From the Chair

Panel discussion during English Career Week

 

Greetings from San Luis Obispo!

The English Department had another busy and successful year in 2016-2017. We hired two terrific new colleagues who will expand our course offerings in ethnic American literature and in Queer Studies. And we bade farewell to linguist Johanna Rubba, as she retired at the end of the year. In November, we celebrated alumnus Jim Kouf (English, ’74) as the College of Liberal Arts’ Honored Alumnus. Jim’s career in Hollywood includes writing films such as National Treasure and Money Monster, as well as producing and writing popular TV shows like Grimm. Our students won highly competitive national fellowships and were admitted to graduate programs in English, museum studies, law, linguistics, library and information science, and religious studies. We couldn’t be prouder of our alumni, graduates, and continuing students.

This year also saw the first annual English Career Week, a program we sponsored in collaboration with Career Services. Especially popular events were the panel discussion featuring five alumni with disparate careers and the sixth Speed Networking event. Students gained valuable insight from alumni in career positions including copywriter for Pottery Barn Kids, digital marketing strategist, accounting manager, external relations lead for IBM and freelance designer and product developer. Alumus Roger Reedy (English, ’86), director of business development at Business Management Solutions for Small Business (BBSI), is interested in further developing our Career Connections program to include alumni mentoring, both in-person and virtually. If you are interested in learning more about this new program, please contact me. 

I hope you enjoy our annual newsletter, filling you in on other happenings in the department. Let us know what you think by posting to our Alumni Facebook page. And please keep in touch —nothing pleases us more than to hear from former students!

Kathryn Rummell
Department Chair