In the Spotlight: Jan. 24, 2014

Kudos to these faculty, staff and students

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  • Faculty members from several departments in the College of Arts and Letters presented at the Modern Language Association Conference in Chicago, Jan. 8-12. English professor Jeff Berglund participated in a roundtable session, “Teaching Native American Literature: Form, Politics, History,” organized by the Division on American Indian Literatures. English professor Donelle Ruwe presented in a special session that she organized, “Teaching the Long Poem by Nineteenth-Century British Women Poets.” Her paper was called “Charlotte Smith’s ‘Beachy Head’ and the Lyric Mode.” Music professor James Leve presented “Little Girls, Big Voices: The Vocal Construction of Childhood in the Musical ‘Annie,'” in a panel called “Broadway Babies.”Marisol McDonald and the Clash Bash book cover
  • Monica Brown, English professor, discussed her latest bilingual children’s book on NPR last month. The book, Marisol McDonald and the Clash Bash/Marisol McDonald y la Fiesta Sin Igual is a follow up to Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match/Marisol McDonald No Combina. McDonald is an American girl with Peruvian and Scottish roots who revels in mismatched things, such as playing soccer dressed as a pirate princess and eating burritos filled with peanut butter and jelly. In the interview, Brown discusses being raised in a bilingual household and her interest in writing stories for children who are growing up in multi-ethnic, bilingual families. Listen to the interview here.
  • Northern Arizona University has been selected to host the eighth International Conference on Mycorrhizas (ICOM8), which will take place July 26–31, 2015. The conference will bring as many as 700 scientists, land managers and industry representatives from across the globe to Flagstaff. Conference co-organizer Nancy Johnson, a professor in Biological Sciences and the School of Earth Science and Environmental Sustainability, recently co-authored a journal article that received international attention.