Congratulations!!!

DePaul Students, Faculty, and Alumn Earn Awards and Honor

The Results are in! Congratulations to Erin Moran, Mark Bennett, Ann Janikowski, and Tom Southwood, all of whom passed the MA exam with Distinction!

MAW Alumn, Karen Kopelson won the Richard Braddock Award for the outstanding article in College Composition and Communication in 2003. Karen's article is "Rhetoric on the Edge of Cunning; Or, The Performance of Neutrality (Re)Considered As a Composition Pedagogy for Student Resistance,” published in the September 2003 issue of the journal. After completing the M.A. in Writing at DePaul, Karen took her Ph.D. at Purdue University. She is now an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Louisville.

Gina Brandolino, an MAE alumn currently completing her PhD in Medieval Literature at Indiana University won a teaching award this spring. It's the first annual "Associate Instructor Teaching Portfolio Award," and recognizes an advanced graduate student (i.e., one on an extended teaching contract with the department) for assembling an
outstanding teaching portfolio. Congratulatuions to Gina!

Professor Michelle Morano has been awarded two writing residencies for this coming summer.

In July, Prof. Morano will be at the Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, New York (about two hours away from New York City). The Millay Colony hosts month-long residencies for six or seven writers, visuals artists, and composers at one time. Then in August, she will be in residence for two weeks at Ragdale, in Lake Forest, again working alongside other writers, visual artists, and composers.

MAW student, Roxanne Pilat was awarded the "Best Student Creative Work" at the 2004 Conference of the Illinois Philological Association for her paper, "Waiting for Permission." Her paper is featured below and will also appear in the 2004 edition of the IPA's electronic Journal.

Feature Paper: "Waiting for Permission" - Roxanne Pilat

I’ve got this thing about closed doors and drawers. When confronted with these artifacts of storage convenience (because out of sight is out of mind, isn’t it?), I’m often overcome by the need to open, to peel back, to peruse, to explore. I’ve learned by now not to do this as a general way of living. People really don’t like you going through their things and in certain circumstances, it’s actually illegal. But the occasional visit to a house sale gives me the chance to indulge in this inquisitive preoccupation.

When you peek through the volumes on a bookshelf or rummage through an armoire or unearth the lonely items on the back shelves in abandoned basements, you start to collect the fall leavings of a life, a soul, who lived and hoped and dreamed of all things possible.

This curiosity has also left me with more than my recommended daily requirement of restlessness. It’s not a far leap from the closed door to the unknown destination or the path not taken and these have been the first choices of my heart, if not my head.

I remember being four years old and waking up one night in our blue-roofed, brick ranch on Dickens Avenue in Chicago. I couldn’t sleep and after lifting the eyelids of my 16-year-old sister, who had the decided misfortune of sharing a bedroom with me, realized she didn’t share my problem. From my window, I saw that the bungalows down the block were backdropped by a scrim of stars piercing the cloak of the night sky, which was the darkest blue that your eyes can see before they reach black; much like my mother’s fancy party dress, the one with the silvery crystalline beads, with a color as dark as the night sea, and a skirt that swirled as she two-stepped across the living room rug with my father.

Barefoot, on tiptoes, I traveled down the long carpeted hallway of our house. Peeking into my parents’ bedroom, I heard soft and synchronized snores. Moonlight shadowed my brother’s room, where he, too, slept soundly, cocooned in his official Roy Rogers blanket – the matching cowboy curtains lying motionless next to the open window.

I continued until I reached the kitchen, lit only by the day-glow hands of the clock on the stove. It was 3:00 a.m. I couldn’t tell time, but in the days to follow, when the story had long become part of family history, that’s what time everyone said it was. The path through the kitchen led straight to the back door – the gateway to all adventures. To get there, especially at night, you had to pass the dreaded basement door, where strange and unfathomable creatures lurked under the stair well. But I was determined.

Luck was with me that night. The basement door was closed – the monsters quiet. I walked slowly, purposefully, from one turquoise linoleum tile to the next, approaching the large back door, where I peered out the lowest of the window panes – the only ones I could reach. Over our cherry tree and swing set in the back yard, the indigo sky seemed even more beckoning. I unlocked the door, pushed open the storm door and walked down the six concrete steps to our backyard.

The sky seemed so close – I wanted to reach out and touch its velvety surface, rub my finger over one of its diamond points. I thought if I could just reach my arms up high enough, it was quite possible that I could float up and touch those stars and envelope myself within that sueded skyscape. I stretched my arms upwards and as I did, I caught a glimpse of the sleeve of my Garfield Goose pajamas, sliding back over my elbows. The very real sight of my friend Garfield on my cotton pajama sleeve brought me suddenly and sharply back to earth.

And then I screamed – loud and long.

Everyone came running – my parents, my brother and sister, our dog, Teddy, and even my grandparents, who lived next door. After touching my forehead to see if I was feverish and checking me quickly for gross injuries, everyone realized it was a false alarm and my mother guided me back to bed.

My family never did quite understand why I went outside by myself in the middle of the night. I think they finally put it to rest with the thought that I had to be sleepwalking. But I knew better. I had been completely, totally, awake and aware. I felt as if all the sparkle and glitter in those silvery sky sentinels had somehow burned into my soul.

In these, my middle years, I have come to liken that star-flashed feeling to one moment in making love. Not the big “O” that the women’s magazines address so reverently, in angst-filled articles on sexual satisfaction neatly sandwiched between “How to Lose That Last 10 Pounds Forever” and “Is Your Man Right For You?” No, it’s the moment before. That hold-your-breath moment, that split-second of sweaty sweetness, that daring rush of the senses, when your eyes become prisms; when the colors of love enfold you; when you are lost in a golden-spun haze of anticipation. I’ve always thought that anticipation is the best.

But when I was four, all I knew was the absolutely delicious delight I felt in doing something so daring as going out in the middle of the night by myself – without permission. Read More

Information on Secondary Education Certification

Jobs and Conferences!

Interested in an internship in marketing, conference planning, graphic design, copy-editing, etc.? Spirit Magazine has a number of internships available, especially in the next month leading up to thier AFFIRMING DIVERSITY CONFERENCE to be held Saturday, June 5, 2004 at Drury Lane in Oak Brook, IL. More Conference Info

Those interested in the internship should contact Laura Kirkpatrick-Dib, Director of Marketing: Tel/Fax: 1-708-570-4774 or email her

For more information on the magazine and the conference check out Spirit Magazine's website.

Prospective community college teachers: Learn all you can about a workplace (and join networks there) even before you join! Click Here!

Resources for Freelance Writers and Editors:

For experienced and disciplined writers, on-line editing services can offer substantial part-time employment. I recently met a grad student at Western Michigan University who earns a good full-time salary working for a couple of these companies.

A couple of these companies include: editfast.com and editavenue.com. Some charge a sign-up fee, and most ask you to take editing tests before offering any employment.

The freelance writer's 'zine provides some helpful guidelines and resources for this kind of work.

Not-for-Profit Job and Internship Fair: Look for rewarding and exciting positions in public service, civil service and government! Come to the DePaul Student Center on Friday, May 21 from 1-4. Pre-register for this even on the eRecruiting page of DePaul's Career Center Website. More info

Southern Writers, Southern Writing: University of Mississippi Graduate Student Conference held in conjunction with the Annual Faulkner and Yoknapawpha Conference. The deadline for submissions is May 17th, 2004. The conference will be held July 22-24th 2004. More Info.

The 2004 Graduate Student Conference: Organized and run by graduate students, the conference is interdisciplinary in scope; papers are invited in any area of medieval or Renaissance studies. It provides participants the opportunity to present their work in a collegial scholarly forum, to meet students from other institutions and disciplines who will be their future colleagues, and to become familiar with the Newberry Library and its resources. The deadline for abstracts has past, but you can still join in on the confernece. Check out http://www.olemiss.edu/conf/swsw!
More Info.

The 3rd International Student Byron Conference

2004 M/MLA conference announcements and ongoing calls for papers.

Faculty News: Dr. Anne Bartlett gave a presentation with College of Lake County Prof Sean Murphy and Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs DiRionne Pollard at the recent AACC (American Association of Community Colleges) convention in Minneapolis (April 22-25). Our panel discussed the community college teaching internships that we've been doing at CLC and our plans for a certificate program at the MA level in Teaching English in Two-Year Colleges. The keynote speaker at this event was Kweise Mfume, president of the NAACP, and George W. Bush delivered an hour-long speech on April 24th.

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