Program News
December 2025
Four English majors—Makenzie Kuhn, Ollie Myers, Alyssa Schlaefli, and Chloe Westfall—just had their papers accepted for inclusion in the upcoming Sigma Tau Delta convention. The 2026 convention will be held in New Orleans and will run from March 29th through April 1st. Being invited to present at the convention is a highly prestigious honor, so these students all have something to brag about. We couldn’t be more proud of them!
November 2025
Dr. Martha Granados reports that the latest “language lunch” on November 12th was a great success! The event was hosted by Dr. Granados and Dr. Denis Berenschot. The goal of these events is to encourage Spanish-speaking conversation, but a little fun and some tasty treats are never a bad thing. Dr. Granados has located a woman in the area, Benita, who is a food-service professional in a local high school. Benita prepared taquitos and flan for the fiesta, which everybody seemed to enjoy. The students also played various parlor games (card games, bingo). And one student-leader was assigned to each table to direct the game and conversation. Drs. Granados and Berenschot are already developing plans for fiestas and events next semester.
The Rude Mechanicals present Macbeth! In war-torn Scotland, three Weird Sisters herald the rise of an ambitious young warrior and his ruthless wife. Our modern staging of Shakespeare’s classic blends contemporary style with a vintage Metal soundtrack to highlight cyclical systems of violence. The Weird Sisters are the seen-yet-unseen in society—the unhoused and the “essential” workers—who observe the rise and fall of the nobility endlessly funding war and rebellion. Will Macbeth rise above the fray, or will he fall victim to the same gravitational pull that doomed his predecessor? We invite you to witness the drama and the chaos in the Rude Mechanicals’ Macbeth. Performances will be in Studio 112 in the CCA I building. Show times are November 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 15th at 7:00 p.m. and November 9th and 16th at 3:00 p.m.
October 2025
At multiple points this semester, Spanish students have come together outside of their regular class times to experience cultural activities that acquaint them more with the Spanish-speaking world. Dr. Denis Berenschot and Dr. Martha Granados have sponsored these “language lunches” and have introduced students to things like Mexican sweet breads and Spanish tortillas. The students have reported really enjoying these activities, and the food has certainly been muy sabroso!
On Friday, October 24th, Dr. Heidi Hanrahan and Dr. Timothy K. Nixon escorted a group of students from English 204, English 215, and Sigma Tau Delta on a day-long trip to Baltimore, Maryland. The group toured Edgar Allan Poe’s home, Westminster Cemetery (where Poe was buried), the Carroll Mansion (where there are temporary exhibits on Poe’s famous poem “The Raven” and on Poe’s mysterious death). The fantastic trip also included lunch at Baltimore’s vibrant Lexington Market. It’s fair to say that the participants all had a great day visiting “Charm City” and learning more about this important literary figure.
September 2025
Dr. Joshua Cross, author and Shepherd alumnus, will speak at Shepherd University’s Frank Arts Center theater on Thursday, September 18th, at 7:00 p.m. This event is free and open to the public with a reception and book signing to follow. Joshua Cross is the author of Black Bear Creek: Stories (originally published by Southeast Missouri State University Press in 2021 and now Black Lawrence Press). The book won the 2022 Independent Press Award for Short Story Collections. His stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in Beloit Fiction Journal, Big Muddy, Failbetter, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. Cross is a native West Virginian and now lives in Conway, South Carolina, where he is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at Coastal Carolina University and Fiction Editor of Waccamaw: A Journal of Contemporary Literature. He is also a graduate from Shepherd University (2003)—an English major, no less—and the first alumnus to be featured as the Common Reading author.
Alyssa Schlaefli—who, by the way, was just elected president of the Shepherd chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honor society—attended the 2025 National Book Festival in Washington, DC, on Saturday, September 6th. While there Alyssa was able to meet, talk with, and get a book signed by world-renowned writer and speaker Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Adichie, who divides her time between Nigeria and the US, is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book; Half of a Yellow Sun, which received the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2007 and was then named the award’s “Best of the Best” in 2020; Americanah, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award; the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck; and the essays “We Should All Be Feminists” and “Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.” Look at Alyssa, rubbing elbows with one of the world’s greatest living writers!
August 2025
The Rude Mechanicals, Shepherd’s own medieval and Renaissance drama troupe, announces auditions for this fall’s production of Macbeth. Auditions will be on Wednesday, August 27th, and Thursday, August 28th, from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. in Knutti Hall’s room 202. Shepherd students can earn three (3) credit hours for performing as part of the cast or serving as part of the crew. Anyone interested should prepare a Shakespearean monologue or poem of at least fourteen lines (the length of a sonnet). Audition materials will also be available for anybody who hasn’t prepared something in advance. In advance of auditioning, individuals are asked to complete the Google form that can be found at https://forms.gle/ySkR8sEfbkyFpc8HA . For further information, please contact Dr. Michael Vaclav (mvaclavi@shepherd.edu).
July 2025
Shepherd University’s Stammtisch will hold its next meeting on Friday, July 18th. The gathering will be at 5:00 p.m., and it will be held at the home of Dottie Gillwald. She is a frequent participant and lives in Ranson. Stammtisch is open to all faculty, staff, students, and community members, and people with all levels of German proficiency—from beginners to native speakers—are welcome to take part. For more information, including the Dottie’s address, contact Dr. Rachel Krantz (rritterb@shepherd.edu).
April 2025
Shepherd University English majors took center stage during the 2025 West Virginia Undergraduate Literary Symposium, hosted at Fairmont State University on April 5th. Heather Gilman, Alyssa Schlaefli, and Jordan Valdes gave a three-part presentation titled “Meet Me at Dawn: An Exercise in Grief,” which originated as a group project for Dr. Betty Ellzey’s seminar on British drama. The presentation explored how playwright Zinnie Harris utilizes poetic dialogue, formal and dramatic conventions, and characterization to explore grief. Way to represent, y’all!
Three of our students were honored on Friday, April 25th, at the University’s McMurran Scholars Convocation. This year’s honorees from the English program include Brittney Huntley, who is an English Education major; Autumn Osborne, who is an English major with a concentration in Creative Writing; and Hannah Fraley, who is an English major with a concentration in Literature. We are so very proud of these amazing young women and think their recognition is absolutely well-deserved!
On Thursday, April 24th, Dr. Heidi Hanrahan inducted 14 students into Shepherd’s Alpha Gamma Kappa chapter of Sigma Tau Delta. As far as we know, these students are the largest group of inductees ever here at Shepherd. Sigma Tau Delta is the international English honor society and was founded in 1924 at Dakota Wesleyan University. The inductees included, from left to right, Anna Steig, Courtney Blank, Steffani Shingle, Brookelyn Smith, Evan Engle, Fiona Everline, Jill Martin-Hitchcock, Jasmine Garcia, Ollie Myers, and Sophie Lord. Ava Mellott, Carolina Stevens, Joelle Tritelli, and Chloe Westfall were also inducted into the organization, but they were not able to attend the ceremony. Congratulations to all of the new members!
On Tuesday, April 22nd, before the first round of English Capstone presentations started, the English and Modern Languages programs celebrated our students’ accomplishments by distributing quite a roster of awards. This year’s recipients were
- Outstanding English Major—Taylor Beam
- Outstanding English Major (Creative Writing Concentration)—Kelsey Robbins
- Outstanding English Major (Literature Concentration)—Heather Gilman
- Outstanding English Education Major—Evan Engle
- Outstanding Spanish Major—Paige Rice
- Outstanding Spanish Minor (a tie)—Karli Brown and Patrick Wilson
In addition, three students were recognized for the excellence of their writing in our first-year composition classes. These students won the Department’s annual Catherine C. Fix Essay Contest. The recognized students were
- First Place—Lucy Meeker
- Second Place—Anika Wirt
- Third Place—Gabriel Castro
Dr. James Pate is excited to announce that the 2025 English Capstones will be on Tuesday, April 22nd, and Thursday, April 24th, and both sessions will start at 4:40 p.m. They will be held at the auditorium of the Byrd Center. Family, friends, and community members are welcome to attend. Admission is free, so come and support our graduating seniors! The presentation schedule for Tuesday, April 22nd, is
- Jordan Valdes: “Masculinity: A Lonely Road Lit by Streetlamps”
- Meredith King: “The Lines They Crossed: Poems”
- Hannah Fraley: “The Book of Judith: The Apocryphal Text”
- Garrett Heath: “The Dreaming: Novel Extract”
- Taylor Beam: “There is No Witch: Wieland and The Blair Witch Project”
- Logan McGrady: “’The Vampires of Rosemill University’: Story Extracts”
- Melanie Fino: “Poems for Robert, Flowers for Mary”
- Kel Robbins: “’Thursday’: Story Extract”
The presentation schedule for Thursday, April 24th, is
- Anna Steig: “The Eschatological Bent of Beckett”
- Ali Castro-Delcambre: “Extracts from The Veil of Corruption”
- Autumn Osborne: “The Flight Down River Run”
- Heather Gilman: “Zinnie Harris’ Poetics: The Function of Poetry within Drama”
- Joan Howard: “Tarznea: Extracts from the Screenplay”
- Kayley Schildt: “’Playlist’: Extracts from the Short Story”
- Mercedes McGrain: “Citrus Lane: Novel Extract”
- Katie Keckler: “The Dichotomy of Home: Poems”
The Rude Mechanicals will present performances of a medieval play, Hrothsvita’s The Conversion of Thaïs, and three plays written by students from Dr. Carrie Messenger’s Creative Writing: Drama class. Those student-written plays include Earth Boys Are Easy by Rachel Carroll, The Galathea Effect by Caitlin Carson, and Blood and Garlic by Hannah Tinsman. Performances will be April 4th and 5th, as well as April 9th through the 12th, at 7:30 p.m. Two additional performances are scheduled for April 6th and 13th at 3:00 p.m. English, History, or Spanish majors or minors in the cast or crew are Jacob Collins, Gabriella DiPomazio, Evan Engle, Belle Erikson, Jill Martin-Hitchcock, Makenzie Kuhn, Hannah Tinsman, and Melissa Viera.
March 2025
Shepherd University English majors were well represented at this year’s Sigma Tau Delta convention. Dr. Heidi Hanrahan and Dr. Timothy K. Nixon escorted a group of seven students to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from March 20th to March 22nd for the annual conference. Taylor Beam, Caitlin Carson, Heather Gilman, Britney Huntley, and Hannah Tinsman all presented papers at the event. Taylor’s paper was on William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, which was written for Dr. Nixon’s English 313 course, and Caitlin’s, Heather’s, Britney’s, and Hannah’s papers were all written for Dr. Hanrahan’s seminar on Emily Dickinson. Sigma Tau Delta is an international English honor society, and Shepherd’s chapter is especially vibrant. Way to go everybody!
Shepherd University’s Stammtisch will hold its next meeting on Friday, March 21st. The gathering will be at 5:00 p.m., and it will be held at the home of Daan and Evelyn Vreugdenhil. They are frequent participants and live here in Shepherdstown. Stammtisch is open to all faculty, staff, students, and community members, and people with all levels of German proficiency—from beginners to native speakers—are welcome to take part. For more information, including the address of Daan and Evelyn’s house, contact Dr. Rachel Krantz (rritterb@shepherd.edu).
On Tuesday, March 4th, Dr. Betty Ellzey and Dr. Timothy K. Nixon escorted a group of Shepherd students to the Folger Theatre in Washington, DC, to see a performance of A Room in the Castle by Lauren M. Gunderson. The drama is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the perspective of three female characters: Ophelia, Queen Gertrude, and Anna (Ophelia’s handmaid). Gunderson is the author of some of the most produced plays in the USA over the past ten years; her works include the award-winning dramas I and You and The Book of Will. A Room in the Castle had its world premier in this joint production of The Folger Theatre and The Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. Students from Dr. Ellzey’s English 421 (Shakespeare) course and Dr. Nixon’s English 215 (The Art of Literature) had dinner at DC’s Union Station and then walked over to tour the Folger Library’s exhibitions before enjoying the show. Across the board, students reacted enthusiastically to the play and its cast and seemed to enjoy themselves quite a bit.
February 2025
Shepherd University’s Stammtisch will hold two meetings in February. The first will be on Friday, February 7th, at 5:00 p.m. It will be held at the home of Daan and Evelyn Vreugdenhil. They are frequent participants and live here in Shepherdstown. The second meeting will be Friday, February 21st, at 5:00 p.m. It will be at The Blue Moon Café. Stammtisch is open to all faculty, staff, students, and community members, and people with all levels of German proficiency—from beginners to native speakers—are welcome to take part. For more information, including the address of Daan and Evelyn’s house, contact Dr. Rachel Krantz (rritterb@shepherd.edu).