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2022 Convention News:

One of our current graduate students, Madeline Talbot, was recognized (and awarded $100) for honorable mention for her paper “Witches in S.T.E.M,” which she wrote for Mindi McMann’s graduate course last year. I thnk it is an exemplar of what students should be doing. She took what she’d learned from Michelle Tarter’s course and applied in an entirely different context. 
 
Rachel Boland, who graduated in 2020 with her MA (BA 2019) was recognized (and awarded $300) for a paper she wrote in Jo Carney’s class on short fiction. Rachel won the first prize in the outstanding alumni paper award. Rachel was supposed to present this paper at the cancelled 2020 convention in Las Vegas.
 
Our students presented their criticism and research in papers and a new program called “Research in the Round,” and oganized two roundtables around teaching and learning. Our students are not only English majors, but double majors in English and Education (in every track), self-designed majors in publishing, and one double major in Biology and Math who loves English so much she took extra courses. All students who excel in four or more English classes are eligible, no matter their major or minor.
 
Diane Steinberg completed her term as the president of the Board of Directors and will make the transition to her role as “immediate past president.” The IPP guides strategic planning and leads special initiatives (such as chairing the hiring committee–a critical task for an organization looking for a new executive director after ours of 40 years has retired). She also was recognized for 21 years of service and leadership as the advisor of TCNJ’s chapter. Diane will not have an opportunity to rest, as she turns her attention now to organizing the 2023 convention in Denver, Colorado–an entirely volunteer position. Diane led the board during one of its most challenging periods of its near century of existence. Now, she will organize the last convention of the organization’s first century. I was reelected to serve as the Eastern Regent for a second four year term. As regent, I am the point of contact for all the English departments in the Eastern Region (which extends from Ohio to Kuwait and Ontario to Maryland) and has the most chapters of any region–although the south is gaining on me. I hope all of you know and understand, however, what sort of impact Diane has made on Sigma Tau Delta nationally and what kind of respect (and love) from our colleagues she commands. It is an honor to work with her in this organization.
 
Since Diane and I hold two of the board leadership positions, and we had so many students that we filled three banquet tables, and because our students won awards and presented and attended every event, The College of New Jersey was well represented and well recognized. We also were invited to give a chapter display (which won 2nd place and $50 for the chapter); the Lion’s Eye received verbal recognition of its 2nd place prize ($400) in the literary arts journal competition; and one of our juniors, Caroline Geoghegan, read her poem “Convenience Store,” published in this year’s issue of Sigma Tau Delta’ s literay magazine Rectangle.
 
Past Congratulations:
  • Heba Jahama ’16, whose essay “’Your Cost of Living’: Bare Life and Exception in Let it Be Morning” has been selected for publication in the 2016 Sigma Tau Delta Review.
  • Robyn Gold ’15 who was awarded a $1,000 Eastern Regent Scholarship to pursue her MA in English in the five year program at The College of New Jersey
  • Sara Stammer ’15, MA ’16, who was elected as Eastern student representative to the national board of Sigma Tau Delta for academic year 2015-2016.
  • Carly DaSilva ’15, whose poem “To Make Me a Bird appeared in The Sigma Tau Delta 2015 Rectangle. Carly was also invited to read her poetry at the Rectangle reading on 18 March 2015 at Albuquerque, NM.
  • The following students who received awards for their presentations at the 2015 Sigma Tau Delta International Convention in Albuquerque, NM:
    • Erin Shannon ’16, whose paper “White Privilege in Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit” won first place for essays about Latino or Native American Literature.
    • Heba Jahama ’16, whose paper “Conceptions of Rape in a Qu’ranic Narrative” won 2nd place for essays about British or World Literature.
    • Andrew Ryan ’16, whose paper “Identity in Invisible Man: A Kind of Combat” won 2nd place for essays on American Literature.
    • Stephanie Pilipshen ’16, MA ’17, whose paper “19th Century Homelessness and Twain’s Huck Finn” won 3rd place for essays on American Literature.
  • The following students who presented at the 2015 Sigma Tau Delta International Convention in Albuquerque, NM:
    • Amy Hopper ’16, “War and Modernism: To the Lighthouse“
    • Kelly Conboy ’15, MAT ’16, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine: Interpersonal Communication in Persuasion“
    • Jennie Sekanics ’16, “Rupturing Social Norms: Status & Class”
    • Colleen Murphy ’16, “Buggy” (original screenplay)
    • Megan Osika ’15, “Mexican-American Multiculturalism in Butterfly Boy“
    • Tracey Napoli ’16, “Invisibility: The Rejection of Conformity”
    • Sara Ashley Stammer ’15, MA ’16, “A Manifestation of Trauma: Hybrid Postmemory”
    • Taylor Nicastro ’16, MA ’17, “Deconstruction in the Eyre: Helen and Jane”
    • Anna Gracey ’17, “Rushdie: What Nightmares Are Made Of”
    • Heba Jahama ’16, “Conceptions of Rape in a Quranic Narrative”
    • Nicole Cammarota ’16, “Trauma Authenticated by Silence: Fugitive Pieces“
    • Robyn Gold ’15, MA ’16, “The Cave: Marston’s Sophonisba and Middleton’s The Witch“
    • Andrew Ryan ’16, “Identity in Invisible Man: A Kind of Combat”
    • Erin Shannon ’16, “White Privilege in Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit“
    • Susan Pereny ’15, “Mistaken Identity: Realism and Great Expectations“
    • Carly DaSilva ’15, “The Glass Memoir” original poetry collection
    • Stephanie Pilipshen ’16, MA ’17, “19th Century Homelessness and Twain’s Huck Finn“
    • “How to Teach Writing: Enchanting Strategies” roundtable: Robyn Gold ’15, MA ’16, Kelly Conboy ’15, MAT ’16, Nicole Cammarota ’15, Dr. Felicia Jean Steele, Prof. Diane Steinberg
  • Dr. Felicia Jean Steele, Prof. Diane Steinberg, and our TCNJ chapter, who will chair and host the 2016 Sigma Tau Delta International Convention in Minneapolis, MN.
  • Samantha Altman ’15, whose photographs “Pollinate Me” and “A Storm’s Start” appeared in The Sigma Tau Delta 2014 Eastern Region Mind Murals literary journal.

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