Category Archives: Organizations

Spotlight on CARPE DIEM COLLABORATORS

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Student group CARPE DIEM COLLABORATORS is helping to fight student social fatigue by stashing First Aid Books across EMU’s campus which encourage students to get involved. If you find yourself lacking engagement, you’ve only your self to blame.

Their unique presentation of a collaged work includes statistics, images, and a slew of motivational slogans. In addition to providing information to students in a non-standard format the Hear This book also serves to highlight student organizations like SEUSS, the parking escort service, the LGBT community and points to resources like the Smith Health Center, among others. I encourage you to check out their work. It is a hopeful sign that redistributes information through channels that are less likely to be looked over. How many times have we passed kiosks plastered with benign advertisements? The Hear This first aid kit is a wonderful repackaging of information available across campus.

Upcoming Temporal Arts Collective Event

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[ a n o c t a v e ]Great news! Upcoming performances by the Temporal Arts Collective. The event, [ a n o c t a v e ], will be taking place Saturday November 17th at 9:00pm 106. N. Adams Apt. 2 in Ypsilanti. The event promises  to be “an evening of contemporary poetry.” A mix of performers, alums, current undergrads, graduate students and innumerable others will be there.  Those reading include, but are not limited to:

  • Kellie Nadler
  • David Boeving
  • G. Matthew Mapes
  • Jonah Mixon-Webster
  • John Farmer
  • Nick Compton
  • Miranda Metelski
  • and Kristen Gines

For more information about the Temporal Arts Collective check out their Facebook page.
If you cannot make it, fear not, the blog will send one of its staff writers to the event.

EMU English Graduate Student Association (EGSA) begins this Fall

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Starting in the Fall, EMU Graduate English Students from all programs will have the opportunity to become involved with the English Graduate Student Association (EGSA). To find out more and get involved, like the “EGSA at EMU” facebook group or contact Melissa or Chelsea directly through the email members function on the Grad Students in English group site on my.emich.edu.

Here is more information as articulated by Melissa Pompili and Chelsea Bromley, the graduate students who are responsible for taking this initiative:

The English Graduate Student Association (EGSA) at EMU is a social and professional organization formed specifically to serve the interests of the Eastern English graduate community and alumni. We are envisioning a facebook page as a contact point for graduate students where they can post invitations to events, share ideas, and where alumni can keep in touch with each other and offer advice to current students in the M.A. English specializations. The EGSA will hold monthly meetings, theory study circles, and also aims to bring a selected speaker to Eastern Michigan University each fall! The EGSA also promotes and values interaction between members of the various M.A. degree specializations within the English department. Graduate students across these specializations can learn much from each other, and EGSA aims to facilitate interaction between our diverse membership in order to further our common goals.

We need help from anyone who is interested as this summer draws to a close with writing a constitution which is a major step on the road to securing student organization status at Eastern. Official student organization status will enable us to have access to grant money from the university, provide a pathway to host on-campus events, and will also enable us to raise funds on campus for our organization. Through a generous start-up donation from the Journal of Narrative Theory we are able to invite a speaker to campus this fall, as well! We need help deciding on a speaker that would benefit M.A. students of all disciplines who is preferably already in the region. Please feel free to post possible speaker ideas in the comment section of the note titled “Fall 2012 Speaker.” Also, please feel free to start notes of your own if you have any ideas for the organization! We are currently also attempting to secure a large donation and put in place a fund-raising mechanism that (hopefully!) will be enough to either host a graduate student conference at Eastern or secure a half-time department assistantship position for future leaders. In either case, we hope that this organization can serve as a gateway to opportunity for English graduate students.

We are envisioning a communal space where current students can participate actively in the department—a space where alumni can stay in touch and offer advice to current students that are looking for jobs or applying to Ph.D. programs.