Weekly Newsletter: Tuesday Is News Day

Summer 24 (5B) Syllabi and Peer Dialogue Forms

5B Syllabi Due July 15

Please scroll down the  Academic Year 23-24 Collection Form until you see the following:

🙂Summer 24 Syllabi, Option #1🙂

Follow the directions and provide the link to the folder containing your syllabi or, alternatively, upload each summer syllabus in the Option #2 section.

Be sure to hit SUBMIT before exiting the Google Form!

You do not need to resubmit documents you previously submitted, e.g. syllabi from previous semesters.  Those have already been deposited in your folder for review by the Faculty Evaluation Committee.

Peer Dialogue Forms Due August 15

The new ACC Faculty Evaluation Process will include a new component: Peer Dialogue.  During the period of annual and portfolio evaluations, the Faculty Evaluation Committee will assess your Peer Dialogue activity and form as Complete or Incomplete.  Although ACC requires multiple meetings for this dialogue, instructors will submit only one report (form) per academic year. 

Follow these steps to report your Peer Dialogue activity:

1. Make a copy of this Peer Dialogue Form

2. Complete and save as a PDF

3. Upload to the Peer Dialogue Collection

You can find more resources in this shared folder: Peer Dialogue Shared Folder

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Updates from INRW

• Fall 24 Coreq Enrollment - As you know fall registration is afoot. As a friendly reminder, if students email you requesting access to your coreq, please forward those requests to Ursula or Linda. You may share this link as well Fall Coreq Registration.

• The INRW Institute Kickoff begins this week @ HLC. Please contact Kendall Dingee or Amarilis Castillo for information.

• When you have a moment, please check out the new and improved INRW Website courtesy of Colin, Wendy, & Ursula. We are pleased with the work and some edits are still in progress.

• Once again, thanks to all English Faculty who are INRW partners. We are making coreqs work for our students. If you are interested in becoming a partner, let Ursula Parker know.

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Reminders about Professional Development 

Required PD 

Check in on Workday to make sure that are you are up-to-date on your required professional development.  Here's a quick reminder of the required PD:

• Cybersecurity Awareness Training - complete every year

• ADA Awareness (Tapestry) - complete every other year

• Harassment & Discrimination Prevention (Groundswell) - complete every other year

• Title IX and Sexual Misconduct Training (Meridians) - complete every other year

• Active Shooter Training - complete every year (added to mandatory training on June 27)

Full-time faculty are required to complete 12 hours and adjunct faculty 4 hours of professional development every fiscal year.  

Logging additional PD 

Please make sure that you log all of your professional development in Workday.  If you attended the CCC (CLS Curriculum Conference), the LAG Student Symposium, and/or the Vertical Alignment Content Swap, be sure to enter your Professional Development Hours in Workday.

• CCC (CLS Curriculum Conference), up to 4 hours PD; select Conference from the drop down menu in Workday

• LAG Student Symposium, up to 2 hours PD; select Symposium from the drop down menu in Workday

• Vertical Alignment Content Swap, up to 4 hours PD; select Conference from the drop down menu in Workday

Visit the CLS Faculty Handbook for step-by-step directions about accessing required PD or logging your PD. 

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New CLS Mental Health Resources Hub

Jill Bosche has pulled together some FABULOUS and much needed resources into our new Mental Health Resources Hub for CLS. Big thanks to our intrepid and totally awesome web site designer, Colin Shanafelt, for his work. Please take a moment to review the new site. It has so much Information--I am so grateful to Jill for taking this from a brilliant idea to a fully developed resource we so heartily need!

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Participate in the Liberal Arts Gateway for Fall 2024!

The Liberal Arts Gateway (LAG) is a student success initiative that seeks to link the student’s lived experience to the heart of each Liberal Arts discipline. LAG faculty focus on community building and engagement strategies within themed classes that involve students in meaningful avenues of inquiry. As a LAG member, you will redesign an existing composition or literature class while participating in a Community of Practice that offers collaboration and support. If you would like to be a part of LAG, email Chris Berni: cberni@austincc.edu.

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Please Promote: Student Submission to Curiositas

Curiositas is ACC's academic journal for the Liberal Arts, Humanities, and Communication. We are dedicated to publishing excellent student work that showcases curiositas, the meddlesome, intense curiosity that underlies our disciplines. As you're completing your final grading, please nominate or submit your best student work to be considered for next year's edition. You can check out our current issue at our website, and submit there too! Please reach out to Alex Watkins, alexandra.watkins@austincc.edu, if you have any questions!

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Please Promote: Submission for Student Research Symposium

From Chris Berni 

The Student Research Symposium will be back in April 2025, and we are accepting submissions through February 28, 2025. This event was super fun this year and reminds us all of why we love teaching! Please submit (with student permission) or encourage your students to submit their best research projects via the LAG website. We will consider any work that can be turned into a poster, presented on a laptop, or read aloud.

Please reach out to Chris Berni (cberni@austincc.edu) if you have any questions!

Also, if you would like to read student submissions, let Chris know!

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Student Writing Group

Join us Wednesday, July 17, at 7 p.m. for the second brainstorming session for the Student Writing Group (both creative and academic) set to launch this fall. Click here for the link. Last week I met with enthusiastic students bursting with energy and ideas. Although the meeting went well, we need more faculty participation and input if this group is going to be successful. Send me an email at bvillarr@austincc.edu if you have any questions, as well as the names and email addresses of students interested in taking a leadership role in this endeavor.

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Update on English Major Concentrations and Degree Audits

If you'd like to help our majors graduate on time, please volunteer to run a degree audit on one or two students who are near completion. It takes about 10 minutes. 

Email me Theo Yurevitch to get the student names; he will get you onto the spreadsheet you need to be on and will assign you a student or two.

Basically, you get a student's ID, look up their transcripts, fill out the English AA audit form, and email the student, their advisor, and me the completed form. We have a template for the email to the student/advisor and me. So, the lion's share of the work is you + the audit form. Then copy, paste, attach, and send!

English Degree Audit Process

English Degree Audit Form

How to Access Student Transcripts - YouTube Video

The English Degree Audit Form - YouTube Video

From The Revitalizing the Major Team: 

Greetings, CLS Faculty! 

In the fall, we'll vote to ratify the content and structure of the three English Major Concentrations we've created together. The documents governing the concentrations are linked below. We'd love your feedback and suggestions, or just general questions, so that we can work the final crafting stages smoothly and collaboratively.

Concentration in Honors English and Composition

Concentration in Multicultural Literature

Concentration in Popular Culture

Please direct questions regarding concentration content and structure to Eli Ryder or Theo Yurevitch. And, if you have questions about or would like to volunteer to work with our fabulous students with their concentration portfolios, direct those inquiries to Wendy Elle.

We look forward to hearing from you!

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CLS Blackboard Shell, Review and Comment

At the CLS Tres de Mayo Meeting we got a sneak peek at the Blackboard shell that the Textbook and Technology Committee has been working hard to build.  CLS Faculty can now VIEW the Shells in the demo area of Blackboard. Please keep in mind that we are in the perusal and feedback phase of this process. The Shells are not ready for you to export and use yet. 

Access the BB Shells by following this link: https://austincc-demo.blackboard.com/ultra/stream 

Click on COURSES and find Template 1 and Template 2

Share your feedback on this form: Blackboard Shell Comments and Suggestions

CLS faculty have been added to the BB Shells as Facilitators.  This means that you will be able to look around in Instructor View, but you will not be able to change any content.  So please don't try to change any content!

If you are unable to access the BB Shells, please contact Anja Ketcham and include your ACC ID in the email (it's the fastest way to add you).  

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Become a CLS Mentor 

At our Tres de Mayo CLS meeting, Luanne Preston mentioned our need for faculty mentors.  

Quick Details about the Mentor Role: 

Mentor requirements:  Three years teaching at ACC; "very good" or "excellent" student evaluations. Complete online ACC mentor training.

Mentor stipend:  $200 per mentee per semester; an expectation of about 10 hours of contact with mentee, including in-person meeting (if possible) and optional classroom visit.

If you are interested in mentoring a new or returning CLS faculty member in the Fall 2024/Spring 2025 semesters, then please complete this I Want to Be a Mentor form. 

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CLS Love Notes 💜

Sometimes students shout us out in emails, brief notes, evaluations, and thank you cards.  If you're willing to share these Love Notes from students, please add them to our Love Notes repository by filling out this form: CLS Love Notes.  CLS may share these on the CLS Department Profile or website.  

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Asynchronous Writing Tutor for Students

Send students my way for asynchronous writing help at bvillarr@austincc.edu. As an English teacher and writing tutor via LELA, I assist with completed writing assignments via email with less than 24 hours notice. Just ask students to send me the instructor's detailed instructions and the paper as a DOC file. Click here for more information.

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Please Promote: Fall '24 Honors CLS classes

Do you have curious, highly motivated students you think would do well in an Honors CLS course? Please let them know about our available Fall '24 courses! Below are the course titles, and you can take a look at the course profile page for more in-depth descriptions. 

• English Composition II: Texas Writers (ENGL 1302, 701), Joe O’Connell

• British Literature 18th c. to the Present: Gothic Literature (ENGL 2323, 700), Hyflex, RGC, MW 10:30-11:50 am, Melissa Holton 

• American Literature Civil War to Present: Sunrise in the Americas: Contemporary Indigenous Arts & Activism  (ENGL 2328, 701), Hyflex, CYP TTh 10:30-11:50 am, Heidi Juel 

• American Literature Civil War to Present: American Apocalypse: Wrecking and Rebuilding (ENGL 2328, 700), HLC, MW 1:30-2:50 pm, Anne-Marie Thomas

We also offer Honors courses in 14 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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Support English Majors

English Major Interest Form

In an effort to provide a seamless pathway for students to express interest in potentially joining our ranks, we've created an English Major Interest Form. It'd be fabulous if we could have this posted to your Blackboard sites! Pinned announcement, maybe? Or, Menu item in the "Student Support" section? Wherever it fits, we'd love to have the space!

English Major Interest Form

English Major Site Featured Faculty

Our magnificent English Major Website features a few faculty so that our majors can see who they have in their corner. We opened the site with the idea that we would all rotate through these featured spaces, providing a spotlight for many different voices and perspectives. Basically, you're all ROCKSTARS and we want to share the stage with all of you. If you're interested--and why wouldn't you be interested? --give the link below a click and submit your info. Help us show our majors how cool you are!

Featured Faculty Info Collection Form

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Infographic for Writing with AI

From Alex Watkins

Like you all, the past year or so has been a real reckoning for me as I learn how to move forward as a writing/tech comm teacher in the age of AI. I've been doing a deep dive--reading, talking to my students, attending workshops, doing training, facilitating training--and I've come to realize that no matter how hard I try, I can't police AI use out of students' writing in any effective or meaningful way. I also realized that generative AI can be so helpful for some of the major tasks I do every day. I use it to get started, improve my writing, help with tone and conciseness, and design rubrics. So, I've been working on convincing students not to use gen AI in ways that will bypass their own learning experiences and instead teaching them how to use generative AI in ways that are ethical and make their writing processes more effective. To that end, I made this infographic in Adobe Express, and I thought you might be interested in seeing what I've come up with. 

Writing with AI

I've also saved the infographic as a remixable template at the above link, so feel free to make a copy and change so it aligns with your own thoughts and policies! If you have any questions or would like to reach out for a bigger discussion, please feel free to reach out.