[CBW_Exec] CBW Exec Board meeting Agenda +

Mon Mar 9 13:30:37 CDT 2009

Hello everyone,

It's been great hearing about all the personal and professional developments
of the last year. It's nice to get more detail here than we would be able to
get in a brief report before the exec board meeting.

At Kingsborough Community College, last year was a very good year. Our
English Department, which offers many developmental reading and writing
courses, was able to hire 8 impressive new professors. It's a good thing
because this year all of CUNY, like so many other institutions, has a hiring
freeze. A lot of good work is happening at Kingsborough, much of it in our
Learning Community programs, in which students take English and several
other courses in an interdisciplinary block program, where faculty from
different departments collaborate to make the students' learning more
meaningful.

I am also on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center, and in the fall of
2008 I taught a seminar for doctoral students on Narrative and Ethnographic
Inquiry. It's wonderful for me to be working on both ends of the CUNY
spectrum.

The *Journal of Basic Writing* has had another good year. Our Fall 2008
issue is finally in print (I'll bring a few copies on Wed.), and it features
a very impressive article by Sugie Goen-Salter and another by Brian Ray, the
young scholar who received last year's fellowship to attend CCCC in New
Orleans.

This spring, I'm enjoying the 2nd half of my sabbatical, which began last
spring. Soon to be published (finally!) is a co-authored chapter written
mostly in 2005. It's based on my work with Austrian teachers in the City
College M.A. Program and will be published online in TESL-ej. The book on
the history of basic writing, on which George Otte and I are collaborating,
is progressing well. We hope to have a final draft to the publisher sometime
in April. I hope to talk with many of you in a few days about your thoughts
on the future of basic writing in the U.S.

It was great hearing your personal updates. My big news is that my husband
and I became grandparents last year. Liberty Mahala Evans was born in July,
and she is an adorable little person. I'm actually babysitting for her
today. I'll be staying with our daughter's family in Mountain View, CA, for
the month of March to help out and enjoy the baby. Her latest
accomplishment? Today she learned to clap her hands.

I'll be taking the CalTrain to San Francisco early on Wed. morning and am
really looking forward to seeing all of you at the CBW Conference.

Rebecca

Rebecca Mlynarczyk
Professor of English, Kingsborough Community College & the Graduate Center,
CUNY
Co-Editor, *Journal of Basic Writing*

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Kathleen Baca <kbaca at nmsu.edu> wrote:

> It’s been great to hear what you all are doing, both professionally and
> personally. I can't even begin to think how you all manage to accomplish
> it all.  Thanks, Hannah and Shannon, for planning to do this online, and
> thanks to all for sharing.
>
> Work Stuff:
> Doña Ana Community College dropped “Branch” from its name and now is
> officially NMSU-DACC.  The other CC’s in the NMSU system didn’t get to
> keep, or maybe didn’t want to keep, the community college part.
>
> I’m still keeping the faith and fighting the good fight regarding some
> egregious practices by administration regarding the removal of tenure
> rights and responsibilities.  After reading a huge document detailing some
> of what has gone on the past few years, NMSU faculty appeals board wrote a
> letter critical of how things have been handled and asking for immediate
> changes. This received no response, and the buck has been passed or we
> have been stonewalled since then.
>
> A math colleague and I were able to teach credit classes at our Mesquite
> Neighborhood Learning Center last fall, a long-overdue happening for that
> historic and poor area of Las Cruces.  Unfortunately, the college offers
> very little support so only one course had enough enrolment for the spring
> semester, but it was a great experience that I will repeat Fall 09.
>
> I continue to teach mostly basic writing courses and am in the classroom
> 20 hours a week.  I notice that there is an attitude of entitlement among
> a greater percentage of students.  I think that NCLB is partly
> responsible, and I grieve for these students who have never been expected
> to work hard and thus do not believe in their own capabilities.
>
> Life Stuff:
> My husband and I both turned 50 last year.  A niece told me she’s never
> seen anyone so excited about being old!  Also, our youngest daughter left
> for Santa Clara University last September, so we are on our own for the
> first time ever.  Life is different after 32! years of having children
> around.  I have to say that the good outweighs the bad, and my husband and
> I are loving growing old together.
>
> I resigned from one local board last fall and from the Colonias
> Development Council last month.  The second was a tough decision for me,
> as working with colonia residents is part of my understanding of my call
> to promote social justice, but I’m the chair of Catholic Charities of the
> Diocese of Las Cruces (covering the southern half of NM), so it made
> sense.
>
> I’m so looking forward to seeing you Wednesday.  Today I teach three
> two-hour classes, and I’m suffering from daylight rearranging time.  kb
>
>
> Kathleen A. Baca
> English and Communication Department
> Doña Ana Community College
> MSC 3DA
> PO Box 30001
> Las Cruces, NM 88003
> 575-527-7626
> kbaca at nmsu.edu
>
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>
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