CREATIVE WRITING - Kirstin Valdez Quade was a graduate student in the creative writing program when Professor Ehud Havazelet offered that advice. Today Quade, MFA ’09 (creative writing), is an award-winning novelist and creative writing professor at Princeton University who is, she says, “profoundly grateful” for the program and Havazelet, who died in 2015.

ENGLISH - Together with a team at the University of Idaho, librarians at the UO received a $49,919 digital humanities advancement grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop new technology-focused teaching plans for humanities courses.

ENGLISH - Ben Saunders, a UO professor of comic studies, is working with Marvel Comics on a new collaboration series with publisher Penguin Classics. The first three books published in the series will be “Black Panther,” “Captain America” and “The Amazing Spider-Man,” with Saunders serving as the series editor and author of the scholarly introductions for the latter two.

ENGLISH - Visitors to the Museum of Natural and Cultural History will be able to explore unicorn horns, witch bottles and more at the “Magic in Medieval Europe” exhibit, on view beginning Saturday, Oct 23. Curated by Martha Bayless, professor of English and director of the Folklore and Public Culture Program at the UO, the exhibit offers an enchanted journey through the Middle Ages.

FOLKLORE - The UO campus, which is dotted with buildings built in the 19th century, has its fair share of ghost stories. While some of them are far-fetched, others have developed lives of their own among students and faculty members.

ENGLISH - Mat Johnson, a professor in the Creative Writing Program in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the UO’s newest Philip H. Knight Chair. Johnson joined the UO faculty in 2018 after a decade teaching at the University of Houston’s creative writing program.

Sixteen UO faculty members are being honored with the Presidential Fellowships in Humanistic Studies for their contributions to the arts and humanities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the College of Arts and Sciences is recognizing and celebrating both the 2020 and 2021 fellows together.

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art will livestream the premiere of “Sanctuary: A Performance,” an artist collaboration exploring the collective experience of women and queer people of color seeking refuge from persecution under the ongoing violence of colonization.

POLITICAL SCIENCE, ENGLISH - Four UO faculty members will serve as the inaugural participants for teaching, mentorship and leadership positions in the new Provost Fellows Program. The program is designed to support faculty members and provide professional development opportunities.

Twelve UO researchers and scholars pursuing research on subjects ranging from rock and roll music to data science to COVID-19 have received 2021 Faculty Research Awards, which support scholarship, creative projects and quantitative or qualitative research from all disciplinary backgrounds.

ENGLISH - The University of Oregon’s disability studies minor will present a virtual discussion featuring a multiracial panel of professionals with disabilities at its first public forum Wednesday, May 5. Topics include advancing equality in the work place, transitioning from school to career, and navigating the work force with a disability.

ENGLISH, ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES - UO professor Sarah Wald hasn’t gone down the TikTok rabbit hole, but she’s explored just about every other storytelling medium to examine issues of equity and diversity in outdoor recreation and public land use.

The Glacier Lab is a group of graduate students, CHC undergrads and postdocs who study the societal impacts of glaciers, icebergs and snow worldwide. Members of the lab come from diverse academic backgrounds, including environmental studies, anthropology, history and English.

ENGLISH - UO English professor Tara Fickle has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support her project “Behind Aiiieeeee! A New History of Asian American Literature.” The project examines a canonical and controversial Asian American literary anthology.

In a state known for its inspiring landscapes — its beauty, how its residents both embrace and rely on it for sustenance — University of Oregon faculty, staff and students bring that same passion and fervor toward studying our environment and tackling the biggest challenges facing it.