort between EGADS! and the UTB/TSC English Department.

Learn RefWorks: Do you hate figuring out MLA citations? Do you wish it could be automatic and foolproof? Your tuition pays for software you can use today to take the gruntwork out of citations, RefWorks. It's free! On June 10, Librarian Samantha Wheat will give us a one hour class on using RefWorks. Come and make the rest of your graduate career that much easier.

Next Meeting June: Our next business meeting and speaker/presentation will be June 10 in the UTB library’s 2nd floor classroom. We’ll have the business meeting from 5:30 to 6:15, then launch right into our RefWorks class at 6:15.

Graduation/Finals Get-together?: We didn’t make a decision on this, but do you want to meet up at a restaurant or club after finals to let loose and buy a round for the new MA’s? Let us know.

No comments:

Post a Comment