Rowan Writing Arts Events Update: Week of January 28, 2019

Welcome Back to Campus! Now, Log in to Your Calendar

Wow! It’s 2019. We’re almost through two decades of the 21st century. Pretty incredible! Of course, a new year – and a new semester – brings a new list of events, so open your Day-Timer and start making notes:

• Today (Monday, January 28) is the end of Regular Drop/Add, meaning one more week of potential class roster flux (see below).
• Tomorrow (Tuesday, January 29), is the deadline for Class Enrollment Verification. Click here to, if necessary, access a tutorial PDF on the process and click here to go to your personal verification enrollment page on Banner. Please contact the Registrar’s Office with any additional questions or problems.
• This Wednesday the 30th is our first monthly Department Meeting. As usual, it will be held in Vic 200 and will run from 3:30 p.m. (sharp!) until 4:45 p.m. Full-time and ¾-time faculty are expected to attend while adjunct and TEP instructors are cordially invited to join us. Keep an eye on your email inbox for an agenda and other meeting-related information from Jenn Courtney. Also, as usual, our department “S.H.O.P.-ping Cart” will be on hand to accept your donations of non-perishable food and personal care items for the student food bank.
• Next Monday, February 4, is the end of Late Drop/Add, a one-week grace period provided by the university to accommodate students facing special circumstances (such as finances, etc.) that delayed any intended registration adjustment. This usually ends the addition of students to our classrooms for the semester.
• While we’re on the topic of Registrar deadlines, here’s one more: Wednesday, March 20 (FYI: in the middle of Spring Break) is the cutoff date for Regular Withdrawal.
• Finally, just because it’s less than three weeks away, Monday, February 18 will be our annual College of Communication and Creative Arts Open Doors Day. This is the annual opportunity offered to students who have been admitted to our various CCCA departments to tour our facilities, sit in on a class, and take part in a Q&A session with Dean Sandy Tweedie, faculty members, students, and admissions officials. Contact Gina DiBartolo in the Dean’s office for more information.

You Want Writers? Writing Arts Has Writers for You!

Expanding the already glowing reputation of Rowan Writing Arts as a department that publishes as well as instructs, three of our colleagues have new books on the shelves, and – of course – also available online. Here’s our latest list of achievements:

• Strange Stories, by Lisa Jahn-Clough, is an early-reader collection of 13 short stories about, “good kids, bad kids, happy kids, sad kids, magic toys, talking animals, and other strange things.” With large type and just the right amount of challenging words, Strange Stories is perfect for readers age 7-10 and is available on Amazon for $14.99. A note of caution: After reading “Waffles for Breakfast: The Story of Hans,” you might choose to sleep in and skip right to lunch.
• A Spring to Remember is Megan Atwood’s final entry in her middle-grade Orchard Novel series that also includes Ice Cream Summer, Once Upon a Winter, and A Fall for Friendship. In A Spring to Remember, we learn about the Orchard gang’s plans to bring together Sheriff Hadley and Sarah’s mom, but the scheme involves having a reluctant Lizzie sing in public. You can spring into Megan’s latest work, available for $12.99, by clicking here.
• If you already have a copy of Taylor Henry’s Wildwood Houses Through Time, consider yourself fortunate. The book, part of the “America Through Time” series from Arcadia Publishing/Fonthill Media, sold out its first printing, but still can be ordered through Amazon (for $17.38); the estimated shipping window is one to two months. Wildwood Houses Through Time tells the story, in pictures and text, of more than 120 historic homes in the Cape May County, NJ, resort city, a number of which date back to the 1870s. Taylor’s interest in and affection for these time capsule dwellings was kindled in her youth as she grew up in a house built in 1910 that was just down the street from the Wildwood Boardwalk. Interestingly, her old house is not in the book as her father, a building contractor, made renovations to the structure years ago to shore up a sagging foundation. Those updates, which included vinyl siding and drywall, unfortunately stripped the house of its historic status.

Print Center Almost Back in The Pink . . . Uh, The ‘Ink’
 
The Rowan University Print Center in Memorial Hall is working its way back to full operation after a major HVAC malfunction flooded much of the facility near the end of winter break. Center administrators are asking that faculty send in projects as early as possible, keeping in mind the facility is closed over the weekend, meaning jobs submitted late in the week will not be ready on Monday morning. Despite these problems, customers are being asked to order projects through the online system and the Center will work on them in house or transparently farm them out to a partner vendor for its standard rates. Also, the facility’s wide-format printers were not damaged, so banners, posters, and other oversize work is being processed as usual. You can call the Center at 856-256-4623 with any questions.

​Wednesdays We’ve Got Quizzo On Our Minds
 
It’s time to flex our trivia muscles again as we’re looking to schedule another session of Wednesday Night Quizzo at P.J. Whelihan’s in Westmont. Following our oh-so-close second-place finish last fall (after a three-way tie in regulation), we want to put our collective and extensive faculty knowledge on display once again. Let me know if you’re interested to join in on a Wednesday night in mid- to late-February or early March – once the semester is smoothly underway – and we’ll pick an exact date for the competition. Also, on the heels of last summer’s well-attended Phillies game, we’re looking to schedule another Rowan Writing Arts Night at Citizens Bank Park. Let me know if you and any family members or friends are interested.
 
Once again, welcome back to campus and have a great semester!
 
Do you have a new publication, a reading, or any other event of interest coming up? Please let me know so I can let all our colleagues know in the weeklyRowan Writing Arts Events Update newsletter. Stop by my Victoria 521 office or email me at royek@rowan.edu to give me the 4-1-1.
 
Access Events Update online by clicking here.
 
Stephen A. Royek
Lecturer, Writing Arts
Rowan University
Chair, Faculty Senate Awards Committee
     Victoria Hall, Room 521
     Phone: 856-906-4755
     Email: royek@rowan.edu