Aurora Harris, lecturer in English and African and African American Studies, has been named the recipient of the 2012 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature for her poetry collection Solitude of Five Black Moons (co-published by Broadside Press and University of Detroit-Mercy Press). The partially autobiographical book covers such subjects as African American and Filipino cultures, jazz, women and nature. The Josephine Miles Literary Award honors writers of exceptional works often not acknowledged by the mainstream literary community that both reflect a multi-cultural or marginalized viewpoint and represent the highest standards of literature. Harris will receive the prize at an award ceremony in December.
Librarians Michael Teague Orblych, and Michelle Kathleen Dunaway’s article, Formative Assessment: Transforming Information Literacy, was honored this summer by the American Library Association’s Library Instruction Roundtable (LIRT). Their article was selected as one of “LIRTs Top Twenty” library instruction articles for 2011. Orblych is the Mardigian Library’s research education coordinator and Dunaway is the evening circulation desk assistant.
