ENGLISH, THEATRE ARTS - Alumna and Tony-nominated playwright Heidi Schreck (English, theatre arts, '09) is collaborating with director Lila Neugebauer to stage a production of Uncle Vanya at the Lincoln Center Theatre in April. The play, originally written in 1897, will star Steve Carell and Alison Pill.

ENGLISH, NATIVE AMERICAN AND INDIGENOUS STUDIES - A three-year endowment fund is supporting Kirby Brown's work on his family’s Cherokee oral history and material archives to better understand Cherokee Nation literature, history, intellectual production, and lived experience in the 20th and 21st centuries. Brown is an associate professor of Native American and Indigenous literary and cultural production in the Department of English and the director of Native American and Indigenous studies.

ENGLISH - English Associate Professor Courtney Thorsson's new book, The Sisterhood, explores a group of influential Black women writers and thinkers—including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Margo Jefferson—who met during the late '70s to talk about writing, culture and liberation.

ENGLISH - In The Sisterhood: How A Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture, Courtney Thorsson, an associate professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences, tells the story of a group of Black feminist writers and thinkers in a critically acclaimed book that has been called a model for literary histories.

ENGLISH, SOCIOLOGY, SPANISH, THEATRE ARTS - The Distinguished Teaching Awards recognize exceptional teaching that is inclusive, engaged and research-informed. This year’s winners are Jocelyn Hollander, Faith Barter, Alex Zunterstein, Kirby Brown, Robin Hopkins, Tannaz Farsi, Patricia Rodley and Michael Moffitt.

The UO’s Environment Initiative has awarded seed funding to five new teaching projects to support faculty members who have proposed innovative courses and dynamic classroom experiences. The funding supports both research and curricular projects and focuses the intellectual energy and work of faculty, students and community partners on a just and livable future through transdisciplinary research, teaching and experiential learning.

ENGLISH, LINGUISTICS - The College of Arts and Sciences is adding six Latinx studies tenure-track faculty members in several departments as part of the college’s commitment to becoming a premier institution for Latinx studies while meeting student demand for culturally relevant classes.