The following article was written in May of 2025,

This year, I am reflecting on the past five years as I prepare to return to faculty status full-time in the Fall of 2025. Five years as Chair is a significant amount of time, and it offers me the perspective to examine five of the roughest and best years of the department’s recent history. I began serving as Chair in the Summer of 2020, as Western Illinois University (WIU) and other universities went remote as COVID-19 swept the world.

When I wrote my letter for Mirror in 2022, I reflected on something the previous chair, Dr. Christopher Morrow, had written about 2020. I quoted him, saying that the spring and summer of 2020 were not unprecedented times but, rather, they were very precedented times. As Dr. Morrow further put it, “despite the uncertainty of the world around us and the drastic changes to our educational system and our lives, it is the persistence and resilience of the faculty and students that stand out most to me.” I take solace in the rough patches from the persistence and resilience of our faculty and students. Dr. Morrow was and is right. I have often said that the English Department is a scrappy department that shows up to do difficult work. Through the engagement with the written word in whatever genre or cultural contexts we encounter it, we grapple with the texts and try to make meaning not only of that text but also of the world around us. We ask and ponder the most important questions in the humanities. What is the meaning of our lives? What creates a meaningful life? How do we help to build a world we want to be part of? Those questions underscore every class we teach, from basic composition up through the most advanced graduate work. 

I told my class this semester that they are what brings me joy and hope. I unexpectedly took over the short story class this spring. I am a novel person. I want to wander around in the world of fiction for extended periods of time, not get thrown out of it quickly and be forced to move on. However, even with my reservations about the genre, the class has been filled with joy and excitement. This is not to say the literature has been light and easy. It has not. Anyone who has taken a class with me knows that my selection of texts leans heavily toward the bleak, the complicated, the area that appears at times to be without hope. And yet, and yet . . . .

As the students and I dug into the various texts, from “Crush” in The Last Communist Virgin to “Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet” by Margaret Atwood in I’m with the Bears, to “The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God” the title story by Etgar Keret, we have repeatedly grappled with how to go forward today, in this world. They examined, debated, disagreed, and then, sometimes, agreed on issues of morality, decency, and hope for not only the characters but also themselves. As they learned about plot, character development, setting, etc., they also gained skills in coming together as a diverse group of people who are invested in building a better world, not only for themselves but also for their communities and beyond. That is a crucial endeavor in our current moment.

I certainly see that community building happening not only in my classrooms, but in classrooms throughout the building as students spill out into the hallway. I see it in the student organisations such as Elements, Mirror, and Sigma Tau Delta. I see it in the Muffins and Mindfulness hosted by Professor Lawhorn. I see it in the English Department Awards Night event we just hosted. I see is in the visiting writers events we have held this year, including Meg Elison, Jennifer Burek Pierce, Melissa Febos. It is throughout the building and throughout the student and faculty community.

This year has not been without its struggles and difficulties. For the first time in years, we had a professor pass away during the academic year. Nothing made Dr. Patricia Young happier than teaching, and her long legacy of work in the building will be missed next year. We have also faced budget cuts and changing demands on curriculum. We have hit road blocks, regrouped, and have moved forward again and again.

I am stepping back from being the Chair, and I will miss the more global view of the Department as I return to full time teaching. I celebrate the fact I will be working full-time with the very people who make the university hum, the students, with their persistence and resilience. We have seen hard times before. We will see them again. That is the course of history. I am confident today’s students and faculty are up for the challenge.