Master of Arts News

Stacy Freeman

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:25:18 GMT

Stacy Freeman is thrilled to announce that she will be teaching at Mohawk Valley Community College upon graduating from the M.A. program. It has been quite a journey so far. To explain what this means to her, Freeman shared the following:

"When I started my master’s degree at Union Institute & University I eventually figured out that I didn’t need to be three different people. My home life, my work life, and my school life began to overlap, began to meld into one coherent form. I realized, with the help of the faculty and staff at Union, that I wasn’t three different people. At Union I finally became the person I truly am. I finally became myself. Most of the writing assignments I completed while at Union not only demonstrated my breadth of knowledge as a meager graduate student but also reflected my struggle as a single mom of a son with ADHD and the drudgery of being an employee at a rural Wal-Mart Distribution Center. The work I completed at Union reflects who I am and has prepared me for the next stage in my life, for the next role I will play, as an adjunct at a local community college.

Apparently my role as a mom and my role as a Wal-Mart employee are just as relevant as my education. Those roles are relevant because those are the same roles that the students, particularly on the community college level, are forced to embrace. They, as I am, are parents, employees, and students. They, as I do, want something more. Every role I have ever played, every experience I have ever had, will help me relate to my students, will help me understand the difficulties my students endure, will aid me in being compassionate toward their plight, will allow me to appreciate the sacrifices my students will be forced to make just to show up to class. In this next role as Composition Instructor I will still be a mom, I will still be a Wal-Mart employee, and I will still be a student. Though I know I will be teaching, I also know I will be learning. I have a feeling my students will have much to teach me. I have a feeling that my true education is about to begin."

Colleen Kappeler

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:18:45 GMT

Already an experienced editor, Kappeler assisted one of her local writers in self-publishing a book through Kindle Direct Publishing and CreateSpace for her Applications course. Kappeler found the text to be inspiring and well-deserving of the extra effort to get it out in the public eye. Print and Kindle versions of the book, LOL by Patty Dunn Merletti, are now available on Amazon.com. Along the way, Kappeler learned helpful tips for successfully navigating the self-publishing market. She recommends starting with Kindle Direct Publishing and, when sales warrant hard copies for book signings, etc., to develop the print version in CreateSpace. Once the book is written, the hardest part is designing the cover because you have to make the front, spine, and back cover all in one document. Therefore, you may prefer to work with an experienced graphic designer for that step. After the book is published to Kindle, she suggests pricing it low (under $5) and generating a strong “buzz” through genre-specific chat boards. The more feedback on your book, the higher it comes up in searches on your topic.

Julie-Marie Bristol

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:17:31 GMT

Formerly a part of the Scandinavian empire, the Shetland Islands were pledged to Scotland in 1469 as part of a marriage arrangement involving Princess Margaret of Norway. Though now part of the Scottish realm and culture, Shetland maintained strong political and commercial links with Norway for some time, and the resulting blend of culture, traditions, and language resulted in the unique Shetland regional identity that remains more than 500 years later. This distinctive heritage is epitomized in the beautiful dialect, poetry, and strong oral traditions so characteristic of the Shetland Islands. It is this rich Shetlandic history that Julie Bristol has tried to convey as part of her Applications course, included as part of a presentation she created complete with interviews conducted with several Shetland poets, readings by two Shetland poets, and readings of her own poems that are written in the Shetland dialect.

Here is an excerpt from one of her poems to give you a feel for the melodious vernacular:

Ma dowter’s i ma airms
wi a glim apö her ee
Harken, mither! she sudden cries –
A trow is whit I’ll be.
Strampin aa owre Shetlan
birlin and rowlin da kames,
flinging da wadder aa roon aboot,
rummelin aabody’s hames;
makin da boanniest pictures
wi da lichts dat are held nort by

Judith McDaniel, Ph.D.

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 15:38:14 GMT

UI&U Professor Judith McDaniel will be presenting “The Challenges of Using Authentic Assessments in Online and Community-based Learning Contexts” at the 17th Annual Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning. Teaming up with Jan Kempster, the dean of the Adult Degree Program at Prescott College, they will each present different possibilities for authentic assessment of programs that emphasize interactive, experiential learning. McDaniel explains, “Both UI&U and Prescott College are founded on a belief that education is about the ability to think creatively and to interact with new knowledge as a way of incorporating knowledge into performance, so finding an authentic means of assessment has challenged the faculty.

Within their Applications course at UI&U, some students have chosen to design a course that demonstrates an ability to bring the theoretical learning into a practical application. Dr. McDaniel will demonstrate the design of the website where students create their courses and discuss the effectiveness of self and peer assessment in this context.

Woden Teachout, Ph.D.

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 15:32:01 GMT

Among Pulitzer Prize-winning historians and other eminent speakers chosen for the First Wednesdays Humanity Lecture Series in Vermont, Woden Teachout presented Imagining America to a packed house. Using famous drawings, photographs and literature, Teachout led the audience through unfolding conceptualizations of America across four centuries. The country has been represented as a dangerous wilderness; through Norman Rockwell’s famous paintings of freedom of speech, of worship, from want, from fear; and, in a recent Egyptian cartoon, as an oversize Uncle Sam lolling on a recliner. Teachout emphasized the fact that America looks very different depending upon who does the imagining. Her speech drew on Benedict Anderson’s famous idea of the nation as an “imagined community” to question the very idea of America. She challenges us to actively choose how we imagine America and shape that vision into being.

The most recent publication of Dr. Teachout, Capture the Flag: A Political History of American Patriotism, has been reviewed by many national publications, including The Wall Street Journal.

Patricia Monaghan, Ph.D.

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 15:23:38 GMT

Patricia Monaghan's book of poems, "The Grace of Ancient Land," has been published by the Voices from the American Land project, established to "revive and amplify a dominant tradition in American letters — the poetry of place, whether urban, rural, or wild." Monaghan's book portrays the little-known Driftless Area of Wisconsin, named for its lack of glacial soil or "drift" and the only area of the Midwest that has been untouched by glaciation for the last half-million years. Of the book, editor Renny Golden said, "Her work falls in the tradition of Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic.” Yet it is a subversive moral vision in the tradition of Eavan Boland’s ethic of “powerful ordinariness.” Monaghan thus genders her land ethic. Monaghan does not mythologize the land but embodies its beauty and bounty in the luminous ordinary of planting, canning, the fleeting presence of deer and hawk. She implicitly links seasonal change to the cycle of birth and death. When she sees the hawk circling for field mice, she reminds us of the mortal path we trod and bids us to pay attention to what grace offers: the quickening unbidden moment." More information atwww.voicesfromtheamericanland.org.

Cathleen Rockwell, M.A. 2011

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:29:12 GMT

Since graduating from the Master of Arts Program in 2011, Cathleen Rockwell’s writing career has blossomed. She is now writing an online blog for Gainesville's edition of Italian Foods Examiner and Holiday Examiner. INsite Magazine hired her as a freelance writer to do theatre reviews and cover events such as the Epcot Food & Wine Festival and Universal Studios Mardi Gras Celebration. They have been so pleased with her work that they offered her the position of one of their staff writers as a movie columnist and film writer. She has also been given the opportunity to interview celebrities. She recently interviewed comedian Ron White in January. She also will be writing reviews for concerts like George Strait and Andrea Borcelli in February.

Rockwell will be the official media/press person for INsite Magazine at the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire in January and will be snapping pictures to go with the articles. Rockwell was also nominated to have her photo and bio in January's issue as a contributing journalist. She looks forward to this leading to full-time work as a writer.

Dalene Fisher, M.A. 2011

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:21:47 GMT

While completing Teaching Writing I and her final document, Dalene Fisher lined up a job to teach three sections of Composition I at Oklahoma Wesleyan University upon graduating. Dalene has five years of experience teaching high school English and maintains a blog, The Musty Study, to encourage the hesitant reader to discover the timely nature of the old classics in English literature.“UI&U has enabled me to reach my goal of teaching at the university level” explains Dalene. “From engaging in challenging writing exercises, I am able to empathize with my own students and have been truly stretched as a writing teacher. I've shed tears of both sorrow and joy! I loved teaching high school, but I feel prepared now to move to a new level of instruction."

Aaron Moe, M.A. 2009

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:15:28 GMT

Aaron Moe has recently published "Chaos & the 'New' Nature Poem: A Look at E. E. Cummings' Poetry." CT Review 32.1 (2010): 11-24. It is a continuation of the work he completed for his final document within the M.A. Program.

Moe is now pursuing his doctorate in English. He is currently exploring W. S. Merwin's poetry, specifically how Merwin's ecological anguish leads to an unprecedented poetics of humility. Along with his literary research, he teaches composition courses for the university's undergraduate program. He explains his composition philosophy as follows:

Indeed, rhetoric creates the backbone of my composition philosophy. Ethos, pathos, logos, kairos, and decorum. These words encapsulate ideas that guide the composing process, for they define some of the ways through which we persuade. The composing process must include a rhetorical awareness of how the framing of language--whether its typeface, punctuation, paragraph breaks or facial gestures, intonations of voice, or bodily tilts--contributes to the Protean possibilities of meaning making.

For more information about Moe’s work, see his website: http://www.aaronmoe.com/.

Kym Kennedy, M.A. 2010

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:36:05 GMT

Kym Kennedy
(photo courtesy The World)

While wrapping up her master's coursework at UI&U, Kennedy was offered a job teaching writing and composition at Southwestern Oregon Community College. She is also working on her Ph.D. in adult and postsecondary education. Kym's goal in earning a M.A. with a concentration in literature and writing was to “become the type of college professor that can transmit passion for literature to students and show them how literature and writing are relevant to their lives regardless of their majors.”