Park Hall Monitor: Spring 2026

Head's Note, Spring 2026

Dr. Roland Végső

Dear Colleagues, Students, Alumni, and Friends of English,

The new year is off to a great start in Park Hall! We recently found out that two of our colleagues in the English Department who serve in leadership positions at the Willson Center for the Humanities and Arts, Professor Barbara McCaskill and Professor Nicholas Allen, received a $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to continue their work at the Penn Center on St. Helena Island, South Carolina. Their project, Culture and Community at the Penn Center National Historic Landmark District, was launched in 2021 with an initial $1 million award from Mellon to implement programs in collaboration with the Penn Center and surrounding Sea Islands communities in the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. 

This semester, we are also proud to launch our new Publishing Certificate, a collaboration between the Department of English, the Lamar Dodd School of Art, The Georgia Review, and the University of Georgia Press. This professional certificate provides students with the skills, knowledge, and experience needed to pursue a career in editing and publishing. Through courses, practicums, and experiential learning programs, the certificate is designed to provide an intellectual and practical introduction to literary publishing, past, present, and future, preparing students for employment not only in the publishing industry, but also in a wide range of related fields. The certificate is going to be managed by Professor Christine Lasek-White.

In other good news, our department signed an agreement with the Oxbelly Retreat to be official institutional partners. The Fiction Writers program of the Oxbelly Retreat is directed by Helen S. Lanier Professor of English Chigozie Obioma. This program brings together writers from around the world for a week of literary and creative exchange, held at Costa Navarino in historic Messinia, Greece. As part of the agreement, our undergraduate students can participate in an internship that allows them to learn about the highly competitive application and selection process for the retreat. 

We are also excited to announce a new addition to Park Hall: a student lounge. Located in Room 317, the lounge offers a welcoming space for students to study, eat, hang out, or simply relax between classes. Dr. Nancee Reeves, Principal Lecturer and faculty advisor for the Undergraduate English Association (UEA), proposed transforming the space into a student lounge to foster a greater sense of belonging and community in Park Hall. Many thanks to Nancee for her leadership on this project!