Meeting Minutes

ESA Plenary Meeting—Friday, October 19, 2012; Room 5409, 9:30AM

In attendance: Maggie Galvan, Anne Donlon, Kristina Huang, Joseph Bowling, Elizabeth Lenn, Andrew Discus, Dominique Zino, Chris Eng, Mia Chen, Shang-yu Sheng, Charlotte Thurston

I.      Status of English Program Committee Meetings

A.    Subject to open meetings law?

a.    As our committees are not under Grad Council, might not be under open meetings law

B.    Open Meetings require sending out agenda to students in advance and formal minutes afterwards

a.    Caveat: when reviewing confidential matters that involve making decisions about personnel, executive session begins and is only open to committee members

C.     Possibility of pushing to make the meetings open—something that we as students might want?

II.    Question of Fields within English Program

A.    Fields that we want more faculty in

a.    Earlier periods: pre-modern, early modern, 18th Century, 19th Century, British, Anglophone—the Americas, Africa, etc.—global

b.    Interests: scholars working in earlier periods, such as 17th Century, who engage questions of race, gender, imperialism

c.     Possible scholars of interest: Lynn Festa, Srinivas Aravamudan, Joseph Roach

III.           Questions for President Bill Kelly

A.    Course units

B.    Colloquium students and impact on enrollment min/max limit

C.     Process regarding Target of Opportunity

D.    Possibility for new hires to have cross-appointments?

IV.  Faculty and Student Coordination

A.    “State of the Program”—increasing dialogue with faculty about student needs and interests

B.    Forecast goals: for EO to convey specifically upcoming goals and objectives for the program during upcoming academic year(s)

V.    Program Workshops

A.    Increasing workshops around professionalization and milestones

a.    Orals, Dissertations, CV’s, article prep, etc.

                            i.         Try to break down based on different part and stage of each milestone; For example: orals—compiling lists, identifying committee members, studying, taking the exam, etc

                          ii.         Interest in having multiple faculty members so that they can convey their differing expectations

b.    Concern: proper channels—who do we contact?  Under the purview of any committee?

VI.  Dissertation Survey

A.    To be sent out by faculty—interest in getting input from students not yet dissertating so that they can address questions and concerns?

VII.Meeting adjourned at 10:55AM (Dominique motions, Kristina seconds, all in favor)