The English Department would like to congratulate Matthew Shelton, Hannah Taylor, and Kaylee Jangula Mootz for winning the 2021 Tribute Awards.
Matthew Shelton won the Milton Stern Dissertation Award for his project “A Diagram of Winds: Lines of Flight in Translation and Translingual Poiesis.” The committee was deeply impressed with Matthew’s innovative and theoretically sophisticated creative dissertation, as he insists that the work of translation is itself a work of creation. The website “Diagram of the Winds,” an additional component that he created in collaboration outside of his committee, is an ambitious project that randomizes poem pairings and confronts the reader visually and aurally with a sense of an ongoing creation. Congratulations, Matthew, and thank you to Penelope Pelizzon for the nomination!
Hannah Taylor won the Francelia Butler Graduate Award for Teaching Innovation. The committee admired Hannah’s imaginative and empathetic approach to teaching during the pandemic. Her nomination materials provided a compelling narrative of the challenges and the successes that she experienced while guiding students through her online course — which she made accessible and adaptable to students’ needs — and made clear how teaching online has transformed her pedagogy. We encourage you to talk with her about her excellent class discussion of William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow”! Congratulations, Hannah, and thank you to Pam Bedore for the nomination!
Kalyee Jangula Mootz won the David Leeming Graduate Award for Service. Kaylee’s service, which focuses on support for the Native community, spans many levels of the university, from EGSA to the Provost’s office, and into the community surrounding UConn. It involves mentorship, recruitment, strategic planning, organization of cultural events, and curricular planning, among many other efforts. We are grateful that, through her service work, Kaylee represents our department with commitment and passion. Congratulations, Kaylee, and thank you to Martha Cutter for the nomination!
We would also like to thank our committee of judges — Anna Mae Duane, Charles Mahoney, Jean Marsden, and Fiona Somerset — and Melanie Hepburn, for her support in distributing awards.
Congratulations again to our incredible winners!