2017 Rutgers-Newark Commencement

Some of our MFA students before the Graduate
Hooding. I had the immense pleasure of having nearly
all of them in a workshop or literature class! 

It has been eons since I've blogged, I know, but this year so far has easily been my busiest in a while, perhaps ever. I've recited the litany so often I think friends and associates, and most certainly my colleagues, are tired of hearing it, but in addition to my departmental chair duties, teaching, mentoring graduate students (3 MFAs, 1 independent study, 1 TA, two different doctoral committees), undergraduates (2 honors students), multiple search committees, and university committees, as well as various non-university profession-related duties, I also spent a good portion of the semester traveling to continue promoting Counternarratives and my other books, and while I love doing so, the physical and psychic toll of travel, especially these days, is always steeper than I envision.

As the scant entries this year testify, my blogging has especially fallen by the wayside this year. This  saddens me because I enjoy writing on here, and I feel like there's a particular need for it now. (I can also recall how just a few years ago, we were told that Twitter was becoming irrelevant and that blogging would soon be joining the ranks of the dodo bird and the woolly mammoth.) My several entries on the current resident of the White House remain stubs, however, and every day--sometimes it feels like every hour--brings so many new political revelations, bombshells, and shocks that, as was the case during the George W. Bush years, if you miss a week, you might as well wait for the next cluster of horrors and outrages. I think you can reasonably describe the White House's attempted Muslim Bans, its health care bills, its assault on regulations, its draconian budget, and so on horrors and outrages, even for some of Donald Trump's supporters....

But my aim with this entry was not to talk about Trump, but rather to congratulate the Rutgers-Newark (and Rutgers more broadly) Classes of 2017, undergraduate and graduate, and by extension, all who graduated this spring and year.  I'm very glad the semester and academic year have come to a close, but I already miss the students I worked with this year. As I mentioned, I supervised three MFA fiction students, Soili Smith, Matt Weir (whom I'd taught when he was a beginning creative writing student at Northwestern!) and Magally "Maggie" Zelaya, all of whom successfully completed their theses this spring. In addition, Soili applied and was admitted to Rutgers-Newark's PhD program in American Studies.

I also supervised two honors undergraduate students, both of whom successfully submitted fiction theses, Secilia Flores and Madani Sheikh. Madani graduated summa cum laude, received a senior prize from the English department, and gained admission into Rutgers-Newark's MFA program. He even was recently the subject of a thoughtful profile on Rutgers-Newark's website, and had previously received coverage as part of a social entrepeneurship team that made it to the regional finalist stage when he was a freshman.

All of these students, as well as others I mentored and taught, were a joy to work with, and I will definitely miss them, though I'll get to see Soili and Madani this upcoming academic year. Congratulations to all of them and all of this year's graduates!

Below are a few photos from Rutgers-Newark's various end-of-the-academic-year and Commencement events. For the Graduate Hooding ceremony and the actual Prudential Center campus-wide commencement, I wore a purple robe (for my graduate degree from NYU), but a creative writing colleague told me that I need to get the fancier, final degree model, with the fancier hat. Will do!

The big shebang, at the Prudential Center! 

Yours truly, one of our talented MFA graduates,
Darise Jean-Baptiste, and my wonderful
colleague Tayari Jones, after Commencement

The MFA graduates, during their end-of-year
reading at the MFA house

Matt Weir, one of my MFA advisees,
reading from his hilarious thesis

Poet Jeremy Clark, with Matt at right 

Darise Jean-Baptiste, reading from
her fiction thesis

Leslie Jones, reading from her
fiction thesis--well, showing its cover
before reading from it 

Maggie Zelaya, sharing her cover before
reading from her thesis, which I saw take
shape over her time at Rutgers-Newark

Aarthi Monteiro, another student I finally
got to work with last fall, reading from
her fiction thesis

Soili Smith, one of my MFA advisees,
reading from her fiction thesis, Sasquatch,
which did not include the story featuring Sasquatch
(though I hope the full collection will)

Students in the book arts course,
with their art-text projects, which they
discussed before sharing a bit of work

The faculty and students listening to the readings

Faculty and students enjoying the readings

Congratulations to the 2015 Graduates

2015 Commencement at Rutgers University-Newark,
at the Prudential Center, Newark, NJ
(photo © Rutgers University-Newark Facebook)

When I switched back from teaching on the quarter to the semester system in 2012, I wasn't sure how long it would take me to readjust, but in truth it took no time to reacquaint myself with the fact that May, rather than June, would bring a swift conclusion to the academic year, with final exams and grading compressed into a rapid-fire period, and graduation following swiftly thereafter. (I confess that I do like semesters more--a lot more!--than quarters.)

This year, my sabbatical-sick leave has kept me away from campus for most of the last five months, so the spring academic calendar has remained fairly hazy, but when May rolled in, I knew graduation events would also arrive soon. This past Saturday evening I was able to drop by the celebration for our graduating Rutgers University-Newark MFA students, who received their hoods at a ceremony that afternoon. They, like the rest of the graduating students from all the university's constituent divisions walked at the university-wide Commencement ceremony, which was held at the Prudential Center in Newark on Monday.

Rutgers University-Newark's 2015
Commencement speaker, Earl Lewis,
President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
(photo © Rutgers University-Newark Facebook)

Because of the sabbatical I did not advise any MFA or undergraduate students this spring, but I was fortunate to have many of the graduating writers in classes that included last spring's Writers at Newark and last fall's fiction workshop, and I taught some of the departing undergraduates in courses ranging from Foundations of Literary Study to my courses on contemporary African Diasporic Fiction and the Black Arts Movement. Both groups were diverse in every way, and I feel fortunate to be able to say that I have learned as much from them as they from me.

To all of the 2015 Rutgers-Newark MFA graduates, as well as my many undergraduate students who have received their degrees this week, I offer my heartiest and warmest CONGRATULATIONS! I look forward to staying in touch in the years to come, and as I always say to the writers among you, please keep writing!

***

Over the decade that I taught at Northwestern, I supervised quite a few students: 13 MFA theses as first reader; 11 as second reader; 15 MFA student independent studies; 11 undergraduate creative writing honors theses; 4 undergraduate literature or African American Studies theses; 2 undergraduate internships; 1 MA independent study (which was curtailed when the student was injured in a car accident); and 7 undergraduate creative writing or literature independent studies. These superb students have gone on to do wonderful things in the literary and other worlds, and I treasure having had the opportunity to work with all of them, as I do with all my students, going back to NYU, Brown, and of course, now at Rutgers-Newark.

Yet it was not until a few weeks ago that I could offer congratulations to my last NU MFA thesis advisee, Whitney Youngs, who submitted as her thesis an excerpt of a novel she is writing. I was delighted to serve as her first reader, to read the manuscript through again, and to be able to sign off on her behalf. As a result, Whitney will receive her MFA degree in June! I have watched Whitney grow as a writer and person since she enrolled in an MA/MFA workshop I taught many years ago, and it has been a special pleasure to work with her in shaping and polishing her fiction, especially this novel, which I hope she completes and publishes.

To Whitney, congratulations many times over, and to all my students, including the Northwestern MA/MFA and undergraduate students with whom I worked and who are also receiving their degrees this June, CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU!

Graduation Photos

Here are a few photos from yesterday's Rutgers-Newark's 2014 Commencement, the first I've attended (I was out of town last spring), and the first ever held in the Prudential Center, where the New Jersey Devils ice hockey and other sports teams play. It also was the first Commencement that our new chancellor, Nancy Cantor, presided over.

It is always so inspiring and invigorating to see students graduating, and given the challenging journeys that many of my current students have made to get to and through school, I am so deeply proud of and happy for them. I saw a number of them as I marched in with the faculty, and got to congratulate them in person on receiving their degrees; I beamed and cheered as several received graduation honors.

As is widely known, there was considerable controversy surrounding the selection of former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, one of the architects of the disastrous Iraq War and a chief actor in the disgraced George W. Bush regime, as Rutgers' New Brunswick commencement speaker. She was to receive not just an honorary degree, but $30,000 as well. Student, faculty (including yours truly) and alumni petitions and protests over her selection and way she was selected, as well as the fee she was to receive, however, led her to withdraw.

At Rutgers-Newark, there thankfully was no brouhaha at all surrounding our commencement speaker, Don Katz, an noted author, former journalist and the CEO of Newark-based Audible, Inc., the largest global producer of downloadable audiobooks. (If you listen to any, you probably have an Audible, Inc. product flowing through your ears. And yes, it is an Amazon company....) He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Ironically because of the arena's audio situation, which created a doubling effect for certain speakers, including Katz, I could not make out much of what he said.

The ceremony itself went very long (degrees were conferred by school, with the names of students from every division, save the Law School, read aloud), but we received an assurance that this approach is thankfully under review.

Afterwards the MFA Program in Creative Writing held a party for this year's graduates, and all three of my wonderful thesis advisees, Adam Bowser, Craig Chanin and Serena Lin, and their families and friends, along with all the other MFA graduates I've had the opportunity to work with, were present, so although I had risen very early to get to the Prudential Center by 7 AM and had been flagging, I felt momentarily revived.

To the 2014 graduates and their families, congratulations again!

Lining up before the march in,
faculty at left, students at right

Students lined up (including
some I've taught!) 

The Prudential Center, before the students
and faculty enter

Procession of the schools
(led by my colleague Professor Rob Schneider,
head of the American Studies Program

Graduates on screen

A full arena! 

Don Katz, Audible, Inc. CEO
giving his commencement speech

At the MFA party, from left, Adam
Bowser, a friend of Serena Lin's,
 Serena's brother, and Serena 

Another photo of the MFA party,
with my colleague Alice Elliot Dark
in the foreground, and graduates
Jake Slovis (l) and Dana Jaye Cadman (r)

Serena, my colleague Tayari
Jones, and yours truly, in regalia
(and barely standing!)
Photo © Serena Lin