2017-2018

Sigma Tau Delta Celebrates its Forty-First Anniversary 

In 2017-2018, the Department of English’s Alpha Xi Chapter of Sigma Tau Delta continued to serve its membership and the organization under the leadership of its Presidents Sara McQueen, Chris Urban, Holly Pettus, and Chad Cowell, its Faculty Fellows Professors Nancy Caronia and Dale P. Olson, and its Faculty Advisor Anna Elfenbein.

At its October initiation, President Sara McQueen presided over the induction of twenty-seven new members who pledged to advance the study of literature, to promote the mastery of written expression, and to foster a spirit of fellowship among students of English language and literature. 

In the Fall, the Alpha Xi Chapter’s Banned Book Week program, under the direction of  Fall Program President Chad Cowell, created a forbidden book display for Wise Library which was cordoned off by crime scene tape and provided bookmarks with vivid book-jacket drawings made by local middle school students.  

In the Spring, the chapter celebrated Black History Month with an African-American Read-In organized by Spring Program President Chris Urban.  Among the authors featured in the “Language of Love” program for the Read-In were James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen, Emma Johnson, and Anne Spencer. 

The chapter’s members nominated and selected the English Department’s Outstanding Professor Dr. Johanna Winant who received the award at the English Department’s Honors Luncheon and whose name appears on the Sigma Tau Delta plaque on the stairway to Colson Hall’s second floor.