Congratulations to our 12 students in the SILCS class of 2009. We are looking forward to seeing all of you in June. By now, everyone should have been contacted as to the status of their applications. If you have not received notice, please let us know. Watch this space in June for news of Institute events!
Archive for the ‘institute events’ Category
Welcome SILCS class of 2009
Monday, April 20th, 2009Congratulations
Monday, February 23rd, 2009We would like to congratulate our 2008 SILCS graduates on their acceptances into graduate programs, mostly in English but also in French and comparative literature. Our students have currently been accepted into:
Brown University
The University of California at Irvine
Dartmouth College
Indiana University
The University of Michigan
Northwestern University
The Ohio State University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
The University of California, Los Angeles
The University of Pennsylvania
The University of Texas
Washington University in St. Louis
And there are more acceptances arriving every day! Congratulations, everyone.
Update:
Here are a few more schools to add to the list:
Columbia University in the City of New York
Cornell University
Rice University
Tufts University
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
University of Vermont
Week Four
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008The first Summer Institute for Literary and Cultural Studies has come to an end. On Sunday, June 29th, the students flew home, armed with knowledge of the graduate school process, connections to mentors and other people in their field, and a semester’s worth of literary and cultural studies crammed into one month.
The last week started with a fun weekend. On Friday everyone went to the bowling alley, where we discovered a few students were secretly bowling pros. On Saturday evening, a bus took the students into Providence to see Waterfire. Waterfire is an event that happens in Providence every week or two in the summer, where braziers are lit down the middle of the river and music plays while gondolas take people through the water.
Sunday morning everyone headed out to Providence again, this time to the Save the Bay Center right on Narragansett Bay. A small boat took everyone on a tour of the bay and a visit to the salt marshes of Prudence Island.
Though there were no classes during the last week of the Institute, there were lecturers every day. Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Dr. Herman Beavers, Dr. Deyonne Bryant, Dr. Shawn Christian, Dr. Dennis Foster and Dr. April Langley all spoke to the students throughout the week. President Ronald Crutcher and Dr. Betty Crutcher also had a meeting with the students on Monday morning and hosted a dinner at their house Monday night.
On Friday, representatives from Boston College, Boston University, Brown University, Tufts University, Southern Methodist University, University of Missouri Columbia, and the University of Delaware arrived on campus for a graduate school fair. Students had individual interviews with the Directors of Graduate Studies from each university.
Saturday, the students had their symposium, where they presented their papers as if they were on a panel at a conference. This was the culmination of all of their work at the Institute and was an astounding success. Afterwards everyone met for a formal dinner on their final night together at the Institute, where they were presented with certificates marking their accomplishment.
By now everyone is back home, recovering from their action-packed month. Next year will bring with it a group of new students, and hopefully this year’s students will be able to come back and visit. Keep an eye on this space in the fall for more program profiles and the launch of our official SILCS podcast, where we will showcase some of the lecturers who spoke in June.
Week Three
Friday, June 20th, 2008The final week of classes has come to a close at SILCS, and now the students have time to focus on finishing their papers and getting ready for a symposium on June 28th. The past three weeks have been packed with a semester’s worth of theory and instruction, and the students have done an admirable job in keeping on top of things.
Amidst their classes, the students also took three more trips to visit nearby colleges and universities. On Wednesday the 11th, the students took a trip to Harvard University. On Friday the 13th was Bridgewater State College, and on Tuesday the 17th was Brandeis University. These three campuses, along with the previous visits to Yale University and Brown University, showcased the types of campuses and graduate programs that the students could expect to attend and at which they could eventually teach.
The series of lectures continued with Dr. Darryl Dickson-Carr of Southern Methodist University. Dr. Dickson-Carr is a member of the SILCS Steering Committee and spoke to the students about his career and getting a Ph.D. in English. Dr. Dagmawi Woubshet of Cornell University spoke about doing comparative work and his travel around the world. This was followed by Dr. Dolan Hubbard, another SILCS Steering Committee member, who spoke about the College Language Association and the Modern Language Association. Yesterday, Thomas Sayers Ellis, who teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, talked about creative writing and read a few of his own poems, including The Obama Hour, which was recently showcased in The Root.
There has been some leisure time in the past week as well. On the 19th, SILCS attending a showing of The Taming of the Shrew at the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre in Pawtucket. The production was a fun and energetic interpretation of the play, set in 1960s Italy. Over the weekend, some students visited Boston. Tonight there will be bowling, and tomorrow there will be a trip to see the Providence Waterfire, before we enter the final week of the Summer Institute.
Week Two
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
With the second week of the Summer Institute just about half over, the students are really settling in to the routine on campus. On Friday there was an exam, an engaging discussion with Dr. Betty Neal Crutcher, and Chinese food in the Multicultural Center on campus. Friday ended with ice cream and Scrabble, but the students had to get up early Saturday morning for their visit to Brown University.
After several days of rain, the temperature shot up to the mid nineties, which made the day in Providence a very warm one. The students toured the John Carter Brown Library and then met with Dr. Rolland Murray before having some time to explore Providence on their own.
On Sunday there was an optional trip to McCoy Stadium to see the Pawtucket Red Sox play against the Buffalo Bisons. The day was even hotter than the day before, with temperatures just under three digits, and many of the students opted to stay home with their homework instead. For those who did go, however, it was a fun day at the ball park, even though the home team lost.
Monday and Tuesday both featured afternoon lectures. Dr. Emily Bernard from the University of Vermont discussed her essay Teaching the N-Word and spoke about hate speech and the power in self-naming. Dr. Shalene Vasquez from Dartmouth College talked about her own career and graduate school experience.
This morning the students headed out to Harvard University to meet with the English department and visit the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Later this week will be a trip to the theater, a visit to Bridgewater State College and, weather permitting, a day at the beach.
Week One
Thursday, June 5th, 2008This has been a very busy first week for the Summer Institute for Literary and Cultural Studies. On Sunday, June 1st, the twelve students arrived. Despite various airport woes, the day went quite well, and the early morning rains even cleared up into a gorgeous late spring day.
The students met with Dr. Paula Krebs of Wheaton College, who is Director of the Institute, and Dr. Robyn Warhol-Down of the University of Vermont, who is the faculty instructor. Also on campus was Dr. Valerie Lee of The Ohio State University. Dr. Lee was a major influence behind both SILCS and The Ohio State University’s Program for Humanities Development.
In the evening, Wheaton College President Dr. Ronald Crutcher and his wife Dr. Betty Neal Crutcher opened their home to the students, staff and guests of SILCS for a dinner and a talk about the history of Wheaton College.
On Monday, Dr. Valerie Lee gave a lecture on why she became an English professor:
Ever since I was a little girl, I knew that I wanted to teach. The only thing that ever changed was the grade that I wanted to teach. When I was in the first grade, I wanted to be a first grade teacher; when I was in the third, a third; when I was in fifth, a fifth; when I was in high school I wanted to be a high school teacher, but then when I got to college I still wanted to be a high school teacher because I did not know that I could actually become a college professor. I didn’t know any African Americans who were college professors.
On Tuesday, Dr. Lena Hill of the University of Iowa arrived to talk about her own graduate school experience. Dr. Hill graduated from Yale University in 2005 with a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature. On Wednesday, she accompanied the students on a visit to Yale and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where she had spent much of her time.
This weekend brings with it the students’ first exam, a trip into Providence, RI to see Brown University, and a leisurely afternoon at McCoy Stadium to see the Pawtucket Red Sox.