Good morning, everyone! We have a special event announcement for you today, as well as details on how you can get a job at DePaul’s Writing Center for next year and how to apply for a SQ2025 Partial Tuition Scholarship (PTS). Scroll down for more info on each of these!

Upcoming Event: Faith Unfiltered

Join DePaul students, faculty, and staff for “Faith Unfiltered: Why I Still Believe in God,” featuring Prof. Paula McQuade! This talk will be held from 6:00 to 8:00 PM on Tuesday, April 15, in Rm. 100 of the Levan Center. (Snacks will be provided.) Read the flyer below for full details!

Prof. Paula McQuade teaches courses in DePaul’s English and Catholic Studies departments. Her recent monograph, Catechisms and Women’s Writing in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) is a study of early modern women’s literary use of catechizing. Prof. McQuade examines original works composed by women—both in manuscript and print, as well as women’s copying and redacting of catechisms—and the construction of these materials from other sources. She shows how early modern women used the power and authority granted to them as mothers to teach religious doctrine, to demonstrate their linguistic skills, to engage sympathetically with Catholic devotionals texts, and to comment on matters of contemporary religious and political import—activities that many scholars have considered the sole prerogative of clergymen. This book addresses the questions of women’s literary production in early modern England, demonstrating that the reading and writing of catechisms were crucial sites of women’s literary engagements during this time. “Catechisms and Women’s Writing” was reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Sixteenth-Century Studies and Early Modern Women: an Interdisciplinary Journal. ​

Paula McQuade received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1998. The recipient of a 1996 Charlotte Newcombe Fellowship, Prof. McQuade is the author of multiple articles on early modern women and gender. Her article on the female catechist Dorothy Burch was selected as the best article published in 2010 by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women Writers. She is also the recipient of an Excellence in Teaching Award from DePaul University.​

Call for Writing Center Tutors

DePaul’s Writing Center recently announced that it is “looking for nice people who are good writers” to work as peer writing tutors next year: that sounds like most of you! Below is some info, from the Writing Center website, on how to apply.

Application deadline: April 28, 2025, at noon

About:

Working at the Writing Center as a tutor gives caring, intellectually curious undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to engage in the highly rewarding experience of helping other writers.

Please consider joining our community of tutors. We value hiring a diverse staff from across all of DePaul’s programs and colleges and we encourage applications from people of color or from currently under-represented groups.

Eligibility:

You are eligible to work at the Writing Center beginning in Autumn Quarter 2025 if . . .

• . . . You will be enrolled as a full-time or half-time DePaul University undergraduate or graduate student Autumn Quarter 2025. (Current non-student staff and faculty members, unfortunately, are not eligible for employment at the Writing Center.) DePaul’s Student Employment Office sets the policies for student employment, including specific criteria for the number of credit hours required to be considered full-time or half-time students.

• . . . You will be available to take a required four-credit Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse (WRD) course on writing center theory and pedagogy in Autumn Quarter 2025:
  • WRD395 for undergraduate tutors: Monday and Wednesday OR Tuesday and Thursday (TBD) in-person in LPC
  • WRD582 for graduate tutors: Tuesdays 6–9:15pm in-person in LPC

• . . . You are able to fulfill the required course practicum: Tutors work a minimum of 5 hours per week during their first quarter, up to a maximum of 10 hours per week. Tutors work a minimum of 5 hours per week and a maximum of 20 hours per week in each subsequent quarter. In addition to one-on-one conferences with writers, tutors may conduct presentations, facilitate workshops, and staff events.

• . . . You are able to work at both the Lincoln Park and Loop Campuses and online (using various communications tools like Zoom, Slack, Notion, Word, among others). Tutors have shifts at both the Loop and Lincoln Park campus locations and may, provided they have demonstrated the skill and ability to do so effectively, work 40% of their weekly work hours remotely beginning in their second quarter.

• . . . You are able to attend two mandatory staff trainings, which take place the Tuesday before classes begin in Autumn Quarter and the first Friday of Winter Quarter.
  • All tutors attend two mandatory staff trainings each year: All-Staff Orientation, scheduled the Tuesday before classes begin in Autumn Quarter, and Winter Retreat, scheduled during the first Friday of Winter Quarter.
  • In addition to working with writers, tutors engage in required professional development activities/workshops each quarter, focused on other topics relevant to their work.
  • All tutors prepare an ePortfolio through Digication as part of their staff development and performance evaluation conducted by Writing Center administrators.

• . . . You have excellent writing, research, communication, and interpersonal skills.

• . . . You have a demonstrable interest in and facility for working with others.

Main Responsibilities:

The primary responsibility of a tutor is to help people with writing.

Tutors are expected to work with writers in all appointment types we offer: written feedback, online realtime, and face-to-face.

Tutors must be willing to respectfully and constructively engage with people whose spoken and written beliefs differ from their own.

When tutors do not have an appointment with a writer during a scheduled work shift, we expect tutors to do other work related to our programs and operations and to perform additional duties as assigned.

And overall, we expect tutors to show kindness and respect to everyone they interact with and in turn to be treated with kindness and respect.

Compensation:

Tutors beginning work in Autumn 2025 are paid an hourly wage of $17.00 for undergraduates and $17.50 for graduate students. Each subsequent year, the hourly wage increases by $0.50 per year (with a 3-year cap for undergrads and 2-year cap for graduate students).

Training Course:

All new tutors must begin their tenure at the Writing Center during Autumn Quarter, and all new tutors are required to take Writing Center Theory and Pedagogy, our full-credit course, which is offered in Autumn Quarter as a graduate course and an undergraduate course.

WRD 582: Writing Center Theory and Pedagogy (Tuesdays 6–9:15pm in-person in LPC)

Writing Center Theory and Pedagogy is the required course that all new graduate tutors must take during their first quarter at the Writing Center.

WRD 582 is designed to familiarize tutors with current theories and practices animating writing center studies and to give them training in working with writers one-on-one. While our immediate concerns will be necessarily practical, we will consistently strive to theorize those practical activities and to recognize and account for institutional realities that both inhibit and make possible the work that writing centers do.

Students in WRD 582 must satisfy a practicum commitment by working a minimum of 5 paid hours per week in the Lincoln Park and/or Loop Writing Centers. These practicum hours must be met during times when our offices are open, which include some evenings and Sundays. Students must complete WRD 582 with a grade of “B” or higher to continue working at the Writing Center beyond Autumn Quarter.

If you register for classes before we finish interviewing applicants, we suggest you sign up for your usual course load and, if you are selected to work at the Writing Center, adjust your schedule to accommodate WRD 582. Enrollment for the course is strictly by permission only; if you are selected, Writing Center administrators will send you registration instructions.

Application Info:

To apply for this position, you will submit the following via the application at the Campus Job Board:

• a letter of application (to be submitted under “cover letter”)
• a resume
• a writing sample that you believe represents your best academic writing (to be submitted under “supplemental document”)

Additional Application Guidelines:

Letter of Application (to be submitted under “cover letter”)

Your letter of application should help us understand who you are as a person, describe your interest in joining the Writing Center staff, and describe qualities you possess/experiences you have had that make you a good candidate. You do not necessarily need to have formal tutoring experience to be a qualified candidate—new tutors will receive plenty of training to learn specific tutoring skills and strategies. We are looking for candidates with the qualities that make for an effective tutor: an interest in helping others, intellectual curiosity, and strong writing skills.

Your letter should be approximately 500-750 words and addressed to the Writing Center Hiring Committee.

Writing Sample (to be submitted under “supplemental document”)

Upload a sample of your academic writing. This could be an essay, report, analysis, or any other genre that generally incorporates primary and/or secondary research and that is at least four pages long. Choose a sample that you feel best represents your writing skills.

Note: You do not need to produce new work for your sample; you may use a previous assignment or piece of coursework.

Spring 2025 Partial Tuition Scholarships

If you would like a Partial Tuition Scholarship (PTS) for this quarter, please read the memo below from Department Chair Miles Harvey. The deadline for all applications is Tuesday, April 15.

TO:            All Students in the MAE/MALP, MAWP, and MFA Programs

FROM:      Miles Harvey, Department Chair

DATE:      April, 3 2025

RE:            2025 Spring Quarter Partial Tuition Scholarship Awards

The M.A. in English, M.A. in Literature and Publishing, M.A. in Writing and Publishing, and M.F.A. in Writing and Publishing programs are offering Partial Tuition Scholarships (PTS) to recognize the outstanding academic achievement of students in the English department’s three graduate programs. Partial Tuition Scholarships provide a partial reimbursement for tuition paid for 2025 Spring graduate courses in English taken toward the MAE, MALP, MAWP, and MFA degrees.

You are eligible to apply for a PTS award if:

• You have already completed at least two English graduate courses toward your MAE/MALP, MAWP, or MFA degree

• You are enrolled in one or more English graduate classes for the current Spring term.

• You have a cumulative grade-point average of 3.7 or higher

• You are paying your own tuition and fees (without financial assistance from any grant or scholarship agency or employee reimbursement program, including a Double Demon Award–student loans are okay.)

Please note that only graduate classes offered through the English department (ENG courses) are eligible for PTS funding.  Courses offered through other departments and courses over and above those needed for MAE/MALP/MAWP/MFA degree completion are not covered by these awards. If you drop a course after receiving a PTS Award for it, you will be required to pay back the amount of the award.

To apply, open the application attachment, save it as a Word document, complete the form, and then send it as an attachment in an e-mail to Laurance Matthews, Department Assistant for English, at lmatthe3@depaul.edu.

The deadline for applying for PTS awards for the 2025 Spring Quarter is Tuesday April 15, 2025. All requests for PTS awards must be made electronically, and they must be sent via email. Copies of this memo and of the application can be found on the MAE/MALP and MAWP/MFA D2L sites under “Content.”

You will be notified of an award decision within two weeks after the deadline. APPLICATION DEADLINE: No later than April 15, 2025.