Photos from the April AWP literary conference in
Minneapolis. Plus former
Ivory Tower editor Garrison Keillor meets current
staff, two majors wow President Kaler, and an HR director (and alum) offers
career advice.
Keillor Confab
In the mid-1960s, when the University's literary magazine
Ivory Tower
was a glossy weekly insert of
The Minnesota Daily, English major
Garrison Keillor served as Editor-in-Chief. These days,
Ivory Tower is
created via a year-long course in English: Students, primarily English
majors, set a budget, plan a theme, raise funds, gather and edit
submissions, and design, market, and launch an annual 100-page journal.
Between
A Prairie Home Companion tapings, Keillor (BA 1966) dropped by
campus this spring for lunch and conversation with the 2015 editors.
Keep an eye out for news about an
Ivory Tower reunion!
Dinner with the President
Two English seniors were this year's only recipients of the University of
Minnesota's top leadership award for undergraduates, the
Donald R. Zander Award for Outstanding Student Leadership.
Marina Kuperman sat
next to President Eric Kaler at the awards banquet (left): She was a peer
counselor in our advising office and a UROP participant; she is enrolled
in the College of Education's DirecTrack to Teaching Program.
Ian Taylor, Jr.
missed the ceremony, but he had a great excuse: He was interning at the
White House. Taylor was the founder of student group Black Men's Forum
(winner of the SUA 2014 Rookie Student Group of the Year), a long-time
Assistant Admissions Counselor at the U, and a Harvard Public Policy and
Leadership Conference Fellow; he plans to attend law school. Taylor and
Kuperman were granted $1000 scholarships from the University of Minnesota
Alumni Association. They both also received
President's Student Leadership and Service Awards.
Career Advice from an HR Expert
"Consider each job opportunity as a potential gateway to something
unexpected," advises
Diane Richard (BA 1985), Director of Human Resources for medical device design and manufacturer Minnetronix. "Any entry point into a company you admire can pave the way
for growth." Richard knows from experience: She landed in HR after job promotions within the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. piqued her interest in earning an MBA. How do the skills learned in English translate to human resources? "Majoring in English influenced my ability to think deeply about how people, motive, and context are connected." Read more in our
interview with Richard.
AWP Round-Up!
The annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs landed at the Minneapolis Convention Center April 9-11, drawing some 11,000 people, and the entire city lit up literary. The Creative Writing Program threw a 19th birthday party for the MFA degree at the Weisman Museum. Professor and poet Ray Gonzalez received a lifetime achievement award. BA alumna and
Wild memoirist Cheryl Strayed drew crowds wherever she went (including a panel, right, with Professor Emerita Maria Damon). CWP alums and faculty starred on panels and at readings in and outside of the convention center. Professor and fiction writer Charles Baxter survived an official AWP tribute panel. We took some photos to tide us over until a possible AWP return to the Twin Cities . . . in 2020?!
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| Regents Professor Patricia Hampl reads to an overflow crowd at the Weisman |
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| Professor Ray Gonzalez (with Natalia Trevino) receives the Con Tinta Lifetime Achievement Award |
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| Novelist and alum Matt Burgess at the Charles Baxter tribute |
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| Alumnae/i from 2010, 2011, and 2012 at the Weisman |
