Category: News

On April 9, more than 320 students gathered for the 11th Annual Fraternity and Sorority Life Awards Ceremony held in the Memorial Union Ballroom.

In addition to the many student awards presented, Order of Omega, the Greek Life Honor Society that coordinates the awards, took the time to recognize some exceptional faculty and staff members.

There are more than 560 students in fraternities and sororities at Michigan Tech, and Order of Omega wanted to emphasize that these awards were coming directly from the students.

When writing a nomination for the Outstanding Faculty Award, students were asked to consider faculty who:

• are dedicated to supporting students and helping them succeed academically
• demonstrate a passion for teaching and/or research
• utilize innovative teaching methods
• promote academic integrity among students

When writing a nomination for the Outstanding Staff Award, students were asked to consider staff who:

• are dedicated to supporting students and helping them succeed both inside and outside the classroom
• demonstrate a passion for working with students
• promote and inspire the Michigan Tech Values of Community, Scholarship, Possibilities, Accountability and Tenacity
  The following faculty and staff members were nominated by members of the Greek community and were recognized at the 2017 Fraternity and Sorority Life Awards Ceremony:

Faculty:

• Evelyn Johnson (HU)
• Scott Miers (ME-EM)
• David Hand (CEE)
• Noel Urban (CEE)

Staff:

• Laura Bulleit (Dean of Students Office)
• Rochelle Spencer (Student Activities)

These nominations were written by individual students and were supported by an entire fraternity or sorority. In the end, the Outstanding Faculty Award was presented to Evelyn Johnson and the Outstanding Staff Award went to Laura Bulleit.

Advisor of the Year was also awarded to a staff member, Heather Simpson (Wahtera Center). Congratulations to all of these faculty and staff members who were nominated and thank you for inspiring and motivating students.

A special congratulations to Jessie Stapleton, director of student activities, for winning the first-ever Unsung Hero Award. She was recognized for all of her hard work and dedication to the students in the Greek community.

Stephanie Carpenter (HU) has been named winner of the 2017 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction for her short story collection “Missing Persons.”

Besides publication by Press 53 in October, Carpenter will receive a $1,000 advance and a quarter-page color ad in Poets & Writers magazine. The judge for the competition was Kevin Morgan Watson, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Press 53.

Of the winning manuscript, Watson says, “These stories are diverse in voice, setting, conflict and style. Ms. Carpenter’s skills shine in this collection, as does her ability to step into the shoes of a wide range of people while peeling back the complex layers of their lives. For a group of stories to rise above 230 other manuscripts competing for my attention, every story has to deliver an interesting, satisfying and powerful experience, and ‘Missing Persons’ did just that. I’m looking forward to sharing this collection of stories with readers everywhere.”

Carpenter’s prose has appeared in journals and magazines such as Witness, Nimrod, The Cossack Review, Big Fiction, The Crab Orchard Review and others. She teaches creative writing and literature at Tech. “Missing Persons” is her first book-length publication.

There will be a poetry reading by Saara Raappana and reception held from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, March 30 in Walker 134. Raappana will read new and selected poems, share anecdotes about ice fishing and rhapsodize about Trenary Toast.

Raappana is the author of the poetry chapbooks “A Story of America Goes Walking.”

There will be a screening of selected works from recent seasons of Motionpoems and reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, March 31 in Walker 134.

Motionpoems, a non-profit arts organization, brings the work of inspired contemporary poets to the screen through collaborations with talented emerging filmmakers. The results are poignant, heart-wrenching, uplifting and not to be missed.

L. Syd M Johnson (HU) published a review of Nada Gligorov’s “Neuroethics and the Scientific Revision of Common Sense” in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. It can be found here.

Brooklyn Magazine published a feature article about Roxane Gay, a Michigan Tech Humanities alumna and outspoken women’s rights author and activist.

PhD Students Vincent Manzie and Tolulope Odebunmi will present their papers on the topic of “Crisis and Communication in Cross-Cultural Contexts” at the RTC Colloquium from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday (Feb. 24) in Walker 134.

Manzie’s presentation will be “Applying the Rhetoric of Renewal Model in a Contemporary African Context: Lessons Learned from the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Crisis in Nigeria.”

Odebunmi will present “Whatsapp: A Safe Haven for Gender Transgression?”

Read the abstracts online.

Best-selling author and Michigan Tech humanities alumna Roxane Gay (PhD in Rhetoric and Technical Communication, 2010) has withdrawn a planned book, “How To Be Heard,” from Simon & Schuster, to protest the publisher’s book deal with alt-right provocateur and Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopolous. The story has been widely covered internationally, in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Salon, Time, Buzzfeed and many other media outlets.