Weekly Newsletter: Tuesday Is News Day

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

The end of the semester is here! And you are making it through yet again - hurray to you! Hopefully you have some absolutely nothing planned for at least part of the upcoming break.  

If you are looking for a positive spin on the times in which we teach, check out "It's a Good Time to Be an English Professor" by Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan in Inside Higher Ed last week (thanks for sharing Sean!)

As the last newsletter of the semester, this Tuesday Is News Day is full of important dates and info.  Even if you don't have time right in this moment (because you are grading, wrangling final projects, or answering student emails), please be sure to come back and spend time with the updates.  

Wondering who to contact with a CLS question?  Please use the CLS email for sub requests, staffing questions, and general departmental inquiries. ✨ cls-office@austincc.edu ✨

And a special message from Wendy to Anja: You are the wind beneath our wings--this newsletter is out of sight, and you are so consistently awesone at assembling it. Thank you!!!! You deserves some much needed time off!

Merry, Happy, Everything Y'all! Our newsletter is just about to drop some Bailey's in her hot chocolate and relax In front of a fireplace listening to the sound of snow falling softly outside her Swiss chalet. We'll see her back the week before classes start--January 13, 2025!

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Important Dates! 

December 17 

Grades due by 5pm [Admissions and Enrollments Faculty Support: Processes and Forms]

Save the Spring 26 Dates! 

January 12 

INRW Semester Start (virtual), 10am-12:30pm 

January 13 

CLS Dual-Credit Semester Start (virtual), 6:30pm-7:30pm 

January 14 

CLS Semester Start (RGC and virtual),  1pm-2:30pm 

Assessment Meeting (virtual), 5pm-6:30pm (details below!)

January 20 

Spring semester begins!

February 1 

Deadline for Amending your Eligibility (Adjunct Faculty)

February 6

ISDE Day! (HLC 2404 & 2405), 10:30am-2:30pm

March 6 

CCCs (HLC and virtual), 12pm-4pm

March 16 - March 22 

Spring Break, ACC Closed 

April 25 

Undergraduate Research Symposium, 11am-2pm

March 27 

CLS meets with Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart and VC Gaye Lynn Scott (virtual), 9am-10am

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CLS Announcements 

CLS Quick Links

CLS Evaluation Materials

2025-2026 Evaluation Deadlines Full Calendar

Academic Year 2025-2026 Collection Form

This form is created and maintained by the Assistant Department Chair for CLS's Evaluation Committee (Beth Frye).  Use this form to submit syllabi, Faculty Reflection Forms, and self-reported mandatory training for Fall 2025, Spring 2026, and Summer 2026. 

Submit Syllabi by the second week of classes (varies by session; Jan 30, 2026 for 16 week)

Submit Faculty Reflection Forms (Jan 30, 2026; Jun 12, 2026; Sept 4, 2026)

Submit self-reported Mandatory training (Due Feb 28)

Supplemental Materials for the CLS Annual Evaluation

Use this form to submit your Supplemental Materials for Annual Faculty Evaluation.  Need to know what to submit?  First, find your cycle year on the CLS Due List.  Then, use the What do I submit? chart. Submit AY26 Supplemental Materials by May 29, 2026. 

CLS K.I.S.S Spreadsheet

CLS K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Sweetheart) 

This spreadsheet allows CLS faculty to see and understand all required professional development tasks as well as several optional PD opportunities.  

CLS Faculty Handbook

CLS Faculty Handbook

The Faculty Handbook can answer many questions about CLS policy, staffing, evaluation, and more! Plus, you can find instructions for badge requests and grade changes.  The easiest way to navigate the CLS Faculty Handbook is the search field.  Look for the magnifying glass 🔍in the upper right corner of the homepage and type your keyword (badge request or change eligibility).

Conference Travel Request Form

LAHC Travel Expense Request 

File this Travel Expense Request with the LAHC Dean's office to request money for upcoming conference travel and attendance.  

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📣Shout Outs!📣 

Congratulations to ACC student Ruhan Gupta on the publication of "Schools Are Fighting AI. Students Will Pay the Price" in The Austin American-Statesman.  Ruhan is a current student in Professor Amber Drown's class at Westwood Highschool.  Check out the article at the Austin American-Statesman (here) or through the ACC Library (here - log in required). 

Check out Zoila Walston and Peach T.--two ACC students graduating this fall with an Associate of Arts in English.  Their intellectual curiosity and determination are celebrated in this article: "ACC's Fall 2025 Grads Carved a Pathway of Persistence & Community." Congrats to Zoila, Peach, and all graduating students--but especailly our English Majors! 

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End-of-Fall 2025 Agenda, Minutes, Slides, and Recording!

Agenda: Agenda End of Fall 2025 Semester Meeting

Minutes (updated 12/8 with some minor changes also listed below): CLS End-of-Semester Meeting Minutes

16. Assessment Committee Update

Amended: Action Required: Tag ENGL 1302 research assignments with four alignments in Blackboard; untag previous cycle tags

18. LEAD (Liberal Education Advancement and Development) Initiative

Amended: Undergraduate Research Symposium

Website created by Arun John; flyer by Alex Watkins and Fatima Shah

Recording:  Video

Password: YmEL$dt7

Slides CLS End-of-Fall Slides--PDF and  CLS End-of-Fall Canva Slide Deck

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Tag ENGL 1302 Essays, Deadline Dec. 14

This is your friendly reminder that, for the 2025-2026 academic year, the CLS department is collecting ENGL 1302 RESEARCH ESSAYS. (If you are not teaching ENGL 1302, you don't have to tag/submit anything.) We will be collecting our samples via BLACKBOARD.

To make this process successful, however, we need your help! Please make sure you do the following as soon as possible, and by the last day of fall classes at the latest--that's Sunday, December 14th.

This academic year we are being asked to TAG our assessments for the following:

• PSLO 2: Written Communication

• PSLO 3: Research for Writing

• Gen Ed: Critical Thinking

• Gen Ed: Personal Responsibility

To help you with this process, linked here is a video explaining how to correctly tag your assignments.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at theodore.yurevitch@austincc.edu!

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Faculty Evaluation Process Video

The Faculty Evaluation Committee knows that you all have questions about the Faculty Evaluation Process and the materials due.  And we know that it is easy to be overwhelmed by the process, especially if you are new to ACC or you teach at several institutions.  So a dream team assembled to bring you this Q & A video outlining the Faculty Responsibilities for Annual Evaluation. If you prefer to read instead of watch/listen, you can find the transcript and resources here. 

Seriously, thank you to this ✨amazing dream team✨:

• Beth Frye (Assistant Department Chair of CLS Faculty Evaluation)

• Kari Conness (Dual Credit Liaison)

• Chris Gardner (Dual Credit Liaison) 

• Jill Bosche (Assistant Department Chair of Adjunct Hiring and Orientation)

All of the forms mentioned in the video are available in the CLS Quick Links section of every Tuesday Is Newsday (scroll up, right under the Important Dates).

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Last Call For Presenters: CLS Curriculum Conference

Austin Community College's CCCs (CLS Curriculum Conference) will take place on Friday, March 6, 2026, from 12:00-4:00 PM at the Highland Campus (HLC) in Austin, Texas. 

The CCC is creeping closer by the day (March 6th!), and we're still calling for presenters and panelists who are doing innovative and meaningful work with students. Even though we have several planned topics (trauma informed pedagogy, multicultural curriculum, service learning, applying college values, reducing reliance on AI, and teaching students how to do research), we welcome unlisted topics that showcase your unique pedagogy, strengths, or investigations. So please, consider sharing your aura with us by presenting independently or with co-presenters! 

Complete this Proposal Form if you feel inclined to share your brilliance with the department. All the cool kids are doing it. December 12, 2025 is the deadline for proposals. 

Questions?  Contact Rob Crowl, assistant chair of Professional Development, Research, and Service.

AND GUESS WHAT! We've are so proud to announce that Deb Olin Unferth, much celebrated author, will be our plenary speaker! 

Deb Olin Unferth, author of six books and recipient of  a Guggenheim fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Capital Fellowship for Innovative Literature, fellowships from the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ucross residencies. She’s a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers’ Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Originally from Chicago, she lives in Austin with philosophy professor Matt Evans.

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Promote Student Work!

We all know our students are doing amazing things! As you reflect on the semester and grade final student projects, be on the lookout for exceptional student work and encourage students to submit to Curiositas or the Spring Undergraduate Research Symposium. 

Curiositas, Deadline Jan. 30, 2026

Curiositas, ACC’s academic journal for the Liberal Arts, is looking for submissions that showcase deep inquiry and intellectual creativity.

We want to celebrate the students who go above and beyond. Published students will be honored at a special ceremony this Spring.

Browse: View our current issue to see the type of work we champion.

Submit: Encourage your top students to submit their final papers/projects at our website. 

If you have questions, email Alex Watkins. 

Undergraduate Research Symposium, Deadline to apply Mar. 23, 2026

 📣CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS! Apply by March 23, 2026! 

The Liberal Education Advancement and Development (LEAD) initiative is sponsoring an Undergraduate Research Symposium and we are calling it 🌸 ACC In Bloom !! 🌸

 🎓📚🔬 What: A Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Symposium that will showcase work from students and faculty across all disciplines and levels of research experience.

🗓️⏰When: Saturday April 25, 2026, 11:00am-2:00pm.

🏫Where: Highland Campus.

👉Check out the marvelous Symposium Website and flyer.

Cacciatore, deadline Feb 22, 2026 

Dual Credit students can submit to the Cacciatore Contest here. 

See Cacciatore flyer for more details. 

Innovate, deadline is Feb 22, 2026 

All currently enrolled ACC students can submit to the League of Innovations contest here. 

See the Innovate flyer for more details. 

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Did You Incorporate Civic Engagement in U25 or F25? 

If you participated in the CLS pilot Incorporating Civic Engagement by using any or all of the artifacts provided, we want to know how it went.  Please let us know about your successes/challenges and share your corresponding assignments/projects! Use of Incorporating Civic Engagement, Pilot, Fall 2025

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Please Promote: Student Voice Editor, A Collaborative Culture 

Encourage your students to apply for this paid 💲💲💲 position as Student Voice Editor of A Collaborative Culture for the Spring 2026 semester.  Details and application here. 

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Update: Blackboard Accessibility Scores

ACC's Office of Distance Education (DE) is working hard to make sure faculty have the tools and know-how to make all BB courses accessible by April 24, 2026. 

If you received an email about the accessibility of your Blackboard course, please reach out to the Instructional Designer (ID) indicated in that same email.  The IDs are here to help get your documents reformatted and accessible. 

You can also check out the resources below!   

• Instructional design support offers DE Accessibility Training and drop-in Consultations

• DE's Accessibility Resource page

• TLED's Accessibility information page. 

• Materials from Trent Griggs' ADA Blackboard Compliance Training at the 2025 CCCs:

Accessibility Quick Guide

Blackboard Accessibility Orientation

Common Errors

Examples of Reasonable Accommodations

How to use Blackboard Ally

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January Assessment Meeting, Jan. 14, 5PM-6:30PM 

[for assessors and committee members]

Please mark your calendars for the January Assessment meeting on January 14th from 5 PM to 6:30 PM! 

This meeting is required for all faculty serving as assessors this year as well as committee members (please note: all faculty who submitted third-year evaluation materials in spring 2025 are required to serve as assessors in this year’s Discipline Assessment Cycle). Stay tuned for more information in your inbox, but in the meantime, here is the Zoom link for the meeting!

Contact Theo with questions!

Want to know that If you are one of the assessors? Check here!

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Update Your Teaching Eligibility (Adjunct Faculty)

Interested in expanding the courses you’re eligible to teach? Adjunct faculty are invited to submit a request to amend their teaching eligibility by completing the Amend Your Eligibility Google Form by February 1. Please be prepared to upload your transcripts in the final section of the form. 

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Please Promote: Spring Honors Courses!

Do you have curious, highly motivated students you think would do well in an Honors CLS course? Please let them know about our available Spring '26 courses! Four of our courses are full, but two still have openings:

• English Composition II: Queer Writings: Stories by and about LGBTQIA+ People (ENGL 1302-702; LEAD and Service-learning designations), RGC, Louisa Spaventa 

• American Literature II: Post-Civil War African-American Writers: 1865 and Beyond (ENGL 2828-701), RRC, Carrza Dubose

We also offer Honors courses in 17 other disciplines. If you have potential Honors students this semester who might be intimidated by the prospect of taking Honors courses, please give them a little nudge in our direction and encourage them to fill out an application. Alternatively, consider sharing our TLED-produced student impact video with your classes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPMmfxvpOoA.   

Please contact athomas2@austincc.edu with questions.

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Please Promote: Summer '26 Study Abroad in England

British Literature I & II, Study Abroad, England, Summer 2026

Walk the London city streets where Charles Dickens’ set Oliver Twist, witness a Shakespearean drama from the eyes of a 17th-century commoner at the reconstructed Globe Theatre, hike the wild moors outside Haworth where Charlotte and Emily Brontë played as young girls, stroll through Lexington Gardens where JM Barrie first entertained the family of young boys who inspired his Peter Pan, and even visit Canterbury Cathedral, the destination of Chaucer’s famous storytelling pilgrims! I’m excited to offer this up-close-and-personal experience of the cultural/historical context for so many powerful and influential staples of British literature. 

After laying the groundwork during in-person classes here in Austin, we will spend the second half of the 5-week summer session in London and several surrounding cities, touring cathedrals, museums, stately homes, and libraries, watching live performances, and visiting historically significant sites. During these two plus weeks in England, we will see literature in a new light through a deepened understanding of the life and times of great authors, including their original audiences, purposes, and cultural, religious, and political influences. Moreover, we will explore how these authors influenced and engaged with each other across centuries and how their lasting legacies continue to shape our stories and media today. Combining the theoretical and the practical, we will finish the course with collaborative on-the-ground projects that draw from our reading, research, and travel experiences, taking personal inspiration from literature, architecture, fashion, landscape, and more.   

-Ryan Lopez, CLS, ryan.lopez@austincc.edu

If you're interested, see details in this brochure and on the Study Abroad Programs webpage. Accepting applications now!

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Reminder: Academic Integrity Policies and Procedures

As we approach the end of semester, please make sure that your policies and actions around academic integrity concerns (including the use of gen AI) align with the ACC Academic Integrity Guidelines and Procedures, which you can also view in this flowchart.  

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Job Opportunity: OnRamps Writing Assessment Specialist

OnRamps at the University of Texas Austin is hiring part-time remote Writing Assessment Specialists to support OnRamps Rhetoric for the 2025-26 academic year.  Writing Assessment Specialists evaluate a total of eight major assignments, four each semester, and provide substantive written feedback.

Compensation: Writing Assessment Specialists who successfully complete all assigned 2025-26 assessments, with an average grading load of 30 essays per assignment, generally start between $2,299 - $2,420 per year, including training and calibration. Each candidate can elect to request up to 80 students for additional compensation. All grading assignments are contingent upon student enrollment.

For more information or to apply click here. 

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Job Opportunity: Creative Writing Adjunct Faculty 

The Creative Writing Department is looking for new adjuncts! 

The department is in search of instructors of all genres, but, as you know, we particularly are in need of folks to teach YA/Children’s Literature and Creative Nonfiction/Memoir. If you know anyone looking to work in a growing department and looking to support that kind of growth (through not only classroom teaching, but outreach and events), please let them know about the job posting.

Apply or share: Adjunct Faculty, Creative Writing, R-8569

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Contribute: CLS Profile 

For the last two years, the CLS Profile has been a great success; check out volume 2 here.  In preparation for an even more amazing volume 3, we've opened the Faculty Contribution (2026) form.

Unlike voting, you can actually submit to this form early and often.  Add some love notes now, come back in a month with pictures, and submit again after winter break when you've caught up on some leisure reading! 

Here's what we're looking for: 

• 📸Pics of you, your colleagues, your students! (Don't forget to get the photo consent form signed!)

• 💜Love Notes (end-of-semester "thank yous" from students, snippets from evaluations that stick with you)

• 📖Recommended reads (articles and books) 

• 🙋🏽Successful classroom strategies and engaging texts

• 📑Course or assignment re-designs 

• ✍️Professional publications, presentations, or achievements

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Please Promote: Student Cover Art Contest for the CLS Profile 

Please let your student know that the CLS Profile is holding a student cover art contest. Share the following with your students:

CALL FOR ART: be featured across the department and win some swag! 

Please submit your art for the Department of Composition and Literary Studies' annual look-book. Submissions must fit on an 8.5" x 11" sheet at 300 ppi/dpi. Any file type that can be opened with Adobe will be accepted. We'd love your unique work of art--so no AI-generated images, please! Keep the overall theme relating to the Composition and Literary Studies department. Submission deadline: January 4, 2025.

Contact & Submissions: Mads.Fielder@austincc.edu 

Example? https://englishmajor.acclahc.org/profile/

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Please Promote: Writing Tutor

Becky Villarreal, ACC English instructor and LELA tutor, assists students with papers asynchronously via email. First, they need to click here to fill out the intake form and then email her at bvillarr@austincc.edu (with their papers in a DOC file as well as their instructor's directions). Email Becky if you have questions or check out her tutoring website for resources and more info. Please feel free to announce this option to students in your CLS courses. Thanks!

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Trouble with Blackboard Ultra? You're not alone!

If you have questions about BB Ultra or need assistance, here are a few resources:

After hours call-in support via Anthology (Spring break 2025 through December 2025)

• • • • • 866-992-5190

In-house support 

• email blackboardultra@austincc.edu to request help