The winner of the 2013 Cynthia Krieser award for outstanding student writing is Hunter Johnson. Hunter was a student in Wendy Goldberg’s WRIT 102 class this semester.

Congratulations to Hunter!

Hunter Johnson and Alice Myatt

For more information about the Krieser award, go to our Student Awards page.

On Wednesday May 1, first-year student writers and artists gathered with faculty, staff, family, and friends to celebrate the publication of the seventh edition of Venture Online, the University of Mississippi’s first-year writing magazine. Venture Online, under the direction of editor Emily Cooley and assistant editor Milly West, both instructors in the CWR, is a venue to showcase the many creative talents of University of Mississippi students.

This semester’s launch party featured guest-speaker Tom Franklin, author of the 2012 Common Reading Experience text, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter.

The magazine, supported jointly by the Center for Writing and Rhetoric and the Division of Outreach, is published each semester of the regular academic year. Any first-year student may submit writing or artwork to the magazine, and a group of student editors (many of whom have published previously in Venture) decide which works to publish. The student editors work with Milly West and Emily Cooley to assemble the magazine’s contents, and Division of Outreach Graphic Designer Larry Agostinelli develops the magazine itself.

The Mystic Krew of Mykarma, a group dedicated to the support of gender freedom and creative endeavors in the University of Mississippi community, chooses winners from three categories of the magazine. This semester, the winners are:

Poetry Winner: “Precipitation” by Lo Burton

Honorable mention: “Build a Fire” by Abbie Szabo and “What the Future Holds” by Robert Williams

Prose Winner: “Golden Waves” by Mary Hannah Cooper

Honorable mention: “Biography of A. W. from a Comfy Couch” by Alex Waddell

Art Winner: “Coffee Obsessed” by Caitlyn Sullivan

Honorable mention: “Jars” by Morgan Fyfe

The CWR is proud of our students who were published in Venture, and excited about the enthusiasm of our instructors and staff in promoting the magazine and encouraging students to submit work.

To learn more about Venture Online, and to read current and former issues, visit the Venture Online section of our website.

Venture Online student editors.

Tom Franklin speaks at the Venture Online launch party.

The Winning Design

Milly West’s LIBA 102 Generation Green course focuses on issues relating to sustainability and the environment. Recently, Milly and her current class of students were the first ever recipients of a Green Fund Award at The University of Mississippi. The class project will involve selling BPA-free water bottles and educating students about the positive benefits of reusable bottles. Congratulations to Milly and her students, who are gaining real value from learning to write, and writing to learn! Look for their h2otty toddy bottles on sale during Green Week on Wednesday, April 24th in front of the student union. All proceeds will be returned to the Ole Miss Green Fund.

LIBA 102 courses are taught by faculty members from across the university, and are designed to be writing classes with specific disciplinary themes. These courses allow enrolled students to explore an content area related to their own academic or personal interests, while at the same time developing sophisticated academic writing and research skills. For more details, visit the LIBA 102 Course Page.

The 2013 Common Reader

A West Point grad, Rhodes scholar, and Army Ranger recounts his unparalleled education in the art of war and reckons with the hard wisdom that only battle itself can bestow.

One haunting afternoon on Losano Ridge in Afghanistan, Captain Craig Mullaney and his platoon were caught in a deadly firefight with Al Qaeda fighters when a message came over the radio: one of his soldiers had been killed in action.

Mullaney’s education had been relentlessly preparing him for this moment. The four years he spent at West Point and the harrowing test of Ranger School readied him for a career in the Army. His subsequent experience as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford couldn’t have been further from the Army and his working class roots, and yet the unorthodox education he received there would be surprisingly relevant as a combat leader. Years later, after that unforgettable experience in Afghanistan, he would return to the United States to teach history to future Navy and Marine Corps officers at the Naval Academy. He had been in their position once, and he had put his education to the test. How would he use his own life-changing experience prepare them?

The Unforgiving Minute is the extraordinary story of one soldier’s singular education. From a hilarious plebe’s-eye view of the author’s West Point experience to the demanding leadership crucible of Ranger School’s swamps and mountains, to a two-year whirlwind of scintillating debate, pub crawls, and romance at Oxford, Mullaney’s winding path to the battlegrounds of Afghanistan was unique and remarkable. Despite all his preparation, the hardest questions remained. When the call came to lead his platoon into battle and earn his soldiers’ salutes, would he be ready? Was his education sufficient for the unforgiving minutes he’d face? A fascinating account of an Army captain’s unusual path through some of the most legendary seats of learning straight into a brutal fight with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, The Unforgiving Minute is, above all, an unforgettable portrait of a young soldier grappling with the weight of his hard-earned knowledge while coming to grips with becoming a man.

The Common Reading Experience began with the 2011-2012 school year. In this third year of the program, it will work very similarly to the first two years. Every freshman receives a copy of the selected text at orientation to finish before the school year begins in August. Instructors from the Center for Writing and Rhetoric, Freshman Year Experience, Department of Nursing, and others then utilize the text in their classes. It allows for an enriched sense of community by all reading the text as one.

For more information, visit umreads.olemiss.edu

Instructor Emily Cooley

Students from Emily Cooley’s LIBA 102 class recently visited the Yokna Bottoms Farm and CSA near Oxford. Cooley’s LIBA 102 class is themed “From Farm to Fork: Going Green Locally,” and the visit was related to students’ research into sustainable eating habits.

Here’s an excerpt of Cooley’s interview from the Yokna Bottoms Farm weekly email newsletter:

Can you give us a brief overview of “From Farm to Fork?” The purpose of this course is to challenge Freshman writing students to consider the impact their everyday decisions about food have on their health, community, nation, world, and environment.  To that end, we examine how our food is grown, where it comes from, and how it gets here.  We also consider the benefits and challenges of local sourcing and explore the effects of corporate farming and the modern agri-business model.

What inspired you to design a course around this topic? My interest in the “From Farm to Fork” movement comes from a personal frustration with all of the “Franken-food” options available at national grocery store chains and my belief that we, as a society, are not doing enough to emphasize the relationship between good food and good health.

How have students responded to the food issues you’re covering in the class? My students have had varied responses to the topics covered in this course. At the start of the semester, they began keeping a “food journal” to identify and track their dietary choices.  These journals have provided a basis for class discussions about seasonality, sustainability, and the differences between raw, prepared, and processed food choices.  They have also provided my students with a personal record to juxtapose against the observations of writers such as Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  At the same time, these journals have led to a degree of frustration as my students have learned just how difficult it is to find out exactly what they are eating and where it is coming from.

What did you hope your students would get out of their visit to Yokna Bottoms Farm? Currently, my students are working on a research essay in which they will lead an argument with their own claims about an issue, idea, or topic discussed in the “From Farm to Fork” course. To complete this assignment they must use information obtained from academic and real world sources, such as their tour of Yokna Bottoms Farm.  My hope is that, by touring the farm and meeting the growers, my students have recognized that processed, packaged foods are not the only option in Lafayette County and elsewhere.  (For many of them, this was their first visit to a farming operation and their first real experience with raw food products outside the grocery store setting.)

LIBA 102 courses are taught by faculty members from across the university, and are designed to be writing classes with specific disciplinary themes. These courses allow enrolled students to explore an content area related to their own academic or personal interests, while at the same time developing sophisticated academic writing and research skills. For more details, visit the LIBA 102 Course Page.

CRE Roundtable Flyer

April 30 and May 1
12:00 – 2:00
Union Ballroom

When award-winning (and working-class) journalist Tracie McMillan saw foodies swooning over $9 organic tomatoes, she couldn’t help but wonder: What about the rest of us? Why do working Americans eat the way we do? And what can we do to change it?

To find out, McMillan went undercover in three jobs that feed America, living and eating off her wages in each. Reporting from California fields, a Walmart produce aisle outside of Detroit, and the kitchen of a New York City Applebee’s, McMillan examines the reality of our country’s food industry in this “clear and essential” (The Boston Globe) work of reportage. Chronicling her own experience and that of the Mexican garlic crews, Midwestern produce managers, and Caribbean line cooks, with whom she works, McMillan goes beyond the food on her plate to explore the national priorities that put it there.

Fearlessly reported and beautifully written, The American Way of Eating goes beyond statistics and culture wars to deliver a book that is fiercely honest, strikingly intelligent and compulsively readable. In making the simple case that—city or country, rich or poor—everyone wants good food, McMillan guarantees that talking about dinner will never be the same again.

Monday February 25, 7:00 – 8:00 pm
Ford Center

(Click here to read more about Venture Online and read previous editions)

Submit WRITING

Are you ready to express yourself? Do you have a story to tell, a poem waiting to be written? Could you write a letter to a newspaper or a friend which might help us all understand social injustice? Do you want to write about family, love, the environment, music, disappointment, success, adventures, memories, good and bad? You are not alone in your experiences, but your “take” on those memories will be yours to tell.

“The Eighty-Foot Drop
(and Lessons from a Turtle)”

By Ryan Stone
As I looked down into the blue abyss below me, I recalled looking up the cliff before I climbed it. The distance to the water seemed far more than what it was previously. Since the instant I looked over the edge of the rocks, my insides were swirling with anxiety and fear. At the same time I felt as if the entire moment wasn’t reality, but fantastical.

First paragraph of short story, Venture Volume 6, Spring 2012, Teacher: Wendy Buffington

To submit, send your entry via email to venture@olemiss.edu. Entries should be sent as a regular Word document attachment (.doc, .docx, .rtf, not .pages or .wps). At the top of the first page, put the following:

Name
Title
Date
Hometown, State, Zip
Phone
Teacher’s Name

Submit ART

Any first-year will also be able to submit Artwork for consideration for the cover and for the inside pages to accompany poems and stories. Send photos, drawings, prints, etc. submitted as a high resolution jpeg image for consideration. Photos usually make up the majority of our art selection.

Submission date (strict deadline) is March 8 2013 for consideration in Volume 8.

Selection for the magazine

Some of your teachers and student volunteers will form panels of three readers that will review each submission. Some panels will be composed of two teachers and one student while other panels will be composed of two students and one teacher.

If you would like to be considered as a student reader, just let your teacher know.
Once your work is received it will be distributed to all three people on a panel. If two of the three readers decide that the work you submit is worthy of publication, then you will be notified that your work has been accepted. You may submit more than one piece, but usually only one will be accepted.

What is acceptable?

Just about anything. But here is that list of some writing categories:
Short Story, Fiction or Creative non-fiction, Poetry, Letters, Memoir

How long does it need to be?

A few lines, a few pages; it all depends on what your idea and your writing project needs. If a work is too long, we may be able to publish a portion of it or ask you to shorten it.
We want you all to think about writing as a way of exploring and communicating. Be free and have fun as a writer and competitor. Consider your flow of ideas, the presentation of your story, use strong and meaningful words—shock us or make us cry. Engage us with your humor. And help us remember what its like to be a young person with real experience that has affected your life.

Launch Party: Everyone who is published will receive a hard copy of the magazine and a very cool Venture Online t-shirt at our now-famous Launch Party and Readings at the end of the semester. You will be honored, and your family and friends are invited to attend. Refreshments served.

Contact: Emily Cooley, efcooley@olemiss.edu.

The Reference Department presents workshops on a variety of topics each Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. (repeated at 7:00 p.m.). All of the workshops take  place in Room 106E of the library. No registration is required, and certificates are available for students needing documentation. Please join us for an interesting and information hour at the library! Download the flier here: Wed Workshops poster–Spr 2013 final

Jan. 30 — Introduction to Library Resources How to navigate the library webpage, find available resources in your field, and how to access library services. Librarian: Ruth Mirtz

Feb. 6 —  Avoiding Plagiarism with Good Research Skills  Learn what plagiarism is and the research practices that decrease the chances of plagiarism and sloppy citation. Librarian: Ruth Mirtz

Feb. 13 — Civil War Resources  An introduction to information on the Civil War, ranging from the Official Record to “The Valley of the Shadow” and everything in between. Librarian: Ryan Johnson

Feb. 20 — Intro. to RefWorks  Have a lot of sources in your research? Hate using MLA and APA? Learn how to import, export, organize, and create bibliographies in any style with RefWorks.  Librarian: Buffy Choinski

Feb. 27 – Speed Research  Stop wasting time looking for sources! Learn ways to make your research faster and more efficient. If you have to write a research paper this semester, you can start NOW by learning how to find sources quickly and effectively. Librarian: Melissa Dennis

Mar. 6 — The Hidden Library  Learn the secrets of the library! This workshop will show you all the nooks and crannies, the hidden features of the library website, where the bodies are buried, and other strange and bizarre things about the library. Wear your walking shoes—a tour is part of the workshop. Librarian: Alex Watson

Mar. 20 — Widgets and Gadgets—Slick Tools for Research  Learn which library tools and gadgets you need for quick and effective research (all free!). Librarian: Melissa Dennis

Mar. 27 — Using Gender Studies and LGBTQ Databases to Expand Your Research  Learn how to use the library’s newest gender studies and LGBTQ databases to explore topics in sexual diversity and gender-engaged scholarship. Librarian: Amy E. Mark and Jennifer Ford

Apr. 3 –  Power Searching with Google  Everyone knows how to use Google, but do you know how to do college-level research on Google? Learn how to use the advanced features on Google to find reputable sources.  Librarian: Brian Young

Apr. 10 –  Business-to-Business Resources  Learn how to identify companies in the business to business (B2B) space for your projects or career research. B2B companies supply products and services to business, organizations, and government. Librarian: Joan Deegan

Apr. 17 — Online Privacy Issues  Learn about current discussions (and how to find them) on privacy, particularly online privacy—ranging from Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO) to privacy scholars. We will also review privacy settings for online services (internet browsers, Facebook, Twitter, etc.).  Librarian: Brian Young

Apr. 24 — Research for Procrastinators   Still haven’t started that paper? Learn how to organize  your research, stay focused on your topic, avoid useless searching, and more. Find out how NOT to procrastinate next time.  Librarian: Ruth Mirtz

(Post by Ruth Mirtz)