The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the National English Honor Society, held the Second Annual Graduate and Undergraduate Student Conference on Literature, Composition, and Rhetoric on October 16 and 17.  Two Lee University students, Emily Carlisle and Mallory Leonard, were accepted to present their papers at the convention.

Carlisle presented her paper “The Eternal Poet” in a panel on Studies of American Literature.  Her paper, which she wrote for 20^th Century American Drama, focuses on Tennessee William’s play Suddenly Last Summer, and she subverts the protagonist’s perceived death.  The reading slot for her was 7:30 a.m., and she says, “If you have to read your paper before the sun also rises, it is always a good idea to discuss Tennessee Williams’ religious hauntings in order to get the synapses firing.”

In her paper, “Struggle Against Water: A Deeper Look at Queen Gertrude in Hamlet,” Leonard uses feminist literary criticism to claim that Gertrude’s character serves as a warning to women who may give into patriarchy and deny their own femininity.  She claims that Ophelia and Gertrude are opposites: Ophelia embraces her feminine nature and escapes the patriarchal structures around her through suicide, but Gertrude fears to follow and remains trapped in the world of men which destroys her.

This is the first conference at which either has presented, and both found the reading useful.  Leonard says, “Overall, the experience was beneficial.  This was my first experience reading one of my papers in front of anyone else, and I’m very glad I did it.  I look forward to participating in more conferences in the near future.”

This year, new faculty joins the College of Arts and Sciences.  Professor Jeff Ringer, Dr. Wendy Steinberg, and Professor Alan Wheeler are new additions in the English, Psychology, and Anthropology discipline respectively.  

Professor Ringer, pictured middle, at his wedding

Professor Jeff Ringer is a Lee alum finishing his Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition through the University of New Hampshire while teaching here at Lee.  His dissertation is on Evangelical Identity and Academic Writing, which he says is an important reason he is here.  “Part of the reason that attracted me to coming back here was teaching students who were the subject of my dissertation.  I hope to continue researching and help design courses and programs that involve students and writing majors with research.”

Dr. Steinberg teaching her Statistics class

Dr. Wendy Steinberg, who taught previously at Eastern University, feels her charge is to teach Statistics and Research Methods effectively.  The class is her passion, and as many students are afraid of statistics, her goal is “to help them find it enjoyable, fun, and useful.”  To her, that is the definition of success, and she believes it’s possible. She is the author of Statistics Alive, an introductory text on the subject.

Professor Wheeler with Byamba

If he were to accomplish anything while here at Lee, professor Alan Wheeler says, it would be to give students a broader perspective of the world while encouraging them to draw closer to Jesus.  He always felt called to be a missionary, but God had other plans.  He became an anthropologist because he has a “natural love for the exotic, the distant, the unusual.”  Here, he is pictured with Byamba in one of Mongolia’s remotest regions, only accessible traveling by moose trails for over 100 miles.  The only contact this tribe had prior to Wheeler’s visit was Hungarian scientist 40 years ago. Wheeler is working on a doctorate from the University of Cambridge.

Students at the salt mines in Germany

This past summer, thirteen trips from various departments inside the College of Arts and Sciences participated in a cross-cultural experience.  Dr. Jeffrey Sargent co-led the third annual Psychology trip to Europe with Dr. Heather Quagliana.  Twenty-nine students visited Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, and were able to see the salt mines of Germany, visit Freud’s office, and attend a lecture at the Carl Jung Institute.  The Italy trip, led by Dr. Matthew Sims and Professor John Simmons, took twenty-two students to Rome, Orvieto, Florence, Venice, and Milan to study Renaissance art, Baroque Italy, and Ancient Rome.

Dr. Donna Summerlin led nine students on the American Ethnic Studies trip which focused on the ethnic diversity of the South, including African American history and the Civil Rights movement.  The Modern Europe trip, led by Dr. Steve Swindle and Dr. Jeff Golden, took twenty-four students to Brussels, Paris, Munich, Salzburg, and Budapest to study Humanities and Political Science; while there they were able to see NATO, the Eagle’s Nest, Dachau, and many museums.

Students at a grill in Hiroshima

Dr. Trevor Milliron and Dr. Robert Fisher led another psychology trip to Japan; twenty-five students traveled for eleven days to Tokyo, Osaka, and Hiroshima, along with some trips into the countryside.  Twenty-five students participated in the Argentina Spanish Institute trip led by Dr. Alexander Steffanell and Professor Carmen Guerrero to Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires.  There, they visited museums and held a language café at the Universidad de la Empresa.

On these trips, students are able to experience life outside of Lee University, as well as become more acquainted with their professors.  Beth Thompson, Director of the Global Perspectives program says, “What better academic pursuit is there than having a student learn hands-on the meaning of their own Christian values and how those relate to another cultural perspective.  As faith based educators we have an ethical responsibility to teach our students there are other ways of knowing and thinking.”

Alexander Steffanell recently discovered that his article about Jeronima  Nava y Saavedra, a female mystic writer from the Colonial Spanish American period.  The article was published in the Latin American Women Writers Encyclopedia (Eds. Maria Claudia Andre and Eva Paulino) in 2008.  

The article centers around the “spiritual autobiography,” Autobiografia de una monja venerable, of Nava y Saavedra, a nun in the Convent of Poor Clares in Bogota, Columbia, who lived  from 1669-1727.  Oftentimes, being part of a convent was the only way for a woman’s voice to be heard, and Nava y Saavedra’s autobiography joins the ranks of other Spanish American female mystics’ works.  

Steffanell points out that Jeronima del Espiritu Santo “employs rhetorical and discoursive strategies as she reveals her desires, dreams, and inner conflicts.”  These are presented as discussions between herself and her confessor, and contain elements of an imaginary world laden with eroticism and explorations of her sexual identity.

Posted by Amber Mear

Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society, inducted fourteen new students this semester on September 18.  The festivities were held in the Centenary Room for the so-called “neophytes”.  Many of the new members are sophomores.

Newest members of Sigma Tau Delta

Kevin Brown, Sigma Tau Delta’s faculty sponsor, mentioned that this is one of the larger groups that has been inducted in recent years.  There are about fifty members of Sigma Tau Delta, while the English major has around one hundred and thirty members.  In order to be eligible for participation in the Honor Society, a student has to have a B average at least in one upper division English course.

Posted by Amber Mear

Alexander Steffanell recently published an article in the Romance Quarterly, a scholarly journal from the University of Kentucky Foreign Languages department.  The article is entitled, “Violencia sexual y la construccion del otro: el caso de la madre Castillo, una mistica del Nuevo Reino de Granada.”  Steffanell presented the article as a paper (a chapter from his dissertation) at a conference at the University of Kentucky in the spring semester of 2008 as part of a memorial panel for his advisor.  Steffanell’s advisor died unexpectedly in the summer of 2006, and Steffanell was his last doctoral student to graduate.

Dr. Steffanell also recently returned from a week-long trip to Argentina, where the director of the Church of God seminary in Buenos Aires invited him to teach an intensive course on thesis writing. He was also able to make contacts for the cross-cultural trip to Argentina that he hopes to organize for the summer.

Posted by Amber Mear

Grant Henley attended a workshop in Chicago sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of German the weekend of September 12.  The workshop was put on by a task force appointed to examine program models to increase enrollment in college and high school German classes.  The task force, entitled “Sustaining the Momentum”, was hosted by the Goethe Institut.  In addition to Lee University, representatives from the University of Rhode Island, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, University of Pennsylvania and Oklahoma State University spoke in the panels.  At the conclusion of the workshop, Henley accepted an invitation to join the task force.  

Henley mentioned receiving great ideas to implement at Lee.  There are currently 63 students enrolled in the four German classes offered this fall.  The German minor was recently reinstated after a lengthy hiatus, making it possible for intermediate and advanced German classes to be offered on Henley’s Global Perspectives trip to Germany last summer.  Henley also discussed the possibility of a German major, which he is exploring with the English and Modern Foreign Languages department.  

Posted by Amber Mear

Kevin Brown has one freshman Composition class that has given him a difficult time for not having a cell phone.  While this detail is greeted with resigned bemusement in Brown’s upper division courses, the freshmen seemed unable to grasp the idea of a professor not having a cell phone.  With this in mind, Brown submitted an article to Inside Higher Ed which focused on cell phone usage in the classroom. Brown cites modeling positive behavior as one of his principal reasons for his intentional technological lack.  Other reasons include fostering independence in students, not to mention reducing the general annoyance of cell phones going off in class.  

Dr. Brown’s arguments were not left unchallenged.  In fact, he was criticized in some comments for being behind the times. Brown enjoyed the commentary, saying that he had hoped to create discussion.

See the Dialog page for a link to the article itself.

Posted by Amber Mear

Photo by Colegio Americano de Baranquilla

On July 16th and 17th, Dr. Jim Wilkins headed up an ESL seminar in Barranquilla, Colombia.  The workshop took place at El Colegio Americano, an American school whose goal is bilingual education.  The two-day seminar was aimed at assessing language levels in instructing EFL and on setting goals for the courses taught there.

Around twenty people attended the ESL workshop, all of whom were English teachers at local schools.  All of them were native Spanish speakers.  Wilkins, who teaches French and is also an Oral Proficiency Interview tester and trainer, said he found the experience beneficial for all involved.

To find out more about El Colegio Americano at Barranquilla and the ESL seminar, please visit their website.

Posted by Amber Mear

“My paternal grandfather and two of my aunts are the only survivors of the Spanish Civil War in my family,” said Lee University professor Sara Ortega in her opening speech. “The others are gone, and may they rest in peace.”

“Their voices have been silenced forever, but their message is still heard today. We will carry on their message of hope, love, freedom, and democracy. We will tell their stories to our children and the children of our children, and to you, Lee University, tonight.”

In preparation for Hispanic Heritage month in September and October, The Lee University Spanish Honor Society, Sigma Delta Pi, and the Diversity Council, headed by Ortega, jointly honored the 69th anniversary of the end of the Spanish Civil War on Thursday, April 10, in the Edna Minor Conference Hall.

The theme of the meeting involved honoring the victims of Fascism in the Spanish Civil war. Sara Ortega opened the event with a commentary on the Spanish Civil War and her personal experiences of its aftereffects:

“Referring to the Spanish Civil war, Antoni Doménech wrote ‘No other even has ever moved so deeply and so durably the international democratic public opinion of the 20th century than the persistent resistance of the Spanish people.’”

“These are the historical facts. For me, however, History is a mosaic of stories. I have seen it. I have held its hand and walked next to it. I have spoken to it and listened to it. I have touched and embraced it.”

Guest speakers included Marcos Ortega, a specialist in Contemporary Spanish History, who provided an introduction to the historical and political context of the era. Reverend Alberto Ortega, the father of professor Sara Ortega, gave his personal testimony as a member of an anti-fascist maquis family who were persecuted and tortured by dictator Franco and finally fled Spain in the 1950s. This was his first time speaking publicly about his experiences:

“I want to be honest with you. This movie is called Broken Silence, and I will break the silence…We were Spaniards without country, without rights, without anything…This pain will not be over, it will keep going…so many people are suffering, until Jesus comes back…So I share with you my broken silence.”

At the meeting the highly acclaimed movie Silencio Roto, “Broken Silence,” by accomplished director Montoxo Armendariz was shown and discussed between students and a panel of professors and teachers. Issues raised included the vision and role of women, psychological and emotional survivor traumas, sociological and anthropological perspectives, and cinematography.