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Alumni Spotlight: Allison Shelton

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 16:30:28 +0000

Alumni Spotlight: Allison Shelton Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/23/2020 - 10:30

Kat Lewis

The pursuable career options with an English degree have expanded drastically in the past five years alone, broadening the use and the function of an English major in academia and outside of it. English majors are working in law, counseling, business, politics, science – fields that used to exclude the humanities until employers understood the benefits of an English degree in the workplace.

One particular ��񱦵� English alumna forging her way through a nontraditional career is Dr. Allison Shelton, a curriculum developer at Wix, a website building company. Shelton combines her passion for teaching and love for education with technology to provide individualized classroom solutions for fellow educators.

Originally from Long Beach, CA, Shelton completed her undergraduate studies at UC Santa Cruz, her MA in English Literature at CUNY Hunter College in New York, and then came to ��񱦵� for her PhD in Literature. She moved back to New York City in July of 2019 to work for Wix, even before completing her dissertation.

“Mostly I enjoy being on a small team (at Wix) and being the “expert” in my area, which is all things higher education and course design and development. I love that I get to split my time between writing and research just like I did in grad school, only the subject matter I’m researching and writing about is always changing. I also like that decisions get made quite quickly here, and I’m pushed to really be proactive and innovative. And, of course, I love having a real salary with full health benefits.”

When asked how ��񱦵� prepared her for success, Allison brought a refreshing realism to the table: “Just from a hiring standpoint, I wouldn’t have been considered for my current position without the PhD.” She explained further by considering the ways that graduate school, in general, taught her the skills she needed to be successful in her current position. “Beyond that, grad school taught me to budget unstructured time and produce high quality writing, both of which are necessary in my current position. Studying/teaching literature improved my critical thinking skills, which I rely on a lot and are in shockingly high demand. Teaching writing also helped me grow adept at wordsmithing and genre bending, which I am also called upon to do a LOT.”

More than just teaching her the skills she needed to succeed, the English Department provided many fond memories for Shelton during her time as a PhD student and candidate. “My favorite memories are of my friends, the amazing community of grad students I met and grew with during the program. I also loved getting to know my professors and putting together my absolute dream team of a committee for my dissertation.” When asked about her favorite course she took in the department, she was quick to name Karim Mattar’s Peripheral Visions course as a standout favorite.

Currently, Allison is working on many Wix projects that need to stay under wraps until their announcement and implementation but is also working on revisions to an article under consideration for publication and is planning to submit another article soon. “I also finally got back to reading for fun!”

In a final moment, Shelton provided some playfully insightful advice to current students, graduate and undergraduate, in the English Department at ��񱦵�: “Be yourself – just do you. And to quote one of my favorite people, Chuck Tingle: “IT IS HAPPENING THE DANG SUN IS COMING UP AGAIN AND GIVING US ANOTHER DAY TO PROVE LOVE IS REAL THIS IS A TREAT OF BUDS LETS TROT BUCKAROOS.”

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Alumni Spotlight: Olivia Meikle

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 23:02:18 +0000

Alumni Spotlight: Olivia Meikle Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/30/2020 - 16:02

Kat Lewis

The alumni of our three graduate programs exhibit success in a multitude of ways once they leave the ��񱦵�, personally and professionally. They enter diverse and unique career paths that do not always revolve around academia, even extending the skills they learned in the English Department to fields that are not always traditionally synonymous with an English degree. A prime example of this can be seen with Olivia Meikle, a 2017 graduate from the MA in Literature program. She not only teaches at Naropa University and the University of Denver, but also produces and hosts the widely acclaimed What’sHerName podcast alongside her sister, Katie Nelson.

What’sHerName podcast, downloaded over 180,000 times since its debut episode in 2018, came to fruition after Olivia began to talk seriously with her sister, a history professor, about collaborating on a women’s history podcast. In addition to her MA in Literature, Olivia also holds a certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from ��񱦵�, so this project seemed like a perfect synthesis of each of their interests. The project really began to take focus when Olivia was walking through Columbia Cemetery on the Hill and stumbled upon a grave that was inscribed simply “Mother.” “In that moment, I suddenly knew we had to pursue Katie’s earlier suggestion that we focus on the forgotten women whose stories have been erased from our narratives.”

After the idea took shape, the sisters both knew they would have to spend time learning the mechanics of producing a podcast. “All that was left was the little stuff like learning audio engineering, choosing subjects, coming up with a format, finding guests, creating a website… no big deal! We spent about six months planning, learning and preparing a few episodes to make sure we were ready to launch with a solid and professional-sounding project, and we premiered our first two episodes on New Year’s Day, 2018.”

Olivia is not shy about admitting that her studies in English were one of many factors that prepared her to take on such a large creative project alongside her sister. “I could (and have in a talk for the English Department in 2019) go on about this for hours, but I firmly believe that an English degree is the most helpful, versatile, useful degree you can get for learning how to think, how to write (including all forms of “writing,” such as podcasting, filmmaking, teaching, storytelling, etc.), and how to learn. The knowledge I gained during my degree is critical for my success in both sides of my career, as an instructor and as a podcaster, but even more important has been the skills in critical thinking, narrative-building, rhetoric, persuasion, analysis and research that has allowed me to be confident enough to push myself outside of my own fields and work successfully in a new discipline, in a very public forum with no margin for error, without making a fool of myself or doing a disservice to our listeners.”

When asked about the ways in which she was prepared for success in the realm of podcasting, Olivia dictated some of her success to ��񱦵�’s English Department, specifically. “Thora Brylowe’s phenomenal ProSem class was an excellent preparation for the academic side of my work, but has proved equally useful for the podcasting side as well – knowing how to locate and contact guests, how to promote ourselves and our work, how to adapt our content for a variety of audiences, and how to keep a practical view of the financial and workload aspects of the work while knowing how to choose when to stick to our guns on our goals or principles for this “community education” project, plays into the success of the podcast in almost every way I can think of.”

Two years later, What’sHerName is averaging over 16,000 downloads a month, and has listeners in over 120 countries. The podcast is being used all over the world in college and high school classrooms, has been featured in newspapers, popular blogs, and even on Melinda Gates’ new website Evoke.org.

Olivia was kind enough to offer advice to any English major or minor that may be questioning their path or their career goals: “Plan for the career goals you think you’d like to achieve, but always keep your eyes open for the “shiny thing” (to quote Tim Minchin) that’s approaching out of the corner of your eye. You might end up in a completely different career path or medium than you had expected and find it’s exactly what you would have wanted if you’d known it had existed, if you’re just willing to “catch the wave” as it comes!”

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Alumni Spotlight: Dr. Alex Corey

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 22:19:20 +0000

Alumni Spotlight: Dr. Alex Corey Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/01/2019 - 16:19

One of the key components of the English Department at the ��񱦵� is the rigorous and highly selective PhD program in Literature. The fully-funded five-year program involves coursework, a Comprehensive Examination, undergraduate teaching, and a dissertation has trained a large number of bright and accomplished alumni. Their graduate work at CU English has prepared them to excel in an array of positions inside and outside of academia.

For a one example of our recent alumni from the PhD in Literature program, we look to Dr. Alex W. Corey. Corey is currently a full-time Lecturer on History & Literature at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Dr. Corey graduated from ��񱦵� in spring 2017, with a dissertation titled “Beyond the Blues: Music, Gender, and Black Modernisms.” In their research, Dr. Corey asks how the gendering of sound led into and emerged out of the racial dynamics of twentieth-century American musical culture.

When considering the ways in which CU prepared them for their current position at Harvard, Corey shared a couple important insights. They recognize that extensive teaching experience as a PhD candidate within the Department set them up “to excel as a faculty member in History & Literature.” Also, their work as the manager of the Laboratory for Race and Popular Culture “profoundly influenced the way [they] teach pop music now.”

They continued: “One of the most important things I took from CU’s English program was a hard-fought ability to write clear, concise arguments without relying on jargon—many thanks to [faculty members] Dr. Cheryl Higashida and Dr. Adam Bradley, in particular, for their considerable guidance on this front.”

Dr. Corey has taught a variety of undergraduate courses at History & Literature. They taught “Contemporary American Literature and Popular Music,” which explored how pop music and recent U.S. literature engage with questions of social power. With a historian, they co-teach “Social Justice Activism,” in which students study a range of overlapping areas of political activism since about 1900. Topics include anti-lynching campaigns, agricultural labor organizing, Black feminism reproductive justice activism, and indigenous demands for recognition. Each year, they also advise two seniors writing honors theses and have evaluated 4-5 senior theses each year.

When asked about their biggest accomplishment since graduating from ��񱦵�’s PhD program, they named being awarded the Jan Thaddeus Award for Teaching and Service in History & Literature in 2019. “This award means so much to me in part because students nominated me and wrote confidential letters on my behalf. History & Literature is a community of excellent teachers, and it is a true honor to be recognized for teaching and mentoring in the context of such amazing colleagues.”

Currently, Corey is working on three projects. They are in the final stages of revising a former dissertation chapter to send out as an announcement of their book project. They explain: “This essay examines the drafting process of James Weldon Johnson’s 1912 The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. It shows how the late infusion of Frederic Chopin’s music into novel’s manuscript was a way of sonically aligning the narrator with excessive femininity, even as he lives as a white widower raising children on his own.” They are spearheading a project to improve accessibility and inclusion within History & Literature’s curriculum. And with colleagues, they are advocating for better treatment of teaching faculty at Harvard.

Corey looks back fondly on an array of experiences from their time at the ��񱦵�: “Fond memories include all the hours I spent writing my dissertation with wonderful colleagues at The Cup (now sadly closed), Innisfree, and Sanitas; waking up at 4:30 AM to go backcountry skiing before a full day of research and writing; and finding an awesome queer and trans community in Boulder. And I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that Colorado sunshine.”

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