Letter from the Chair
One of the most reliable signs of spring here at Guilford House is the robin who insists on building a nest above the main double doors. The front porch is so quiet after exams. But this year, there was a wrinkle: the front door’s showing its age and the Facilities repair crew kept returning to test and fix the lock. In the process, they took down the nest. Twice. And each time, the robin rebuilt it, daubing on a little more mud to anchor it in place.
I admire that bird’s tenacity. And I like the snippets of conversations I overhear about its fierce sense of belonging. Also, I appreciate signs of continuity and new beginnings in this year when we’ll see the retirements of three valued colleagues: Susan Grimm, who joined the front office staff in 2010; and John Orlock and Thrity Umrigar, both of whom were recently awarded Emeritus status for exemplary scholarship and service. As a relative newbie, it’s hard to say goodbye to these folks who’ve welcomed me and shaped my sense of this community.
This term, amid their regular work and preparations for their next chapters, these three colleagues have quietly gone out of their way to give back to the department. Our understanding of where our majors are excelling and where they’re struggling is keener because John volunteered to read and assess undergraduate writing portfolios. Our Little Free Library had a major fiction refresh because Thrity sorted through her office shelves and gave the department first pick before her bookseller came. And the Grad Lounge is finally restored to something like its former glory because Susan handled a mountain of logistical work: scheduling our IT specialist to wipe the contents of a shockingly large assortment of old CPUs and electronics so they could then be donated to e-waste; putting in Facilities work orders to steam clean carpets and upholstery and discard all the broken office chairs and miscellaneous furniture that somehow migrated into the room; making sure the campus art conservators could get in and assess a large, insect-damaged oil painting that will probably be moved to President Kaler’s house; and coordinating the deliveries of new conference tables, chairs, and accessories, almost all of which were thwarted at least once by bad weather or the new campus door locking policy. Susan’s Grad Lounge Refresh to-do list was long! And she tackled it while doing other extra work to leave the English Department campsite cleaner than she found it: building a webpage for National Poetry Month writing prompts, and creating a raft of training resources for the new department assistant who will step into her shoes this summer.
None of our departing colleagues made a big deal about any of the myriad extra contributions they made this term. And they’ll probably be a little embarrassed to have a few of them enumerated here. But these folks set the standard for generous campus citizenship, and I want to celebrate that fact. I’m so happy for all of them and grateful to have had this too-brief chance to learn and work alongside them.
Collectively, we’ve gotten a lot done this year. Much of it has come to fruition in the spring. Caren Beilin just earned tenure; her application sailed through the review process thanks to her brilliant work and the careful, detailed summary of it put together by department colleagues. We hired a new Assistant Professor medievalist: Tom Sawyer (from the University of Chicago) will join the faculty in July. I think his time here will be richer and more rewarding because English has partnered with Art and Art History, Philosophy, Classics, and Modern Languages to create a graduate certificate program in Global Medieval Studies. Our grad students have been wanting more contact with peers in other departments and this new certificate is one way we’re delivering that important interdisciplinary learning.
Also, Megan Jewell and Martha Schaffer created and oversaw our first-ever Study Abroad course; according to students, the Spring Break study trip to Ireland was fun and intellectually life-changing (and extra memorable because so many of them got food poisoning in the airport on the way home. Their jokes about the return trip were hilarious). And then they got to talk with Colm Tóibín about Irish literature when he visited with the study abroad class here on campus on April 8th. This year, Ben Mauk worked with alumni and the Development office to develop and launch a new endowment to support student journalists at The Observer newspaper. And, two weeks ago, the English Department successfully completed our External Review, a multi-year process that started with the preparation of a lengthy Self-Study document. That Self-Study helped us lobby successfully for a meaningful increase in our doctoral student stipends. Plus, we’re using hard-won insights from the review process to help us reinvigorate grad student training, improve research and teaching support for faculty, and give clearer guidance to undergrads writing Capstone projects.
Capstone Day is one of my favorite department traditions, and it’s particularly exciting in spring, when so many of our students complete this intellectual rite of passage. Here are three of my memories from the April 24th Capstone Day that Gusztav Demeter organized:
Caelan Hodge’s juxtapositions of objects, songs, and geographic references in “2000,” an autofiction inspired by Han Kang’s Vegetarian, in which the speaker notices a stray plastic bag before walking into Lakeview Cemetery, reflects on the popularity of plastic surgery at his former high school, listens to Kendrick Lamar’s “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst,” worries about self-control, and declares, “I want to expand the map in my head.”
Chloe Chen’s third person creative nonfiction work “Endochronology” that leverages phrasal repetition in its chronological depiction of medical treatment (“The patient remembers opening bloodwork results with the same trepidation she felt opening exam grades.” “The patient remembers thinking ‘this is surely good enough.’” “The patient does not remember where the apostrophe goes in Graves’ disease.”).
And Toby Li’s research into theories of translation, explored through Shakespeare adaptations in China, particularly Xu Fen’s 1984 Sichuan Opera production Makebai Furen (Lady Macbeth) in which Lady Macbeth is the only person onstage for most of the production, at one point brandishing a huge knife that bears more than passing resemblance to swords used historically in fights against foreign invaders.
Each student’s Capstone research presentation is introduced by their faculty advisor. And, after the talk, the advisor presents the student with a book to commemorate their work. In case you’re looking for some eclectic summer reading, here’s a partial list of titles gifted to students this spring:
Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile
Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals
Cathryn Molloy, Rhetorical Ethos in Health and Medicine
Heidi Yoston Lawrence, Vaccine Rhetorics
Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook, Dr. Who: The Writer’s Tale
Jonathan M. Metzl and Anna Kirkland, Against Health
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics
Caroline Säfstrand, The Oyster Diver’s Secret
Kortney Morrow, Run It Back
Now grades are in, the graduation regalia is back on its hanger, I’ve given yet another copy of Atlas’s Bones to a student (Vance Smith’s spring lecture was a Colloquium highlight for me), and I’m celebrating Arsenal FC’s first Premier League title in 22 years by wearing lots of red. The contractors are back in Guilford to complete what I hope will be the final leg of a multi-summer HVAC repair project. And I’m marking the end of the academic year by writing and revising a handful of poems for Hemland and spending time in the garden. Steve and I just planted tomato starts and two flats of marigolds, there are buds on most of the roses, and the cucumbers have sprouted. As of this morning, I’m 78 pages into Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume, and four episodes into the very jaunty Austen Chat podcast produced by the Jane Austen Society of North America. And I’m feeling grateful for everyone—near and far—who’s helped me through this first year as chair and cheered on the English Department in CWRU’s bicentennial year. I wish you all sunshine and great summer reading!
All best,
Chi