Skip to main content

2017-2018

Sigma Tau Delta Celebrates its Forty-First Anniversary 

Initiates

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.

2017-2018 Members:
Gregory Arnott Brianna Grimes Patrick Orsagos
Raenah Bennett Alexa Halkias Lucia Romani
John Bonham Riley Imlay Charlotte Romberger
Katelin Brand Katelyn Hoban Regan Sands
Emily Broas Sydney Luther Caitlin Sawyers
Genna Cappella Jeffrey McCullough Kathleen Sprouse
Madison Casimir Hollee Nicholson Rebecca Stegmann
Kevin Duvall Kayleigh Nicholson Mary Werner
Sarah Fox Ufuoma Okeregbe Rhett Zillinger


Sara
Sara McQueen, Initiation President, presiding


Katy
Outstanding Professor for 2017-2018, Katy Ryan speaking


John
English Major John Bonham receiving his Sigma Tau Delta pin from Fall Program President Chad Cowell


Banned Books
Celebrating the right to write and read during Banned Book Week with bookmarks


Library
Crime scene library display


Language of Love
Program for the African American Read-In, “The Language of Love”


Tabitha
Tabitha Lowery shares an African American text at the Read-In