The winner of the 2015 Thesis of the Year award is Wayne Catan for his paper “Class and Culture: A Marxist Reading of The Sun Also Rises.” All thesis papers completed during the summer and fall of 2014 and spring of 2015 are eligible for the Thesis of the Year title. The final paper is selected by program faculty who read over drafts of papers from which the authors’ names have been removed. The award allows the student to list this honor on his or her curriculum vitae. Congratulations, Wayne. You can read more about the process and about last year’s winner on the blog here. We will begin a new cycle of consideration starting this summer.
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Congratulations on the 2014-15 school year
I just want to congratulate each of you on the completion of another semester of graduate study, and on the completion of the 2014-15 school year here in the Mercy MA program. I hope that over the past year each of you has experienced something profound, read something fascinating and new, discussed something you’d never have discussed had you not been here together. I hope that each of you has experienced moments of awe, wonder, reflection, and epiphany over the course of the semester and school year.
In the next week or two we’ll be announcing the Thesis of the Year award for 2014-15 theses projects, and we’ll soon be starting up the summer session for those of you who have decided to take a summer course or two. Some of your are gearing up for your final semester and your final 599 Thesis Tutorial course. If you’re at all unsure what you’re supposed to be doing for this, or when, check out the blog posts related to the Comp Exam and the Thesis Tutorial, and read up on those sections in the Graduate Student Handbook. As always, if you’ve got any questions just ask me at cloots@mercy.edu.
To Sarah, Josh, and Nicole: it was great to see you walk the stage at commencement this year. I hope you heard me and the other MA English faculty clapping our little hearts out up on the faculty bandstand as you walked past. Sarah it was wonderful talking to you when you found me before the ceremony. I’ll say to everyone what we talked about then: you are all a part of Mercy College, and you should always know that I and the faculty are here to help and guide you as best as we can, while you’re in the program and after. Don’t hesitate to contact me or other faculty with whom you’ve taken courses for advice or letters or recommendation or anything else of the sort. I hope each of you will take a moment now to congratulate yourself, treat yourself to something nice, here at the end of a year of graduate study and scholarship. I leave you with a shot from before the School of Liberal Arts and School of Social and Behavioral Science Commencement of our president Tim Hall with the keynote speaker JuJu Chang from ABC news. You can see a brief video she uploaded from the stage at the end of the ceremony on her Instagram account (it’s dated May 20, 2015).
End of Semester things:
Hi all, as we end the spring semester I’d just ask everyone to keep in mind things such as the way an incomplete “I” works as a temporary grade replacement (follow the link to the earlier blog post). That isn’t just for people who might be incurring and I now, but for those who incurred one recently. Those must be corrected within a year, or there is no way to remedy the incomplete. For those planning to take the 599 final tutorial course in the fall, now is the time to secure your thesis mentor from the faculty in the program, and to take your comprehensive exam. Read up in the Graduate Student Handbook or around this program blog for more on all of those. Reach me at cloots@mercy.edu if you have any questions or need help.
Just a word about the Graduate Student Handbook.
To any current students, or curious potential students checking out the program blog, please just note that the program’s Graduate Student Handbook is available for download right there in the left-side menu of the screen. It’s the second item down beneath the link to the College’s official program webpage. It contains tons of information about the program, about the requirements, about the courses you need to take, about how you enroll in the 599 final thesis tutorial course, about how and when you take your comprehensive exam, etc. Check it out!
Adjunct Opportunities in the NY Metro Area (Pace University)
Hi all, I received the following note and am posting it here as it might be a great opportunity for some of you to get some experience:
The Pace University Department of English and Modern Language Studies, in Pleasantville, New York, has a number of adjunct faculty positions available for the 2015-2016 academic year, which begins September 2, 2015. Successful candidates will teach freshman or sophomore-level composition courses, and will be mentored by the Director and Associate Director of Composition. A Master of Arts in English is required; familiarity with composition and rhetoric pedagogy preferred. Interested candidates may direct questions and application materials to Professor Andrew Stout, Associate Director of Composition, via email: astout@pace.edu. A complete application will include a cover letter and CV in one PDF document. The deadline for applications is June 1, 2015.
Let me know at cloots@mercy.edu if you need any help or advice about putting together your CV or application, for Pace or for any teaching opportunity. I’m happy to review anyone’s CV and give you some pointers. You should note that all of us begin as adjuncts (part-time professor). Every professor you’ve ever had started at some point as an adjunct/part-time prof.
Macbeth at Mercy College: Thursday April 16th at 7:45pm. FREE with Reservation.
As part of Mercy College’s annual Christie Day event, which is the English Program’s year-end celebration and Shakespeare Festival, a seriously good Shakespeare company, Hudson Valley Shakespeare (HVS), is putting on a presentation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth here at the Dobbs Ferry campus on Thursday, 4/16, 7:45pm. Tickets are free but you need to RSVP to the head of undergraduate English, Dr. Alison Matika, to reserve them. The small campus theatre where this is being held is more than half reserved so anyone interested should email Dr. Matika immediately at amatika@mercy.edu to reserve tickets (will call). And I encourage anyone even remotely in the area to attend. This is going to be great fun.
W.I.T. Symposium POSTPONED until next school year.
The W.I.T Conference is being postponed until the fall so that we can coordinate a bigger turnout. We’re thinking of collaborating with the undergraduate English program to have student panels and MA grad student panels. It would be good for our undergraduates to hear some of the more developed studies that our grad students or alumni are generating. Anyway that will take some more coordination and so we’re going to postpone the April event and try to get it up and running in the next school year. Thank you to those who volunteered to participate; I hope you’ll be up to participate again when the symposium comes to fruition. Best, all, -CL
Diane Ackerman speaks at Mercy College Wednesday 3/4/2015.
If you’re in the New York Metro area this Wednesday and are interested in hearing a world-class writer (and NYTimes bestselling poet and essayist) give a reading and talk, come by the Manhattan or Dobbs Ferry campus of Mercy College. The event will be held on the Manhattan campus on Wednesday March 4th in rooms: 704A and 704B at 3:00 p.m-4:00 p.m and later that evening in the Rotunda on the Dobbs Ferry campus at 8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Call 914-674-7497 for more information.
Interested in Joining the English Honors Society, Sigma Tau Delta?
If you’re interested in joining Sigma Tau Delta which is the English Honors Society click here to open up a letter from the Chapter Sponsor/Coordinator here at Mercy College, Dr. Kristen Keckler, detailing how you can join. Dr. Keckler will also be teaching the graduate creative writing course over the summer, fyi. So read that letter if you’re curious and follow the instructions for how to join. Contact Dr. Keckler at kkeckler1@mercy.edu if you have any questions about this. Best, -CL
Curious about what this semester’s 599 Thesis Students are working on?
Well then click on the program poster icon in the left-hand panel (the third one down) to open a large poster-sized image that shows what our students in their final semester are working on for their thesis papers.
Program Director's Blog for the Mercy University MA in English Literature Program 