College of Arts and Sciences

Summer Features! (Summer 2017)

Faculty, staff, students, alumni, departmental friends...let us know what you are doing this summer!

Email: tr-dimmick@wiu.edu with details and pictures!


  • One of our delightful English instructors, Kathleen O'Donnell-Brown, flew to Tampa this summer to score AP Language exams. There were 581,000 exams with 1,743,000 essays. There were 1,282 readers and she scored 1,125 essays in 7 days ! Here is a picture of her badge. Ask her about her less-7-degrees of separation stories.

    O'Donnell-Brown summer 2017

  • Along the cobbled streets of Fell's Point in Baltimore, Professors Tim and Magdelyn Helwig visit Edgar Allan Poe's supposed last stop on Election Night, October 3, 1849.

    Helwig Poe 4 Summer 2017

  • After visiting the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus, Professor Bill Knox visited Sam's Store for a hat that will stand up to the west central Illinois sun!
    Knox 2 Summer 2017
  • Professors Marjorie Allison and Dan Barclay hit up a bookstore in St. Louis greeted by the bust of T.S. Eliot. The bench is from the same bookstore. After perusing books, they visited a Jazz great’s home.

    Allison Summer 2017 Allison 2 Summer 2017 allison 3 summer 2017

  • Can anyone guess where this photo was taken on campus? It’s the cover for the 4th edition of our student run magazine “The Mirror and the Lamp” that came into print last week! Limited copies now available in Simpkins 129.

    The Mirror and The Lamp Cover

  • Creative writing professor Erika Wurth’s latest book, Buckskin Cocaine (a collection of short stories), is published today (June 15). Cheers to her ambition, ingenuity, and invaluable impact!

Erika Wurth Book

  • The Helwigs visited the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC. I think the giraffe is waiting for one of them to zealously burst into Poe quotes...

  Helwigs Zoo

  • Tim and Magdelyn Helwig are sporting the Edgar Allan Poe statue from the recent American Literature Association conference in Boston. Tim presented a paper on “Innovative Approaches to Teaching Poe.”

Helwig Poe 1 Summer 2017 Helwig Poe 2 Summer 2017

  • Dr. Rebekah Buchanan and students from the study abroad course: "The World of Harry Potter: Magic, The United Kingdom and Social Justice" have arrived back from their trip to the UK. Looks like they had some amazing adventures!

uk 2 UK 3 UK 4 UK 5 UK 8 UK 9 UK 10 UK 11 UK 13

  • Professor Bill Knox outside of the Tattered Cover Bookstore, a known Beat Generation literary center in Colorado.

Knox Summer 2017

  • The Dead Filmmakers Society is the theme of the film series this summer hosted by film professor Richard Ness. All screenings are free, open to the public, and located in the University Union Sandburg Theater starting at 5:30pm 

Movie Series Summer 2017