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Hi! Wondering who I am?  As a scholar, my interests include modernist authors, language, and theories of meaning.  I like to think...and am  an idealist with a bit of the skeptic in me.  My research focuses on E. E. Cummings (I am on the Society's board) and on issues of space (the intersections of real and imagined spaces).   I specialize generally in Modernism and American Literature.    (See my CVitae below.)

I also focus intensely on issues of teaching and learning, in my research into 'what works' in the classroom and through my involvement with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) movement.  I believe in active learning, in effective course planning, and in engaging students in challenging ways.   The Appalachian College Association's projects, such as the annual summit, also provides me with occassions to talk about teaching.  My favorite activities with students are probably the trips we take to rare book rooms and art museums.

When I am not thinking abstract thoughts, I like to hike in the Cherokee National Forest with my sons (Josh 4, and Charles, 9) and husband Tom.  As a family, we cook together, garden, and play.  Tom and I have been married 18 years and loved living in Chapel Hill, where I went to grad school (I grew up in North Carolina).  We heard some really good music there, from the Indigo Girls and Poi Dog Pondering and Vic Chesnutt, among others.  Several New Year's Eves were spent listening to Alex Chilton.   We are both committed to simple living (as much as we can manage, as techno-driven as we are!) and to rural life.

TAIMI ANNE OLSEN

Associate Professor of English, Department of English, Tusculum College. 


PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Department of English Chair, 2005-current. 
*Completed the periodic program review (200+pages)
* Mentored new faculty
*Initiated literature concentration review and helped initiate new Journalism Major concentration.
*Created faculty materials: day-long English faculty workshop, departmental faculty handbook, workshop on using E-books.
 
Competency Program Director, 2002-current.   Each year, for this four-year, campus-wide program of student learning outcomes.  Typical accomplishments:
*Conduct yearly faculty development sessions
*Oversee assessment testing, evaluation, and reports
*Update programmatic materials
*Complete yearly report for the Provost's office and set goals
*Coordinate testing activities with the Institutional Research office
*Participation in the ACA Teagle grant (for assessment in general education)

Director of the School of Arts and Sciences, 2002 to 2004.
*I was the first director in a restructured system
*I worked with Division chairs to bring major issues to the Provost, such as classroom space, funds, and building space.

English Department Chair, Tusculum College, 2000 to 2002. Accomplished:
* Restructuring of the department
* Hiring faculty
* Overseeing course offerings
* Initial redesign of English major and minor

Author, "Collaboration and Technology at Tusculum College," 
Appalachian College Association, April 2000-2002.. As grant director:
* Organized conference attendance by participants
* Conducted one-on-one training in Frontpage and use of technology
* Created web page in Dreamweaver
* Oversaw collaborative teaching projects, including a student hypertext (involving 16 student
   groups) 

Member, Competency Task Force, Spring 2000-Fall 2000

Member, Admissions and Standards Committee, Fall 1999-2000.

Coordinator, E. E. Cummings Centennial Celebration at UNC-CH. October 1994. 

Co-curator, "i (eye): E. E. Cummings and the Visual Arts," Ackland Art Museum. 
October 1994. 

Exhibition author, "Small eye poet: publication and typography of the works of 
e. e. cummings," Wilson Library. UNC-CH. October 1994.

 

PUBLICATIONS

Transcending Space: Architectural Places in Works by Henry David Thoreau, E. E. Cummings, and John Barth, Bucknell University Press, 2000.

Articles:

"Engaging Students in Internet Research."  The Difference That Inquiry Makes.  VKP: Visible Knowledge Project.  Georgetown University.  Volume forthcoming.

“Krazies…of indescribable beauty”:  George Herriman’s  “Krazy Kat" and E. E. Cummings.
  Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society.  Forthcoming.

"'thet yew air treadin on the tail of his shoe leather': Intersections of T. S. Eliot, E. E. Cummings, William Burroughs, and Tom Phillips." T. S. Eliot Society Newsletter. 54. Spring 2004: 6-8.

"'Buffalo Bill's' as Hypertext." Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society, New Series 11, 2003: 41-46.

Review of AnOther E. E. Cummings, Richard Kostelanetz, editor. Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society, New Series 10, 2002.

"Samuel G. W. Benjamin," American Travel Writers: 1865-1915, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Summer, 1998. 

"Louise Imogen Guiney," "John Townsend Trowbridge," "Thomas Buchanan Read," Whitman and Dickinson's Contemporaries: An Anthology of Their Verse, University of Southern Illinois Press, 1996. 

"E. E. Cummings and the Futurist Art Movement," Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society, Fall, 1996. 

"Pearl Buck," The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States, Oxford UP, 1995. 

"Language and Silence in E. E. Cummings's The Enormous Room," Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society, Fall 1992. 


PRESENTATIONS

"Coordination of Academic Assessment Structures."  ISSOTL Conference (International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning).  Washington D.C.  October 2006.

"Online Collaboration in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning."  Panel.  ISSOTL Conference (International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning).  Vancouver, British Columbia.  October 16, 2005.

"Use of CAAP Tests for Assessing General Education Outcomes."  ACA Teagle Group Meeting.  Tusculum College.  June 23, 2005.

"Kats and Non-Heroes: The Works of Two Poet-Painters, George Herriman and E. E. Cummings." 
The American Literature Association Conference, May 2005. 

"Publishing Academic Multimedia Materials in pdf format," ACA Technology Summit, Johnson City, Tennessee, October 2001.

"Teaching Values Across the Disciplines," Friends Association of Higher Education Conference, Guilford College, NC, June 2001.

"Buffalo Bill's as Hypertext," The American Literature Association Conference, May 2001.

"Krazy Kat and E. E. Cummings." Modernist Association Conference, University of Pennsylvania, October 1999. 

"Creating and Teaching An Online Course," ACA Technology Summit, Knoxville, Tennessee, October 1998. 

"Traveling the Mountain Home," Southern Writer's Conference, Meredith College, September 1998. 

"Comrade K's Quest for SPACE! Architectural Allegory in EIMI," The American Literature Association Conference, May 1998. 

"Using the Web / Building a Web Page for Use with Your Course" (with Ron McCallister), Faculty workshop, Tusculum College, May 1998. 

"Cinematic Shepard: Multidimensional Realism in 'Far North' and 'Silent Tongue'" Conference on Literature and Film at Florida State, January 1996. 

"E. E. Cummings and the Futurist Art Movement," The American Literature Association, May 1994. 

"The Poetic Revolution in Gertrude Stein's 3 Lives," The Twentieth-Century Conference at Louisville, February, 1993. 

"Language and Silence in The Enormous Room," The American Literature Association Conference, May 1992. 

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 
May, 1997. Concentrations: American Literature and Twentieth-Century Literature. 

M.A., University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, North Carolina, August, 1989. 
Concentration: general literature. 

A.B., Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina, May, 1987. Major: English.
Minor: German.

POST-DOCTORAL EDUCATION

Salzburg Seminar: ISP 16 (International Study Program). "Global Citizenship: America and the World ."  January 2-9 2007. 

"Greek Religion."  Faculty Development.  Faculty Leaders: Drs. Kenny Morrell (Rhodes), Leslie Meachum, and Michael  (Skidmore University).  Summer 2006.  Web materials forthcoming; other information under my "Greek Mythology" course link.

Writing Residency.  Visible Knowledge Project.  CNDLS.  Georgetown University.  January 13-16, 2005. 

Building Critical Thinking Skills for Online Research. Instructor Theresa Swann.  PBS TeacherLine.  Spring 2005.  30 hour course. Completed May 11, 2005.

SOTL Crossroads Online Seminar, Instructor Susannah McGowan, CNDLS, Georgetown University, Spring 2004.  Eight week course. Completed April 2004.

MEMBERSHIPS

Appalachian College Association
Modern Language Association. 

The E. E. Cummings Society. 
National Council for Teachers of English 
Friends Association of Higher Education

 

Created and maintained by Dr. Taimi Olsen, English Program, Tusculum College.  Updated 03/01/07