Service to the University

Serving in a leadership position

Chair, Graduate Studies Committee

From 2013-2014, I served as chair of the Graduate Studies Committee. As chair, I prepared agendas, led monthly meetings and discussions on new and revised courses and programs, and communicated with relevant committees and persons, including the Registrar and school Deans. I maintained committee documents in a central, easy-to-access place, updated Blackboard with minutes and other documents, and gave reports to Faculty Council. While I was chair, we specifically worked with Quality Matters to clearly outline the curriculum development process for online courses at the graduate level. That year we were also involved with university discussions about graduate student assistants, workload, and probation and dismissal policies, including a workflow to close the information loop.

Chair, Rank and Tenure Committee

From 2016 to 2017, I served as the chair of the Rank and Tenure Committee. This committee reads and evaluates all faculty applications for promotion and tenure. As chair, I built on my prior committee membership experience and the significant help of former chairs to lead the committee in its efforts. Last year, we evaluated nearly 20 applications for promotion and tenure, and as chair, I was responsible primarily for answering questions and shepherding faculty through the construction process. I lead a Handbook change through Faculty Council that more clearly and accurately articulated the current practices by which we evaluate and award promotion and tenure, laying the groundwork for substantial future changes to the review file to eliminate redundancies. I also developed a new and consolidated handbook describing the process, including the third-year review process within this handbook and adding a table of contents and more for ease of use. I updated and transferred our materials to the new Canvas module system, gave regular reports to Faculty Council and my school meetings, was prompt with creating and uploading written reports, and posted all minutes in a responsible, transparent, and timely manner. I also communicated progress and feedback to the Provost and School Deans, ensuring process transparency. I updated the Google Sites template used to guide faculty through the application and led the annual May workshop for applications in development, using my technological expertise to provide a helpful overview and answer questions about Google Sites. In my leadership of this committee, I worked very hard to ensure that all voices were heard, and I am proud of having the opportunity to serve in this capacity. An email from the Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences is a testament to this work:

I wanted to pass along reaction to the recent R&T workshop you held. Several faculty who attended have given glowing reports of what a great job you did: you were thorough, detailed, organized, answered questions really well, etc. I wanted to be sure that this got back to you, and to thank you for taking such care with this important event, and indeed for doing such a great job as chair of the R&T committee this year.

Director, Graduate Program in English and Humanities

After having served first as Director of the Graduate Program in Humanities (2011-2012) and, with a dear colleague Sean Hoare as Co-Director of the newly-consolidated Graduate Program in Literature, Language, and the Humanities (2012-2013), I took over as program director in 2013 and served until 2015. As program director, I advised our MA students, ensuring that they remained on track to graduate on their timelines; served as the point person for all thesis and practicum capstone projects (and directed many), worked with the Chair of the Department of Literature and Languages as well as faculty members in Philosophy, History, Art History, and other programs to schedule our courses each term, completed annual assessment reports, and saw the program through a successful five-year with external review. From the APBP response to the review:

APBP recognizes the program’s viability and its value to the University. Both the self-report and the report of the external reviewer (Dr. Kathryn Temple) identified Several strengths of the program. The program strongly supports the University’s mission, fills a niche in the DC area, and is consistent with programs offered by MU’s aspirant institutions. The Certificate in Teaching English at the Community College seems particularly promising, and student advising was noted as a particular strength. Commendably, the program has a high completion rate. The program, in addition, both motivates faculty and enjoys a strong commitment from faculty.

Based on the external review, I led a program revision to change the name from "Literature, Language, and the Humanities" to "English and Humanities," to help recruit more effectively, and developed a series of professionalization workshops to adjust expectations about graduate study. I developed and updated a wide variety of policies and procedures, including a Graduate Assistant Handbook and a Graduate Student Handbook,

requested as models by the Provost for later university-wide handbook work. I led an annual orientation for new graduate students; organized Humanities Colloquium events and the annual Bisson Lecture in the Humanities; maintained an MA Thesis archive; and instituted the requirement for a final thesis/practicum defense that is open to the public. As program director, I also worked with Admissions to prepare recruitment materials, and served on the Graduate Studies Committee, liaising with that body on discussions surrounding workload and program revision; in 2013, I became its chair. Mentoring colleagues and students

After our most recent departmental hire was made, I served as our departmental mentor for David Brown, discussing everything with him from how to make copies to how to balance teaching with scholarship, and I also mentored him as he has taken over the Graduate Program in English and Humanities. Currently, I was asked to be the external faculty mentor for Mary Proenza, a new hire in Fine Art. I often mentor students, serving as faculty contact for several students doing internships and helping students at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels prepare for conference presentation. Please see the two appropriate sections from Outstanding Teaching, "Mentoring students who present their research" and "Direction of student research projects." Finally, I serve as the I also serve as the faculty advisor for two student clubs on campus, Ladies Inspiring Strength for Tomorrow and the recently-formed Asian and Pacific Islander Student Alliance.

Participating in institutional development effortsAs director of our MA program in English and Humanities, I worked with admissions to prepare recruitment and advertising materials and educate staff about the nature of a non-professional, humanities-focused graduate degree. I am active in my department both in program promotion and curriculum development, leading a program review for our Masters program as well as a program revision, assisting with program open houses at both the graduate and the undergraduate levels, and participating in assessment efforts at both the graduate and the undergraduate levels. In 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, I participated in university-wide Liberal Arts Core assessment workshops. In June of 2017, I co-authored an institutional grant (with The University of Virginia) now under consideration with the National Endowment for the Humanities in the amount of ~75k; applications are currently being deliberated, and award announcements will be made in November.

Participating as an official representative of the university in regional, national, or international meetings

I am currently (and for the past three years have been) the president of the Digital Humanities Caucus of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century, and since 2014 I have also served as Marymount's delegate to the Virginia Humanities Conference. I describe these duties in detail under Service to the Discipline.

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