English Excellence Fund

The Department of English Excellence fund is used to enrich our students’ educational experiences and enhance their career opportunities. Contributions to our Excellence fund, however large or small, are well spent and deeply appreciated.

Upcoming Fund Needs

• Summer 2024 Study Abroad trips (Greece and Ireland)
• Scholarship funds
• Student travel to conferences
  • CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication) will be nearby in Spokane in April 2024. Many of our graduate students are hoping to attend and donations would help cover conference registration and travel.
  • Also this spring, our undergraduate students involved with Blood Orange Review and LandEscapes will be traveling to the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference and book fair in Kansas City, Missouri. The conference offers valuable opportunities to connect with creative writers and potential employers in the publishing industry.

Past Events/Projects Funded

• Ireland Study Abroad Trip: Students traveled around Ireland with Professors Donna Potts and Colin Criss. The trip featured meetings with poets across Ireland.
• Reviving Sigma Tau Delta: Graduate and undergraduate students are working hard to revive our chapter of the English honor society, Sigma Tau Delta. The Excellence fund allowed them to get off to a running start by providing honorary memberships to the first eight students who signed up.
• Readings: Recently, the department hosted a Young Adult Fiction writer to present her work to English Club.
• AWP Conference: Interns for our undergraduate journal, LandEscapes, and our online literary journal, Blood Orange Review, attended the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference and book fair in Seattle, where they staffed a table to introduce participants to WSU’s publications and encourage submissions.
• ASLE Conference: Department professors took graduate students to the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment conference in Portland in July 2023, where they presented papers and made connections with professors in their field of study.
• Art Exhibit and Reception: The department contributed funds for a beautiful art exhibit and reception featuring Ukrainian artists recently arrived in Pullman, an event our students and faculty found deeply moving.
• Field Journal Workshop, Excursion to Smoot Hill, and Reading/Lecture by Dr. Lyn Baldwin: These events were attended by WSU English majors and in support of the interdisciplinary certificate Eco Arts and Public Engagement, which brings together courses and mentoring from the following programs: English, Arts, Landscape Architecture, Horticulture, and School of the Environment. Baldwin is an award-winning educator and plant conservation biologist who uses art, creative writing, and science to help bring students closer to the botanical world.