Welcome back! We hope everyone had a relaxing and/or productive spring break (depending on your goals). Just six weeks to go until portfolios, finals, and graduation!
 
March Department Meeting: This Wednesday the 27th
 
Our next Writing Arts Department meeting will be this Wednesday, March 27, at 3:30 p.m. in Victoria 200. Full-time and ¾-time faculty are expected to attend while adjunct and TEP instructors are welcome to sit in. Jenn Courtney will be sending an agenda in the next day or so with more details. . . . Please don’t forget to bring a donation for The S.H.O.P. as our grocery cart will be in the meeting room. We’ve already filled one cart this semester and it would be great to top off a second one before summer when students’ need for food is at its greatest. Also, if you attended 4Cs in Pittsburgh last week, this is the perfect opportunity to drop off any toiletries you might have picked up during the conference. Thank you!
 
Medallion Winner Barton Picks Up Another Award
 
Rachel Barton, recipient of this year’s Excellence in Writing Arts Medallion, will be picking up another honor before graduation: The Dr. James M. Lynch Jr. Courage in Adversity Award. The Faculty Senate Awards Committee selected Rachel from more than a dozen nominees for the award that is presented to a senior who has overcome circumstances of extreme hardship to achieve an education. The award is named for Dr. Lynch, who spent 22 years at Rowan University as Dean of Students and a faculty member and administrator in the Department of Educational Leadership. Rachel will receive her award at the Celebrating Leadership Awards ceremony on Sunday, April 14 at 4 p.m. in the Chamberlain Student Center ballroom. A Rowan Medallion (left) is the highest honor the university bestows upon a graduate to acknowledge superior performance in a particular area or field. Winning one Medallion is special; winning two is extraordinary. Congratulations, Rachel! Both honors are well deserved.
 
Sharpen Your Pencil: More Dates and Deadlines
 

• Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 26, at 11 p.m. is the deadline to submit your Spring 2019 Midterm Progress Survey through the Rowan Success Network (RSN). You should have received a reminder email over spring break, but if you need help filling out the survey, log into Starfish by clicking here. The survey should only take a few minutes and your responses will help RSN determine which students to reach out to and offer help. Note that if you have no concerns or lack sufficient data to report on your students’ progress, please complete the survey to let the Starfish folks know this. Remember, all departments with 100 percent participation receive a one-time department financial bonus from the Provost’s Office!
• Wednesday, March 27, at 4 p.m. is the deadline to submit your request to rent academic regalia for the University Commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 11 and the College of Communication and Creative Arts ceremony on Wednesday, May 15. Click here for more information and to access the Academic Regalia Rental Form. It costs from $34 to $38 to rent a full set of gown, headwear, and hood. Faculty are cordially invited to participate in both ceremonies, but must be in academic regalia to do so.
• Thursday, March 28, from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in Bozorth Hall’s King Auditorium, James Chase Sanchez, co-producer of the “Man on Fire” documentary will present a screening and discussion of the film; then . . .
• The following morning, Friday, March 29, Sanchez will conduct a faculty workshop on “Critical Race Pedagogies” from 8:45 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. in Room 104 of Business Hall.
• Also on Friday, March 29, the university will sponsor the Experiential Storytelling Conference 2019 at the Rowan Art Gallery from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Nine speakers from academia, the arts, the media, and the financial world will share their stories of personal and professional accomplishment and achievement.
• Next Monday, April 1, is the deadline for members of the department’s Adjunct Review Committee to upload their completed review packets to the team’s Google Drive. Please contact colleagues Kate Brown or Tim Donaldson for more information.
• Monday, April 8, College Assembled with be held from 3:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. in Bozorth Hall’s King Auditorium.
• Tuesday, April 9, Glassworks magazine – and its staff and interns – will be featured at the Livin’ on Luck Reading Series sponsored by the Mad Poets Society at Barnaby’s Pub in West Chester, PA. Contact Glassworks managing editor Anthony Palma for more details.

 
Perfect Round Boosts Quizzo Team to Second - Again
 
“The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Quizzo team that night; the lead looked out of reach and our score was such a fright.-*” However, unlike the ill-fated Casey and his three-pitch strikeout, the Writing Arts competitors pulled out a perfect 10-for-10 final round over spring break for a second-straight second-place finish at P.J. Whelihan’s Quizzo Night. With the competition being held just before the start of the NCAA basketball championships, the final category, fittingly, was “Name the tournament entrant with these nicknames.” We were the only team who knew where the Anteaters (left), Gaels, Orange, and seven other competitors call home. Earlier in the evening, we were fortunate to get six of ten correct in a graphic category that asked for the names of pictured video game characters. Win or lose, it was – once again – an excellent evening. Keep an eye onEvents Update for details on our next event: “The Rowan Boulevard Escape Room Challenge.” . . . (*- Apologies to Ernest Lawrence Thayer)
 
Last Call for Employee Tours of Hollybush Mansion
 
Thursday, April 4 is the final day of this spring’s series of employee tours of Hollybush Mansion. The tour runs from 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. and participants are asked to use the entrance that faces Evergreen Hall. Contact University Relations for more information. . . . The oldest building on our campus – completed in 1849 – Hollybush was the school’s first woman’s dormitory before the completion of Laurel Hall. It also served as the home for four of our first five presidents – Jerohn Savitz, Edgar Bunce, Thomas Robinson, and Herman James (our fourth president, Mark Chamberlain, chose a smaller dwelling off campus) – and it’s now used as a museum and to host university receptions. Hollybush has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1972 and a 2016 research project indicates the structure most likely was designed by John Notman (1810-1856), known as the Father of American Italianate Design
 
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 weekly Rowan 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 

Reminders and Requests as Spring Break Approaches
 
As we count the hours and days to the start of spring break this weekend, here are some items for your academic and personal to-do lists:
 

• It’s time to complete our mid-term Rowan Success Network evaluations on Starfish. These evaluations are a great way to codify, in a university-sponsored space, the progress and growth your students are showing – or might not be showing – through the first eight weeks of the semester. A positive job-well-done notation is as important to some students as the negative wake-up call will be to others. Click here for more information on these evaluations and for step-by-step instructions on completing them. The deadline for submission of your evaluations is right after spring break, Tuesday, March 26. Please note that once again this semester, the Provost’s Office is offering a $500 bonus to all departments with a 100 percent completion rate. Invoking a baseball analogy during spring training, let’s all complete our evaluations and knock this one out of the park.

 

• Speaking of negative evaluations for students who might be struggling or having other issues in our classes, next Wednesday, March 20 – right in the middle of spring break week --  is the deadline for regular course withdrawal. Regular withdrawal requires only the professor’s signature on the form (click here). Looking ahead, the deadline for the next stage of the course withdrawal process – late withdrawal – is Monday, April 15. Late withdrawal forms require the signature of the department chair in addition to the professor.

 

• The evening of the regular withdrawal deadline – Wednesday, March 20 – is our spring semester Rowan Writing Arts Quizzo Night at PJ Whelihan’s on Haddon Avenue in Westmont. The competition starts at 8 p.m., but please show up early so we can settle in for an evening of challenging questions, correct answers, . . . and victory! Please contact me with any questions or to let me know you’ll be joining our winning team! It’s always a fun evening, so hopefully you can stop by!

 

• Spring break also means it’s conference travel time, and an opportunity for an easy, quick, and inexpensive way for us to continue our support forThe S.H.O.P campus food bank: Collect, bring home, and drop off the unused toiletries from your conference hotel room. Those of us going to Pittsburgh this weekend for the Conference on College Composition and Communication and the cohort headed to Portland, Oregon, at the end of the month for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference are asked to please collect these items for distribution to students through The S.H.O.P. A suggestion to maximize your effort: Place each day’s toiletries in your suitcase so you get a fresh supply the next day! Stephanie on the fourth floor and Dawn on the fifth floor will be collecting these soaps, shampoos, and other items. (Thank you and a tip of the Events Update cap to Writing Arts colleague, and 4Cs attendee, Marie Flocco for this excellent idea.)

​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 

​Middle States Accreditation Team on Campus This Week
 
The chair and members of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) team evaluating Rowan University will be on campus this week, holding separate open discussion sessions for faculty, staff, and students, and making an exit report to the university community. The focus of these meetings is to discuss the Self Study Report compiled by Rowan and presented to the commission in late January. . . . The two faculty meetings (for tenure-track faculty and instructors, lecturers, part-time adjunct faculty, librarians, and professional staff with instructional roles) will be today (Monday, March 11) from 4:00 p.m. to 4:55 p.m. in Room 129 of the Chamberlain Student Center and tomorrow (Tuesday, March 12) from 1:45 p.m. to 2:25 p.m. in Student Center Room 144. The open session for staff is tomorrow from 3:30 p.m. to 4:25 p.m. in Student Center Room 144, and the student session will be held today from 5:00 p.m. to 5:55 p.m. in Student Center Room 129. The exit report will be delivered on Wednesday, March 13 from 11:15 a.m. to 12 noon in the Student Center’s Eynon Ballroom. . . . Every ten years, the MSCHE requires colleges and universities to conduct a self-study of their initiatives, operations, progress, and commitments as a benchmark in the middle of their accreditation term. Rowan received its last accreditation in 2014 and is due for another full Peer Evaluation in 2024. Middle States is one of six such commissions nationwide that provides accreditation for institutions of higher learning; Middle States covers New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
 
Also Today: Final Creative Nonfiction Candidate Presentation
 
The fourth of the four candidates for the department’s open Creative Nonfiction tenure-track position will be on campus today (Monday, March 11). Heather Lanier will make a teaching presentation with Q&A from 9:15 to 10:00 a.m. in Room 200 of The Vic, and will hold a students-only Q&A session from 10:00-10:30 a.m. three floors up in Room 504. Later in the afternoon, Heather will present a creative reading with Q&A from 3:30-4:45 p.m., back in Vic 200. Feel free to contact Ron Block for more details.
 
Also Tomorrow, Career Expo/Student Showcase Takes The Stage
 
Student projects from various departments in the College of Communication and Creative Arts will be on display in the Eynon Ballroom of the Chamberlain Student Center tomorrow – Tuesday, March 12 – from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. as part of the first CCCA Career Expo and Student Showcase. In addition, a number of local, regional, and national employers with full-time jobs and summer and part-time internships available will be on hand as well. Contact Laura Kincaid for more information.
 
Congratulations, Jade Jones, On Your PEN America Award
 
Did you know we have one of the 12 best emerging fiction writers of the year in our midst? Dean’s Fellow Jade Jones is one of the dozen winners of the just-presented PEN America/Robert J. Dau Prize. Jade was selected for her short story “Today, You’re a Black Revolutionary” that appeared in the June 27, 2018 issue of the literary journal The Rumpus. In addition to receiving a cash award, Jade and the 11 other winners will have their work published in an annual anthology entitled The PEN America Best Debut Short Stories of 2019. New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts was the setting for the late February awards ceremony where Jade received her honor at an event attended by such celebrity glitterati as actor/musician/writer Steve Martin. PEN America was launched in 1922 with an initial membership list that included such literary icons as Willa Cather, Robert Frost, Eugene O’Neill, Robert Benchley, and Booth Tarkington. The organization’s founding principle is to “ensure that people everywhere have the freedom to create literature, to convey information and ideas, to express their views, and to access the views, ideas, and literatures of others.” (Photo: Jade attended the NYU ceremony with her husband, Writing Arts colleague Grayson Morley.)
 
Wednesday, March 20: The Date of Our Quizzo Redemption
 
Late last summer, Rowan Writing Arts was just one question away (one poorly worded question away, it should be noted) from winning the weekly Quizzo championship at PJ Whelihan’s in Westmont. On Wednesday, March 20 – in the middle of spring break week – we will take to the tables again to earn what rightfully was ours. The more people who can attend – family and friends are cordially invited – the better chance we have of emerging victorious. In addition to the competition and teamwork, it’s an evening of fun with colleagues outside our usual audience-purpose-context-based world. Contact me for more details and to join the team.
 
Upcoming: Escape from RoBo; A Night at the Phillies
We’ll have more information after spring break about our next Writing Arts team event: Breaking the code to gain release from one of the themed rooms at Exit Four Escape Rooms on Rowan Boulevard. We’re thinking a mid-week evening in mid- to late April, just before Portfolios are due. Please contact me with some suggestions for the event. . . . Speaking of the Phillies, you might have heard about someone called Bryce Harper. In addition to being a very wealthy young man, he’s also expected to boost interest in, and ticket sales for, our hometown Phils. With this in mind, we’re starting to work on plans for the second annual Rowan Writing Arts Night at the Phillies. With the inaugural CCCA Summer Camp tentatively scheduled for July (more details coming soon) and August being a traditional month for family vacations, we’re zeroing in on two weeks in June – June 10, 11, 12 and June 24, 25, 26 – to get our block of discounted group tickets. Please send me an email and let me know all of those dates that work for you and – even if it’s an estimate – how many tickets you might want for that night. Thank you!
 
Finally, . . .
 
Here are some items – new or previously mentioned – for your calendars:

• James Chase Sanchez, co-producer of the “Man on Fire” documentary will present a screening and lead a discussion of the film on Thursday, March 28 from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in Bozorth Hall’s King Auditorium; the next morning, Friday, March 29, Sanchez will conduct a faculty workshop on “Critical Race Pedagogies” from 8:45 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. in Room 104 of Business Hall.
• Also on Friday, March 29, the university will host the Experiential Storytelling Conference 2019 at the Rowan Art Gallery from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Nine speakers from academia, the arts, the media, and the financial world will share their stories of personal and professional accomplishment and achievement. (NOTE: The morning sessions have sold out, but a waiting list is being compiled.)
• Glassworks magazine and its staff, on Tuesday, April 9, are being featured at The Livin’ on Luck Reading Series sponsored by the Mad Poets Society at Barnaby’s Pub in West Chester, PA. Contact Anthony Palma for more details.

 
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 weekly Rowan 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