English Majors Win Leadership Award

The University of Minnesota's top student leadership award for undergraduates, the Donald R. Zander Award for Outstanding Student Leadership, is given to two students each year. The 2015 recipients are both English majors: Marina Kuperman and Ian Taylor, Jr. Kuperman (left, with President Eric Kaler) is a peer counselor in our advising office, a UROP participant, and a Community Engagement Scholar; she is enrolled in the College of Education's DirecTrack to Teaching Program. Taylor is 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's Admissions Office, and a Harvard Public Policy and Leadership Conference Fellow; he plans to attend law school. Taylor and Kuperman receive $1000 scholarships from the University of Minnesota Alumni Association. Congratulations!

5 X Friday: Regents Professor Madelon Sprengnether

Twenty years ago, Regents Professor Madelon Sprengnether wrote and shepherded the proposal for the MFA in Creative Writing through various levels of University approval so the Program could begin granting the degree in 1996. What about the MFA Program is she most proud of? "The accomplishments of our graduates," she answers quickly. "The proof is in the pudding." The growing number of alumnae/i publications parallels the feverish output of Creative Writing Program faculty: This spring, Professor Sprengnether publishes (and reads from--see listing below) both a memoir, Great River Road (New Rivers), and a prose poetry collection, Near Solstice (Holy Cow!). What does this all have to do with lab research on memory? Read on.