Announcements:
–Introductions and Committee Reports
–We’re beginning this week to transform the ESA boards in the English program lounge following the discussion at the September meeting. They’ll be divided according to categories: *calendar with meeting times (ESA meetings, ESA happy hours and other group meetings) *website advertisement (pages from the ESA website and other program related sites to give them more visibility) *ride shares and conference information *ESA information (committees, what they do, who’s on them). These boards are for all of us, so please check them out when you’re in the lounge and fill them up as you see fit! Just be sure to take down any flyers you put up once they’re outdated.
–The website for the ESA sound conference, to be held March 31st, is up and ready for submissions: https://soundconference2017.wordpress.com
–Our first ESA happy hour is Monday 10/10! Does anyone want to volunteer to choose a time and location for another similar event?
Discussion:
–The Curriculum Committee will be reviewing the orals exam this year and they want to open the floor to those of us who may have questions or comments about the process. Here are their questions: If you have taken or are currently studying for orals, do you have any suggestions for changes to the exam format? If you are at the dissertation stage, how well did the oral exam prepare you for your dissertation research and writing? The Curriculum Committee is preparing a survey to send out to students and faculty about the Second Exam, so prompts or questions for that survey will be helpful as well.
–Revels: What kind of revels do we want to have now that we can’t spend DSC money on alcohol? Would people be interested in getting the English program involved in co-hosting a revels potluck event, maybe inviting alumni? (would the alumni and fundraising committee want to work on this?) Co-chairs would have to talk to Mario about this, but it could be a way to get some sponsored alcohol. Or do we want to totally overhaul the revels and create a very different kind of event? Hosting revels at a restaurant was mentioned last meeting, as was hosting revels as a byob film screening.
–Danica and Duncan are crowdsourcing a list of fellowship opportunities (add to the list here: Google Doc) to be added to the ESA website and are seeking input on how to organize the page so as to make it the most useful to potential fellowship-seekers. The long and short-term fellowships will be broken down by field but there’s a question about how fine grained the categories should be–as in *American/British/Comp-rhet* vs. *19th Century American/20th Century American/African American.* How can we organize these fellowships by categories that are easily recognizable to users but not so fine-grained that those creating the page are forced to enter the same fellowships multiple times?
Vote:
–The ESA Library Committee has purchased stickers for the library book spines and is in the process now of ordering a stamp that reads, “Please return to ESA library.” Both of these items fit the “narwhal” theme and are part of an initiative to mark the books to help maintain the library. The cost of the items amounts to $58.13 , and the librarians would like to request reimbursement from the ESA for these materials. Vote to approve the reimbursement.
