Hi all, just a reminder that in less than a month the MA Program will be hosting the 2017 Writing Image Text (W.I.T) English symposium here in Maher Hall on the Dobbs Ferry campus. Last year’s symposium was a good time all around. This year like last year we’ve got four grad students committed to presenting (Gloria Buckley, Matthew Christoff, Lynn Leibowitz-Whitehead, and Jenelle Luckey). We have a few more grad students who may or may not attend and present depending on other factors. Dr. Keckler plans to be there and to share some of her creative writing. Other professors might read or share something too. I’ll be moderating the event. I imagine a number of other faculty members and even perhaps the Dean might attend just for fun. Without further ado, here is the new very orange poster for the event:

The 2017 Writing/Image/Text (or W.I.T) Graduate English Symposium will be held this year on Tuesday May 16th, the day before Commencement, in Maher Hall on the Dobbs Ferry Campus of Mercy College. You can read about last year’s symposium here on the blog.

The symposium is just a casual mini-conference at which interested MA English students or alumni gather to read aloud a scholarly paper (a paper that you’ve written for any of your MA courses will do just fine, though it must be edited to no longer than 10 pages), as well as to meet some fellow grad students and program professors. Family and friends are welcome to attend too. Graduate students and professional scholars often attend and read at local, regional, and national conferences, so this symposium provides a friendly small-scale introduction to the conference experience. And for anyone who reads a paper, it becomes a line-item you can list under the scholarship section on your CV (click here to read more about the CV).

We call it “Writing/Image/Text” not just because it makes for a neat acronym, but because it signals that you can present on pretty much any topic, including on topics that involve visual texts and other types of texts.

Anyone interested in attending, and in reading a paper, please let me know by sending a note to cloots@mercy.edu. I won’t need to establish the final list of readers and attendees until the end of April, but now is a good time to start figuring out if you think you can be there. By the end of April I’ll need to know who all is reading, so that I can then schedule the actual start-time and length of the symposium. And I’ll need a fairly good total attendee list by then so that I can order enough catering for everyone (food provided courtesy of the MA program). More info below image…

Anyone traveling from afar might consider either staying in a hotel near campus, or staying in New York City and taking the Metro North Hudson Line train up from Grand Central Station (there’s a train station right by the campus, and it’s a common train route that many of our faculty, staff, and students take everyday; takes about 45 minutes or so). For those traveling to walk at Commencement, it’s worth noting that if you’re staying in NYC you can take the Metro North Harlem line from Grand Central to the White Plains station which is right near the Westchester County Center, where Commencement is held (our graduation ceremony outgrew our Dobbs Ferry campus some time ago). It’s about a ten minute walk from the train station to the venue, and the majority of that ten minutes is just walking the length of the convention center’s parking lot.

Hotels in the area range from boutique (such as The Castle), to a range of nice chain hotels (such as the Doubletree or The Marriot Springhill Suites). There’s rather a ton of hotel options about three or four miles north of Dobbs Ferry in Tarrytown. Do note that if you’re staying in any local hotel you would need some sort of vehicle to get to campus, and to get to Commencement if that’s part of your trip.

The symposium was a lot of fun last year, and I expect it will be again this year. Think about coming. I’ve already heard from several of you who definitely want to read a paper, and that’s great. I hope to hear from more at cloots@mercy.edu.

In years past the graduate English program has put together a symposium, sort of a mini-conference right here in Maher Hall, for interested MA English students at which to gather and read aloud a scholarly paper, as well as to simply meet some fellow students and professors. Graduate students and professional scholars often attend and read at local, regional, and national conferences, so this symposium can provide a friendly small-scale introduction to the conference experience. And for anyone who reads a paper, it becomes a line-item you can list under the scholarship section on your CV (click here to read more about the CV). The issue in recent years has been that, because our student-body has shifted in the past decade from being traditional/on-campus to being entirely distance-learning, we don’t necessarily have enough students within convenient driving/traveling distance of the campus who are interested in participating in the symposium.

Well, maybe this year will be different, and that’s what I’m seeking feedback about. If you would be interested in attending a program-hosted symposium, please send me a note at cloots@mercy.edu letting me know. If we get enough student interest we’ll schedule an afternoon, perhaps near to commencement in May so that anyone traveling to walk in the commencement ceremony can attend, during which we’ll have a catered reception and have a few panels sharing a bit of our scholarship/writing aloud to one another. Any topic, really any type of writing would be appropriate to share, including creative. Again, if you’re interested, just write me a note letting me know, please. I’ll update everyone here on this blog later this semester based on the feedback I receive.

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