New English and Foreign Language chair named

September 25th, 2007 by Erica Bradley

Katherine Frank, associate professor in the English department, has been chosen to replace Professor Bill Sheidley as chair of the department.

Sheidley will retire in May.

According to Roy Sonnema, College of Humanities and Social Sciences dean, filling the position quickly was important because he wanted to prevent the department from moving in the wrong direction.

“I wanted to make sure the search went smoothly,” Sonnema said.

On Aug. 29 Sonnema met with English and foreign language faculty. They were asked to nominate someone or self-nominate in an e-mail to him.

Frank and Dora Cobian-Klein, associate professor in the foreign language department, were nominated. 

Sonnema met with faculty from both departments to get their input prior to making his decision.

He made the announcement on Sept. 17.

Frank was given tenure and promoted to associate professor in the spring of 2007. She has been at the university for seven years.

She leads the Southern Colorado Writing Project (SCWP), the General Education Writing Program, and she teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Frank will continue to teach and direct SCWP when she assumes her new position in the summer of 2008.

“(Frank) is organized, energetic and a strong leader. She has demonstrated her abilities in her roles as director of writing and director of SCWP,” Sheidley said.

Frank said she will shadow Sheidley this year so she can get a sense of the duties.

“I am looking forward to the challenges and opportunities for growth, both with respect to my own professional role and the future of the department,” Frank said.

Sheidley said the duties include scheduling classes, writing performance reviews of faculty in the department, managing the budget, overseeing program assessments, dealing with students complaints, meeting with the dean and other faculty, and any other issue that may arise.

“We want to have a smooth transition. I’m going to work closely with (Sheidley) this year to get sense of the responsibilities of the position,” Frank said.

The English department includes programs at the graduate, undergraduate, creative writing and professional writing levels.

There are an estimated 110 active majors in the undergraduate program and about 40 in the graduate program.

Last May the first six students received their graduate degree. At least six more are expected to graduate in May, Sheidley said.

Sheidley said the English department teaches the largest number of general education classes.

The foriegn language department has an estimated 25 active majors in Spanish and it includes minors in Italian, French and Spanish.

The department is faced with some problems, like any other department on campus. There are too few ranked faculty positions and inadequate pay for lecturers and part-time instructors, Sheidley said.

“I hope the department will continue to grow, sustaining its current array of programs and building in new areas,” Sheidley said.

Sheidley hopes to see theater, film and additional languages incorporated into the English and foreign language program as resources become available.

According to Sonoma the English and foreign language department may be split into two different departments in the future.

“We are in the process of drawing up a formal proposal to separate the English program and the foreign languages programs into separate departments each with its own chair and budget,” Sheidley said.

Before the split can take place the proposal has to be approved by the curriculum and academic programs board, the dean, the provost, the president and the board of governors. The process could take two years, Sheidley said.

According to Sheidley each discipline should have its own department with a chair who is specialist in one of the fields instead of a chair who is specialist in one of the fields.

The current organization for the English and foreign language department includes a chair, an associate chair who represents the foreign language department and a program coordinator for speech.

Currently Eric Kartchner serves as the associate chair for the foreign language program and Lisa Bamber serves as the program coordinator for speech.

Sheidley’s retirement is not the only change taking place in the department.

Geraldine Daugherty and Chas Clifton, both lecturers in the English department, will retire as well.

In May Margaret Barber, professor, will begin a two year retirement phase-out.

Sheidley hopes to hire an assistant professor of English specializing in rhetoric and composition to replace Frank, an assistant professor of English specializing in earlier English literature and Shakespeare to replace Barber and two lecturers to replace Daugherty and Clifton.

None of those requests have been approved yet.

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