PhD Student Wincharles Coker has published a review of Beatrice Quarshie Smith’s book Reading and Writing in the Global Workplace: Gender, Literacy, and Outsourcing in Ghana. The review appears in the November 2014 edition of the journal Discourse and Communication (pp. 429-32). It’s available online at http://dcm.sagepub.com/content/current.
Mystery novelist Nancy Barr, a PhD student in the RTC program and a staff member in the ME-EM Department, was recently featured on two Michigan-oriented websites. She is the author of three novels, Page One: Hit and Run, Page One: Vanished, and Page One: Whiteout, published by Arbutus Press. All three books are set in the Upper Peninsula and feature a strong female protagonist, newspaper reporter Robin Hamilton.
The Motown Writers Network featured her on their site this summer and Michigander Monday posted an interview with Nancy on September 1.
In addition to her busy career and school schedule, she is working on a new novel that is part mystery, part ghost story that shifts between two time frames: the Copper Country’s mining boom days in the early 1900s and the early 1970s, shortly after the last mine in Houghton County shut down.
The RTC graduate program will be well-represented at the Writing across the Peninsula Conference to be held on October 9 and 10, 2014 at Northern Michigan University in Marquette. The theme of this year’s conference is “Digital Landscapes and Engaging in the Hybrid Environment.” Here is a list of papers that will be presented by RTC students:
“Will U HI R Me?: Considering professionalism in digital environments”
Rebecca Miner, Michigan Technological University
“Green, Red, Blue, Yellow, Green: Color Tools for the Writing Classroom”
Joel Beatty, Michigan Technological University
“Understanding Buzzfeed.com: Exploring the Practical and Theoretical Implications of Digital News”
Thomas Adolphs, Michigan Technological University
“Content Management and Communication in the Composition Classroom”
Elsa Roberts, Michigan Technological University
Three PhD students in the RTC program have been recognized for distinctive accomplishments recently:
Wincharles Coker’s essay, ” Media Culture and Television News: A Review of Five Recent Books and their Implications for Future Research” (published October 2013) has been selected as the Best Article of the Year for 2013 by the International Journal of Communication and Media Studies.
Gary Kaunonen was awarded a Michigan Tech Doctoral “Finishing Fellowship” for the fall semester. This competitive fellowship recognizes outstanding PhD candidates by providing financial support as the finish writing their dissertations.
Isidore Dorpinyo was chosen as the second place winner for the 2014 CPTSC/Bedford St. Martin’s Diversity Scholarship. The award carries a $500 scholarship to assist the recipient with expenses attending the annual conference at Colorado Springs this September.
Especially in the harsh and seemingly endless winter months, getting acclimated to the Houghton environment (as a whole) can be a difficult task, especially if you hail from a place where the culture vastly differs from the one that is here. Coming from Queens, New York, a 30-minute F-train ride away from Times Square, my arrival to Houghton and most of my first year were spent trying to figure out how I could make this place, and my time pursuing my Master’s as comfortable and beneficial to my education as possible.While a challenging experience, I tried as hard as I could to find and fit bits and pieces of my hobbies from New York into my schedule to fuel myself with the familiarity of home. Before the snow hit, I would attend the early morning yoga sessions in the SDC until I decided to invest in my own yoga mat so I could keep up with my practice in the event that I couldn’t drive and was snowed in; I became involved with the women’s rugby team at Michigan Tech and embraced the chance to keep my love for the sport alive. As I approach the end of my time as a Master’s candidate, I know that I may have to make the sacrifice and give up my commitment to one of (if not both of) these hobbies in order to finish on-time but I also understand that I’ll need to find that balance again somewhere else; going to the KBC with friends and fellow graduate students,a large McDonald’s iced coffee, cooking a delicious meal, watching a good movie, picking up a good Netflix series or book (for fun, imagine!), Bananagrams, and FaceTiming with my girlfriend or friends from home are aspects of my life in Houghton that I strive to integrate into my lifestyle to ensure that the rough days less of a challenge. While several of my colleagues and friends enjoy hobbies ranging from photography and blogging to snowshoeing and broomball, I’ve found that there are places to make things feel like home here and provide that much-needed, occasional break from the work of being in graduate school and trying to find our place in the academic world.