English | CAS in the Media | Washington State University

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‘Radically original’ coach writes about warrior leader

April 17, 2014

A new book by Cougar football head coach Mike Leach is described as a readable history of Geronimo that also offers practical life and business advice gleaned from the Apache warrior’s leadership approach.

“Geronimo: Leadership Strategies of an American Warrior” (Gallery Books; hardcover $26) will go on sale May 6. Leach wrote it with Buddy Levy, clinical associate professor of English at WSU.

The book examines the strategies, decisions and personal qualities that made Geronimo a success. “Much of his genius can be ascribed to old-fashioned values such as relentless training and preparation, leveraging resources, finding ways to turn defeats into victories and being faster and more nimble than his enemy,” according to a news release from the publisher.

Learn more about Leach and Levy’s new book

March 26-27: Environmental writer explores storytelling

March 21, 2014

William Cronon, one of the country’s foremost environmental writers, thinkers and historians, will be the featured speaker at two free, public events March 26-27 as part of WSU’s Visiting Writer Series.

“William Cronon is an exceptional historian who has a scholar’s depth and breadth of knowledge but also a novelist’s skill at telling stories,” said Larry Hufford, director of the School of Biological Sciences and the Charles R. Conner Museum of Natural History at WSU. “His seminal book, Changes in the Land, was tremendously influential in shaping the way we think today about wilderness and the pervasiveness of human influence on the American environment.”

Cronon will present “The Portage: Time, Memory and Storytelling in the Making of an American Place” at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the CUB auditorium on the WSU Pullman campus. On Thursday, he will join an interdisciplinary panel of faculty experts from WSU and the University of Idaho in examining “The Personal Voice of Scholarly Writing” 3:30-5:30 p.m., on the UI campus in Moscow.

Learn more about these cross-disciplinary events

Literary Flight: A writer’s adventures at 3,000 feet

November 6, 2013

Author and editor W. Scott Olsen writes about things that scare him, flying a single-engine airplane across remote landscapes, tracking the lives of wildland firefighters, and other risky activities that capture his interest.

Olsen will read and discuss his literary work on Nov. 7 at 5:00 p.m. in the Museum of Art/WSU Pullman, as part of the 2013 WSU Visiting Writer Series sponsored by the Department of English. Author of several books and acclaimed essays, Olsen also edits “Ascent,” one of the oldest and best-established literary journals in the country.

“No matter what your discipline or academic specialty, having the tools to write about it for a wide audience is something we all want to know more about,” said Debbie Lee, professor of English and co-director of the Visiting Writer Series.

Olsen also will be part of a roundtable on publishing and editing across print and the web at noon Nov. 8 in Avery Hall, Bundy Reading Rm., at WSU Pullman. Other panelists are Rita Rud, Bryan Fry, and Jana Argersinger, with Peter Chilson moderating.

High tech ‘hearts’ humanities: Market values creativity, communication, critical thinking

October 23, 2013

In this time of intense focus on technology, what good is a degree in the humanities?

Plenty, say not only Washington State University professors but leading high-tech companies too. And WSU humanities alumni are proving it.

Only weeks before collecting her bachelor of arts degree through the WSU Department of English last December, Allison Hartinger walked right past a job-fair booth seeking software engineers: “I just didn’t see myself with that title,” she said.

Two English faculty awarded grants to improve undergraduate teaching, learning

October 11, 2013

Two of 10 new grants to develop innovative undergraduate teaching strategies have been awarded to CAS faculty in the Department of English. Irom Bimbisar, clinical assistant professor, and Patricia Freitag Ericsson, associate professor and director of composition, submitted winning proposals for the WSU Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Teaching and Learning grants.

Bimbisar and Ericsson’s respective projects titled, “Multimodality or Learning from Unfamiliar Sources” and “Teacher Feedback on Student Composing through Recorded Voice Commentary,” are designed to address one of three issues: promoting active learning in large classes, documenting student achievement of intended learning outcomes in lower-division university common requirements (UCORE) courses, and integrating sustainability issues into curriculum.