It’s the beginning of the academic year here at the
University of Illinois, a good time to welcome new members of the department
and to recognize the achievements of our excellent corps of teachers!
I am pleased to report that we are joined by a number of new
colleagues as well as a new class of graduate students and over 100 new majors.
Last night was the New Faculty Reception sponsored by the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Dean and Acting Chancellor Barbara J.
Wilson and her LAS team—which includes our colleague, Associate Dean Martin
Camargo—introduced all the new tenure-stream faculty in the college, including Ramón Soto-Crespo and Tim Dean, who are joining the English Department from
SUNY-Buffalo. Ramón was our choice for a position in Global Anglophone
Literatures; he works on Caribbean and inter-American literatures. Tim was a
colleague of many in the department in the late 1990s and early 2000s and is a
noted queer and psychoanalytic theorist as well as a scholar of modern poetry;
it’s good to have him back and to be joined by Ramón as well.
Tim Dean, Acting Chancellor Barb Wilson, Ramón Soto-Crespo
Two colleagues who have already been affiliated with English
will now play a bigger role in the department. The poet Joy Harjo joins our
Creative Writing program after moving over from American Indian Studies, and the
critic and theorist Jodi Byrd has also moved more of her line from AIS to
English.
In addition, we welcome two visiting faculty members.
Lucinda Cole joins us from the University of Southern Maine as a Visiting
Associate Professor, and Nafissa Thompson-Spires will hold a 25% appointment as
Visiting Assistant Professor in English/Creative Writing with the remainder of
her appointment in the Department of African American Studies.
The department is pleased to welcome (and in some cases welcomes
back) eight new Instructors and Lecturers: Michael Don, Ryan Flanagan, Kyle Garton-Gundling, Ceridwen Hall, Roya Khatiblou, Aaron LaDuke, Alaina Pincus,
and E. Jordan Sellers.
We also have a new Director of Graduate Studies, Eleanor Courtemanche, and a new Associate Director of Rhetoric, Kristi McDuffie. I am
looking forward to working with Eleanor and Kristi and the rest of our team of
departmental officers and administrators.
Our new colleagues join a committed group of teachers. We
are a department that believes that teaching and research enhance each other
and we are dedicated to excellence in both areas. One indication of that
excellence is the yearly List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students.
As always, I’m pleased to see that so many of our courses and instructors are
recognized for their quality by our students.
Here is the list for Spring 2015 courses:
Iryce Baron, Manisha Basu, Paul Beilstein, Jodi Byrd, Maria
Carvajal Regidor, Debojoy Chanda, Jill Clements, Mary Rose Cottingham, Carrie
Dickison, John Dudek, Dennis Dullea, Ashley Emmert, Christopher Freeburg, Shawn
Gilmore, Philip Graham, Nolan Grieve, Joseph Grohens, Andrew Hall, Jim Hansen,
Janice Harrington, Christine Hedlin, Marilyn Holguin, Irvin Hunt, Michael
Hurley, Candice Jenkins, Kyle Johnston, Maggie Kainulainen, Katherine Kendig,
Allison Kranek, Linda Larson, Mary Lindsey, Trish Loughran, Joshua Lynch,
Michael Madonick, Vicki Mahaffey, Helen Makhdoumian, Michelle Martinez, Tom
McNamara, Zach McVicker, Jessica Mercado, Natalie Mesnard, Matthew Minicucci,
Dave Morris, Andrew Moss, John Musser, Richard Nardi, Katherine Norcross,
Valerie O’Brien, Michael Odom, Samantha Plasencia, Anthony Pollock, Joseph
Post, Julie Price, Rebecah Pulsifer, Isabel Quintana-Wulf, Scott Ricketts, Anna
Robb, Michael Rothberg, John Rubins, Steve Runkle, Lindsay Russell, Ted
Sanders, Julia Saville, Michael Shetina, Kaia Simon, Carol Spindel, Christine
Sneed, John Stone, Sarah Sutor, Alison Syring Bassford, Elizabeth Tavares, Eric
Thomas, Debora Tienou, Renee Trilling, Wendy Truran, Ted Underwood, Gregory
Webb, Rebecca Weber, Kirstin Wilcox, Kelly Williams, Zachary Williams, Jess
Williard, Elaine Wood, Charlie Wright, David Wright