Promotion

Last week, I was officially promoted from Instructor to Lecturer at BGSU. This has been a process almost a year in the making, with my portfolio going from the departmental level all the way up to the provost for the promotion to finally be approved at the Board of Trustees meeting in early May. I was one of 81 faculty members at the university to be promoted this year; see the full list here. What this means for me is the change in title along with what should be a noticeable raise starting in the fall (woo!). Here's a pic our GSW Director took of me and some GSW colleagues also being promoted:

Spring Fun

Besides all these conference presentations, there's been a bit of fun throughout the spring semester, too.

In March, Angela came to visit, and a few of us went for tea at the Swan House; always a lovely outing! Another group went for dim sum at a Chinese place in the Toledo area.

Mark and I have also been trying to take advantage of the weather (which has generally been better than average for spring), so we've spent some time exploring the great parks and nature preserves in BG and the Toledo area. These are from the Oak Openings metropark:

GSW Writing Showcase

This semester, GSW, our first-year writing program, hosted the first GSW Writing Showcase. This was a chance for GSW students to present their work from GSW classes on panels or in a poster session. One of the things I've been working on this year is to try to build stronger connections between the GSW program and the ESOL program (since I'm part of both, and since the undergraduate students who take ESOL classes take GSW classes after that), I was eager to find a way for my ESOL 1010 students to participate. So I submitted a proposal on behalf of my two sections, asking for space for my students to share any work of their choice from the semester.

I was so pleased that many of my students were interested, and we had a lovely display of their work in the poster session. It was great to see those who were able to actually attend the event explaining their work (and that of their classmates) to the other students and faculty who were there. I even got a lovely thank you note afterwards from one student for organizing their participation. It was a bit of extra work, but it sounds like the showcase will happen each semester in the future, and I'm excited to see how ESOL can continue to participate. I'm also so thankful for the open, welcoming attitude of the GSW administration as we are working ever more closely together. It was a success!

Michigan State University Learning Symposium

In April, I got to present a poster at this great conference at Michigan State. It's sponsored by National Geographic, and the whole thing is free, including breakfast and lunch. I've attended the last two years, and this year's call for proposals gave me a great opportunity to submit some work my students did right at the beginning of the semester this year. It was a new project, and they did such a great job! I was really proud to have a chance to show off their work. 

Here are a few pics:

TESOL 2017 in Seattle with ACCESS teachers

I've done a terrible job of posting updates here this semester! Well, today I'll try to catch up a bit.

March was quite a busy month, including a trip to Seattle for TESOL. It was a special trip, too. The college of education at BGSU had a group of English teachers from Pakistan vising on a grant. My colleague Kimberly was involved with the grant, and part of the experience was to take these 20 teachers to TESOL. Kimberly invited me to help, and in exchange, the grant paid my travel expenses--woohoo! It was a demanding week, and it was certainly a different type of experience than my past trips to TESOL, but it was also very rewarding. I've traveled in groups before, but leading the group, in a city I'd never been to before, was definitely a challenge. On the other hand, these teachers were so good-natured about everything, even though the schedule we'd set up really pushed us all to our limits. We went to the conference sessions and spent a good deal of time exploring tourist attractions of Seattle, so the week was jam packed. It was neat, though, to see these teachers having what probably was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and knowing I was a part of it, too.

Here's a nice article about the whole program.

In addition to all that, Kimberly and I co-presented at the Electronic Village Technology Fair (sort of a mini-conference within TESOL) about using infographics in our classes. Our materials are posted here (contact me if you'd like the password so you can see the password protected pages). The EV organizers also made a little YouTube video of us explaining our work!

I've got pics of my own as well as quite a few I downloaded from the teachers' posts on Facebook, so here's a totally unorganized smattering of photos from the trip, plus a few from some activities we had with the teachers on campus during the week after the trip. I'll add captions to explain what things are. (My original plan was to get all the pics organized and present them in order, but since it's taken me more than a month to find time to post at all, I decided it'd be better to do something rather than wait for time to make it perfect...even if this is a bit haphazard). I should also say, this group was wild about selfies! You'll see...

waiting for the light rail to go from the airport to the hotel

our hotel was right across the street
from this huge public library!

a visit to the Seattle World School

we took a great harbor cruise on this ship

Heather and Neil, good friends from high school, live in Seattle.
We met for coffee--it was great to catch up! 

the famous Pike Market

 

at this fish seller, they threw fish back and forth over that big
display for us, but I couldn't catch them in action!

I ate several delicious doughnuts from this place!

display of teapots at the Spice Market shop,
where I bought some delicious (very affordable!) tea

We found this small Pakistani restaurant, ZumZum.
The teachers had really been missing food from home,
so they loved this place!

I thought it was delicious, too. 

in the Convention Center

several teachers presented at a poster session
hosted by the department of state

excellent pizza!

view of the harbor--we had some really great weather

adorable otters at the aquarium

seals at the aquarium

space needle

a highlight of the trip:
the Chihuly Garden and Glass

view from the space needle (unfortunately,
by the time we got up there, the weather was terrible!)

Ok, those are my pics; everything below is courtesy of the other travelers in our group.

with Kimberly and Soha
(a BGSU grad student who also helped us on the trip)

Kimberly at our Electronic Village session

and me, at our session

at the Seattle World School

poster presenters

great shot of Kimberly at the Pike Market

we got to catch up with Sam, too!
(a former BGSU faculty member who moved to Minnesota a few years ago)

at the space needle

group photo in front of the education building at BGSU

some of the guys--the third from the right is Andy,
a grad student from education who also helped us on the trip

group photo at the bus stop across from our hotel in Seattle

opening keynote speaker, Sherman Alexie (he was really great!)

the spices at the Spice Market

photo backdrop at the space needle

having fun at the space needle despite the weather

Overall, a rather unforgettable experience. Also, if I ever make it to visit Pakistan, I know I'll have many friends to greet me there. :-)