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| AQ Difference |
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| The English major at Aquinas prepares students for careers and for a lifetime of learning about and loving literature. Grounded in traditional historical surveys of literature in English, we also keep pace with current trends in literary studies by continuously updating course offerings in such fields as women's studies, minority literatures, world literature in English, and film studies. Our writing and journalism minors offer students opportunities to express themselves and to bring their writing skills to professional levels. |
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| Outstanding Senior Awards 2009 |
| Graduating senior John R. Taylor II was honored as the English Department's Outstanding Senior for the 2008-2009 academic year. |
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| Goals & Objectives |
| The goals of the English Department are: |
| 1.) to provide students with a broad knowledge of the history and development of literature in English; |
| 2.) to develop in students the writing, speaking, critical and analytical tools necessary for achieving an understanding of the literature they study, and for preparing for graduate school and careers; |
| 3.) to instill in students an appreciation for literary art and an awareness for the way that artistic expression is a vehicle for understanding the human experience. |
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| Successful majors in the English Department will complete their education: |
| 1.) with a broad and a detailed knowledge of the British and American literary traditions; |
| 2.) with a facility with language that will enable them to express themselves effectively in persuasive, creative, and analytical modes of writing and speaking; |
| 3.) with an ability in critical and analytical thinking that will prepare them for a variety of professional careers; |
| 4.) with an ability to articulate an appreciation of literature as an art form. |
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| Mission Statement |
| Mission: The English Department seeks to use the study of literature and language to contribute to students' understanding of human relationships and values, and to foster a love for reading that will enrich their futures. We provide students with preprofessional preparation for graduate studies, and for careers in such diverse fields as teaching, journalism, advertising, law, business and library science, as well as professional writing and editing. |
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| We hope to provide students with a broad knowledge of the history and development of literature in English, as well as to develop their reading, writing, speaking, critical and analytical skills to prepare them for graduate studies and careers. We also hope to instill in students an appreciation for literature as a means of understanding human experience. |
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| Career Opportunties |
| AQ's English major, literature minor, journalism minor and writing minor are surprisingly flexible degrees, providing a number of career options in a variety of fields. |
| Obvious career paths include teaching at the primary and secondary level and graduate study in English leading to teaching at the college level. The English major, in combination with a teaching certificate, is a very marketable degree since English language and American and British literature are fundamental subjects taught in all schools. Further information about teaching careers in English can be found at the Education Department home page. |
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Another career path for English majors is in publications and public relations. Aquinas English majors have gone on to successful careers in print journalism, editing, freelance writing, literary agency, publishing, and public relations. Skills in writing, analysis and editing, as well as exposure to a large body of American and British literature are all invaluable in the wide world of publishing. Students interested in a writing career should also check out Aquinas' Writing Minor and Journalism Minor. |
| Aquinas English graduates have also found work in business and technical writing. |
| Law schools also look favorably on the English major as a pre-law degree. Analytical and language skills learned in the classroom can easily be transferred to the study of law which relies heavily on case study analysis and written and spoken argument. |
| Other Aquinas English majors have found success such diverse fields as counseling, bookstore management, insurance adjusting and in-house communications directing for corporations. |
| These are just a few of the many fields students with an English major may find themselves in. See our English Alumni page for some testimonials from recent graduates in various fields.For further information, contact the chairman of the English Department, Gary Eberle , or the AQ Career Development Center at (616) 632-2902. |
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Sample English Alumni |
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We try to update this page regularly, so send us news of your life. If you are an English alumnus/alumna of Aquinas College and would like to post your profile here, contact the chairman of English at eberlgar@aquinas.edu. If you are an Aquinas College alumnus/a with another major, you may want to contact the Alumni Office at alumni@aquinas.edu to keep us updated on the latest events in your life. |
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| Briana Asmus '05 |
| After a two-year stint in Korea teaching English as a second language, Briana returned home to Kalamazoo for a year before heading off in fall 2007 for a year of teaching in Japan. |
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| Jon Bacarella '06 |
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Jon, his New Zealand wife, son Talor (shown) and daughter Layla live in New Zealand where Jon accepted a job at Pakuranga College in Aukland, teaching English and Business Studies. He is also coaching the under 56k Rugby team and advising the yearbook. The family follows the Detroit Tigers religiously via the Internet. |
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| Joe Boomgaard '03 |
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After graduating with a bachelor's degree in English from Aquinas College, Joe earned a master's degree in journalism from Point Park University in Pittsburgh in 2005. There, he contributed research for the Innocence Institute, a university-based program run in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that investigated claims of wrongful imprisonment. After his graduate program, he was hired as a staff writer at the Ludington Daily News and covered local government, business, state politics and criminal justice issues. At the newspaper, |
| he won two first place awards - for breaking news and public service reporting - from the Associated Press. He was named a fellow of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism's Great Lakes Environmental Journalism Training Institute in 2007, furthering a lifelong interest and a study he began at Point Park during an independent program. He recently accepted a new business reporter position at MiBiz, a west Michigan business periodical. Joe married Claire Waltman '03 in 2005. They live in Muskegon and enjoy frequent trips north along the Lake Michigan shoreline. An avid angler, Joe enjoys pursuing steelhead in rivers across the Great Lakes. |
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| James Bromley '00 |
| Having completed his Ph.D. in English at Loyola University Chicago, Jim was hired as an assistant professor of English at Miami University of Ohio, beginning in fall 2007. |
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| Sarah Carter, Dec. '01 |
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Since August 2001, Sarah has been a Language Arts teachers at Bridgman High School, in southwest lower Michigan. "Though it was a difficult decision to make, I chose Bridgman because of its small class sizes, supportive community, and respected reputation. Bridgman is on a 90-minute, 8-period block schedule, which means I am teaching six different courses. Most people think I was crazy to take a position as challenging as this one, but so far I have loved each and every day." |
| I am teaching courses that I am passionate about and that I have a great deal of freedom with: Effective Writing, Humanities, Vocabulary-Spelling-Grammar (VSG), Alternative Education English, and freshman English. I am also teaching a "study skills/conflict management/welcome to high school" course for freshmen which provides a nice break in my intense preparation. I have found my work with the students in A.S.P.I.R.E. (Bridgman's alternative education program) to be highly rewarding. |
| My experiences in the English and education courses at Aquinas, as well as the core of my liberal arts education, have served me well in my first few weeks here at Bridgman. I see my teaching career here as a Bridgman Bee to be one of great longevity. Coaching is an option, as I am an alum of the Aquinas cross country and track programs, and I have already been offered the women's head track coach position for the spring. I share "Ireland" stories with my students on a daily basis and look forward to returning to the Emerald Isle over Christmas break. I hope to begin a "Sampler-like" publication with my Effective Writing class and have used my contact with the Humanities and English faculty at Aquinas as a tool in creating a liberal arts atmosphere in my own classes. |
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Kate Dernocouer '06
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Kate began work on her MFA in writing at Western Michigan University in fall 2007. |
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| Caitlin Dillon ‘98 |
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I recently completed my doctorate in Linguistics at the University of Indiana after completing an MA in Linguistics at Cambridge University in England. I am now working in a post-doctoral position at Yale University, working with hearing impaired children who have had cochlear implants. While at Indiana Univesrity, I taught a variety of courses, including English as a Second Language and a basic linguistics course called Introduction to Language. I have also been a teaching assistant for a course called “Indiana Dialects and Language Variation,” a sociolinguistics class about the history and development of dialects of American English, with a focus on dialect variation in Indiana. |
| The English program at Aquinas served and continues to serve me well. Aquinas truly was a great place for me and the English Department provided me with an excellent education. |
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| Elizabeth Dudek '01 |
| I am currently living in the Chicago area and working at CCH (Commerce Clearing House, Inc.) located in Riverwoods, Ill. I am one of four Production Specialists for the Estate and Gift Tax Department, a group that focuses on such things as estates, wills, and financial planning. CCH, a subsidiary of the Dutch publisher Wolters-Kluwer, puts out material geared towards such individuals as accountants and lawyers. My job revolves around copyediting and proofing various products the group puts out, mainly aiding in the monthly production of New York Estates, Wills, and Trusts , information about New York probate law. I enjoy my position at CCH very much, and the more I work there the more I realize that I really and truly want to stay in publishing. I am reading and writing whenever I can, with hopes of eventually getting published and possibly doing some free-lance work. A crowning moment for me recently was entering the city-wide Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards. I submitted my poem "Hips" on a whim, and as luck would have it, the poem made it to the top 25. I performed the piece along with 24 other hopefuls in front of a live audience. Chicago is a great, vital city full of diverse people and opportunities to be creative. I am glad I ended up here. Without my education at AQ and the wonderful English professors who gave me both guidance and friendship, I don't think I'd be here. |
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| Alyssha Hayden '02 |
| Alyssha currently works as a First Year Experience advisor at Bryant and Stratton College in Buffalo, New York. After leaving Aquinas, she completed a Masters degree in Human Development and Leadership at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. |
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| Jeffery Hole '95 |
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Having completed his PhD in English at the University of Pittsburgh in 2007, Jeff accepted a teaching position in Fall 2007as visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. |
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| Patrick Hurley '04 |
| Patrick studied writing at Aquinas and spent a semester interning with the Great Books Foundation in Chicago as part of the Chicago semester. After graduation, he was hired by the Foundation and currently serves as a senior editor. He has had several of his short stories published recently. |
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| Shawn Jacobs '05 |
| Shawn, known professionally in his earlier career as "The Amazing Eddhead," now teaches English at Zeeland High School (Zeeland, Michigan) where he also is advisor for the newspaper and yearbook. He regularly uses "Romeo and Drooliet," a dog and cat version of "Romeo and Juliet," to get his freshman students into Shakespeare. |
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| Brian Keilen '07 |
| Brian was hired immediately after graduation as editor of the Town Meeting, the Elk Rapids, Michigan, weekly paper. |
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| Rickie-Ann Legleitner '06 |
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Rickie-Ann began work on her MA in English at DePaul University in Chicago in Fall 2007. |
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| Tracey Lindsley '06 |
| Tracey is teaching English on an Indian reservation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. |
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| Jennifer Marquardt '05 |
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In 2007, Jennifer accepted a teaching fellowship at the University of Southern Mississippi and completed her Masters degree in writing there in 2008. She has been accepted into the university's PhD program in English. |
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| Meadow-Rose Snyder '99 |
| For the past three years, I have been employed by Rose & Westra, Inc., an environmental consulting firm located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. While our company performs various activities related to environmental consulting, I am primarily involved with the proofreading and editing of the environmental reports generated to document these activities. As a proofreader, I am responsible both for maintaining the grammatical integrity of the writing in our office and for "translating" the technical writing into reports that are accessible and comprehensible to the general public. I cater to a diverse audience, ranging from lawyers and fellow environmental professionals to real estate agents and individuals in the process of acquiring a new land purchase. As such, I not only utilize the writing skills that I honed at Aquinas, but more importantly, I utilize the interdisciplinary skills emphasized through the liberal arts core education in order to decipher, organize, and revise the writings of others. |
| While I graduated with an English major and a women's studies cognate, I am currently employed in a field where I must rely heavily on my ability to understand multiple disciplines including chemistry, geography, and law. The interdisciplinary nature of the education provided by Aquinas has been a credit to my ability to perform in this multifaceted capacity. While my ability to communicate clearly in written correspondence has proven to be integral in my current position, it is my ability to use my analytical capacity in fields outside of my area of study that allows me to excel. |
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| Heather Young '99 |
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Since my 1999 graduation from Aquinas College, I have been working as a writer and project manager for a strategic marketing and communications firm called Williams Group. I help organizations strengthen the work they do by using a consistent "voice" and carefully selected messages. This amounts to the creation of presentations, brochures, web sites, advertisements and other marketing tools.
I feel good about the work I do because much of it is for nonprofit clients
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| including the Council of Michigan Foundations, Community Foundations of America, Council on Foundations, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, Frederik Meijer Gardens and Public Education Network. I have also helped build communications for corporate clients including Steelcase Inc., DuPont Canada, Lucent Technologies and Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceuticals. |
| While at Aquinas, I studied English and Spanish and put a lot of energy into writing for and editing The Aquinas Times. While my curricular and extracurricular writing provided me a specialty here at Williams Group, I find that the most valuable aspect of my Aquinas College experience was an exposure to many disciplines - a credit to the liberal arts degree. In meetings with clients and partners of my organization alike, an ability to think creatively and strategically has proven to be my advantage. Thanks in part to Aquinas, I'm not just a wordsmith, I'm a thinker. |
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| Debra Mary Zoppa '00 |
| During my last two semesters at Aquinas I began to contemplate what I would do upon graduation in spring of 2000. While finishing my coursework, I started to explore different careers thinking about my expectations, my interests, time, money, and how to use what I was learning in my English and psychology classes at Aquinas. I felt I had very strong literature and language communication skills that could be utilized in a variety of ways. I eventually decided to combine my love of learning with helping others learn. While finishing my bachelor's degree, I started taking classes as a guest student in the Masters in Education program at Aquinas. I will complete a master's degree in August 2002. |
| Since earning my Michigan Teaching Certificate in May, 2001, I have been teaching seventh and eighth grade Language Arts at St. Thomas the Apostle School. I find teaching to be challenging and rewarding on many different levels. I feel secure that the English classes I took at Aquinas prepared me well for teaching. Each day presents itself with amazing opportunities and expectations, and I enjoy the chance to share my love of literature and poetry with energetic students. I like preparing creative lesson plans based on my knowledge, using writing, grammar, and literature as a basis for future learning. The classes I took at Aquinas have given me a unique outlook towards teaching and filled me with a desire to continue my education. I seriously doubt if I would have chosen teaching as a career if not for the excellence demanded at Aquinas both academically and personally. Aquinas English classes provided an exceptional place for me, as an adult student, to learn and thrive with confidence. |
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