On April 14, 2022 the English Department hosted a professional development conference for Utah’s English 1010 and English 2200 concurrent enrollment teachers and USU faculty who support teacher-learning in our program. This year’s conference theme — “Building Literacy Education Together” — was based upon our program’s commitment to building and supporting teacher expertise. Teacher experts are defined as those who continually hone their craft and make purposeful commitments to professional growth both within and beyond classroom spaces. Throughout the conference, participants collaborated to cultivate expertise.
The conference was led by Assistant Professor Jessica Rivera-Mueller and supported by the English Department and USU’s concurrent enrollment program. Members of the program’s Continuous Improvement Committee (Deanna Allred, Susan Andersen, Joelle Beard, John Engler, Allison Feinauer, Marty Reeder, Jeremy Ricketts, Gail Scoville, Shanda Winget, and Russ Winn) were instrumental in planning and facilitating the conference.
Dr. Casie Moreland, Director of Dual Credit at the University of Idaho, delivered the keynote address, “Let’s Get Critical: Using Concurrent Enrollment History and Policy to Contextualize Anti-Racist Literacy Instruction.” She is co-editor of The Dual Enrollment Kaleidoscope: Reconfiguring Perceptions of First-Year Writing and Composition Studies, and her latest book, The Impossible Plan: A History of Dual Enrollment in an Era of White Complacency, is under contract and review with SUNY Press.
After the keynote, concurrent enrollment teachers from nine different high schools joined with USU faculty to discuss improvements to practices in concurrent enrollment and future steps for the Teaching Partner Program.
Principal Lecturer and Director of USU’s Writing Center Susan Andersen says that the Teaching Partner Program “helps teachers feel connected to the university. We learn from each other. We share resources with each other. I learn teaching techniques from these excellent high school teachers, and they learn about university resources from me. The Teaching Partners Program also helps students understand the university's academic support system, such as the library and the USU Writing Center. Students feel supported by their high school environment while also getting a chance to see themselves as college students.”
Mufti Nadimul Quamar Ahmed is a graduate student in his second year, pursuing a doctorate in sociology at USU. He recently helped survey Utahns to see if environmental concerns affect the decision to have children.
Utah State University President’s Office recently held receptions for this year’s round of inaugural lectures. Three recently promoted faculty in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences presented thoughtful reflections on their research and the even...
