- And the Winners Are...!
We have winners for our CEI logo, newsletter title, and slogan! I'm sure you've already noted our newsletter title, "The Well-turned Word" and new slogan, "Turning New Pages." The winner of the contest for the CEI slogan was submitted by Robin Sellers of Roanoke-Chowan CC. The winner for both the newsletter title and the CEI logo was Garrett Flagg of Fayetteville Technical Community College. Congratulations to both! And thanks to all the other CEI members who submitted entries. It was an extremely tough job picking the winners. We're just such a creative bunch in CEI!Note: The new logo will appear in the next issue.
CEI Officers and Reps
President
Vice-President
Secretary/Treasurer
Membership Chair
Newsletter Editor
CEI Online
Eastern Regional Reps
- Sharon Mills
- Bill Gural
- Open
Central Regional Reps
Western Regional Reps- Freddy Bradburn
- Tom Hearron
- Open
According to the CEI Constitution, the duties of a regional rep are as follows: "Regional Representatives will communicate with faculty within their respective regions; represent faculty within their regions; attend regularly scheduled Executive Board meetings, as well as annual business and regional meetings; work with the Board to nominate representatives when vacancies arise. " If you would like to fill one of the open positions, please contact Liz Meador.
Click here for the latest CEI Treasurer's Report.
NCCCFA News
(reprinted from the NCCCFA Feb. 2001 newsletter)
On Jan. 20, NCCCFA Executive Board adopted a resolution supporting the State Board of Community Colleges' budget request to the General Assembly.
On Jan. 20, the NCCCFA Board endorsed the legislative agenda adopted by the State Board of Community Colleges, which has also been endorsed by the Trustees Association.
The Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee of the General Assembly has requested additional standards of faculty accountability to accompany a plan to raise community college salaries.
Negotiations with Embassy Suites in Greensboro continue as plans are made for a fall 2001NCCCFA conference. In order to view the entire NCCCFA newsletter, go to http://ncccfa.org.
Welch Wins Cowan Award
Clem Welch, lead English instructor at Central Carolina Community College and a representative for CEI's Central region, won the 2001 Cowan Award for Excellence in Teaching. She received the award at the TYCA-SE conference in Fort Lauderdale March 1-3, 2001.
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Students Explore Improvisational Theatre Twenty students, staff, and faculty of Lenoir Community College began the organization of a blackbox improvisational theatre group. The group plans performances on campus as well as other sites.
Improvisational theatre uses audience suggestions to shape action that unfolds on a stage. Blackbox theatre refers to staging an event without the use of formal theatre structures. According to LCC Improv coach Charles Wright, "Improv lends itself to blackbox style theatre. We can perform in an atrium or on a stage. We need very little lighting or props and almost never need scenery."
Unlike conventional scripted theatre, improvisational theatre uses an element of spontaneity and unpredictability that makes improv a unique and exciting experience for the performers as well as the audience.
Wright stated that "Students have asked me about a theatre group since I started teaching at LCC last year." The LCC Improv Theatre group is open to all students, faculty, and staff. Wright emphasizes that no experience is necessary.
The group has already performed during the LCC Fall Festival and plans another performance during the CEI Spring Regional conference to be held at LCC in April.
Try the Fling Exercise
Not everyone has a fling in English 111; however, students in Charles Wright's morning class at Lenoir CC just experienced the Fling Exercise, which is aptly named as the students fling a narration topic about the room.
Here is how it works. Divide the room in half - eg. Team A & Team B. Choose one member of the team to be the writer of the first, or opening paragraph. Select one student to write the closing paragraph. Then, to each student give a sheet bearing a common thesis statement, cast of characters, and general plot line. Each student then writes a one or two page narrative involving the characters - based upon the thesis statement. The only rule imposed is that the students cannot "kill off" the cast.
Students write for about 20 minutes. Then ask each team to read their story. Note: no (well, hardly any) collusion takes place during the writing process. Each class member, in turn, adds his or her paragraph and final paragraph are the only paragraphs with specific structure.
As a bridge between paragraphs each student ends his or her own narration with "and then." The conclusion writer is the only one allowed to draw the story to a final conclusion.
The result is a very funny way to illustrate how a narrative story progresses from one point to a close. The many detours in the fling exercise help to point out the way the narration can detour yet return to the natural sequence of events.
Call for Submissions
Please send any articles or items of interest to me for inclusion in the next newsletter (Spring 2001) want to hear from all the regions about what you're doing at your colleges, what works and doesn't work, issues of concern or delight, upcoming events at your college or any item you want other CEI members to know about.
Kim Turnage
Lenoir Community College
PO Box 188
Hwy 70, East
Kinston, NC 28502-0188
FAX 252-527-2704
Click here to e-mail.
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President's Corner Dear Wordsmiths All,
I hope your holidays were wonderful, and that we have all returned to the spring semester with renewed vigor and vision. thanks again to all who made the CEI Fall Conference a success, borne out by positive evaluations, for the most part. Your board members, taking to heart your constructive criticism, intend to incorporate your suggestions into the planning for the 2001 Fall Conference.
Boy! do we have a great location for that conference. Cheryl Saba, Cape Fear CC English instructor, offered at this fall's conference to host , with the help of her colleagues, the 2001 conference in Wrightsville Beach Island, near Wilmington Sunday through Tuesday, October 28-30. Those of you in the western and central regions who have not been to Wilmington are in for a treat. Start planning now for this conference with your peers in our ever-evolving, exciting profession.
At the Board Meeting on January 26 in Sanford, members agreed to table the suggestion of a CEI scholarship for a prospective teacher until our treasury stabilizes. I hope at the fall conference to appoint a committee to investigate the possibility of a yearly scholarship for a prospective English teacher. (Here at Wayne Community College, one adviser assists only those majors - pre-English and pre-English education - numbering about 19 currently.) The committee would need to establish criteria and the logistics for notifying potential applicants, selecting a winner, and devising a means to guarantee a yearly scholarship. If you are interested in exploring this possibility, please e-mail me.
I urge all of you to join the Faculty Association and to be aware of this group's involvement at the legislative level on behalf of all faculty.
Please give these CEI officers a hearty thanks for their hard work in keeping our organization going: Crystal Brantley for overseeing membership records, Tom LaBelle for his meticulous reporting as secretary/treasurer; Rick Lewis for maintaining the best Web site ever; regional representatives for their
gift of time, travel, and planning; and Kim Turnage for editing the very newsletter you hold in your hand. Happy springtime!
Liz Meador, Wayne CC - CEI President
Notes from the Editor Another semester has begun with its busy ways. Another spring is approaching with its plans of conferences. Regional meetings are being planned. The fall statewide conference is begin prepared for. Committee work consumes hours a month. Extracurricular projects entice us. And somewhere in there, we manage to teach our classes.
I enjoy all the aspects of my job, and like most of you, wear many hats. Before I began teaching, I never fully realized the broad spectrum of taks that I would b require to do that did not directly relate to being in the classroom. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and find myself thinking, "If I just didn't have to teach, I could get all this other work done." But then I realize that no matter how much "other" there is, I cannot, am not acutally able to, within me, hold back one iota of energy from my classes.
No matter how exciting I find my committee work or organizational activities, I still reserve my primary energies to my students. And that makes me realize, after all these years, that I did choose the right profession after all.
Kim Turnage
Lenoir Community College
Editor
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