Beginning Monday, eight chairs within the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences will be up for grabs in a week-long election period.
Amongst those up for grabs is the English Department’s chair, which for the first time in four decades, is being challenged by Elizabeth Gregory, Director of Women’s Gender and Sexualities.
Gregory, an associate professor of English, completed her bachelor’s at Barnard College, her master’s at University of Kentucky and her doctorate at Yale, according to the Department of English website. At UH, she teaches courses on British and American modernism, contemporary poetry, ancient and classical literature, feminist criticism and motherhood studies.
As director of the WGSS, she has developed the Carey C. Shuart Women’s Archive and Research Collection, an anthology of papers from women’s organizations that have helped shape Houston.
“My aim as chair would be to facilitate the department’s further growth and student and faculty success, drawing on our many and diverse strengths and building on our good foundation,” Gregory said in a letter to the staff of the department.
Opposite Gregory is current chair and professor Wyman Herendeen. Heredeen completed his bachelor’s and master’s at Brown University and his docorate at the University of Toronto.
In the department’s retreat “Rethinking English Studies” in April 2009, Herendeen wrote on the liveliness of the department in the range of innovative pedagogical strategies. He also wrote about the new areas of research and the emergence of rhetoric, composition, and pedagogy concentrations, said Irving N. Rothman, English professor, in an email to the department.
During that retreat, the department created a planning document that Rothman has kept in his office. Three years later, it documents foresight and confirms trust in the capabilities of the faculty to move forward, Rothman’s email said.
On Feb. 6, Gregory spoke from noon to 1 p.m. in the Roy G. Cullen Building while Herendeen spoke at the same time and location the following week.
Voting began 8 a.m. today and will end Feb. 25.
EDIT 11:45 a.m. Feb. 18: Elizabeth Gregory has withdrawn from the election to be the English department chair. Wyman Hrendeen will continue as chair for another three-year term.
What a farce. There’s no “innovation” in that department at any level. Bogged down in the mid 20th century, that department is doomed to lag behind successful programs for another three years.