McRae to attend Bucknell, Davidson offers thoughts
on program's success
Nick McRae of Lafayette, a student from the Department of English
and Philosophy at the University of West Georgia, was accepted
to attend the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets on the campus
of Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
Nick McRae, Bucknell scholar Considered the most prestigious
seminar of its kind in the nation, the Bucknell Seminar for Younger
Poets is highly selective and only the best and brightest talents
are accepted.
The program provides undergraduate students the opportunity
to stay on campus and receive guidance and assistance from visiting
and staff poets through writing workshops, lectures/discussions
and individual conferences.
McRae, who is currently studying abroad
in the Czech Republic, will attend the Bucknell Seminar in the
Stadler Center for Poetry on the Bucknell campus.
For more information
on the courses and opportunities offered through the Department
of English and Philosophy, call 678-839-6512.
Thoughts from Dr. Chad Davidson:
Think of it
this way: In the five years since this university has put a significant
effort into promoting creative writing, we have hired four tenure-eligible
writing faculty, won the Association of Writers and Writers
Programs' national
prize for best undergraduate literary magazine with Eclectic,
began a robust minor in creative writing that is growing exponentially
and attracts folks from outside the English major.”
The
number of minors increased by almost half this spring semester
alone and the department has expanded the creative writing course
offerings two-fold. We’ve
initiated a reading series that brings national authors to our
campus on a regular basis, and are now placing students in prestigious
national writing programs. Nick's acceptance into Bucknell is
the result of five years of hard work in growing the creative
writing presence on this campus.
He was first
attracted to creative writing while taking a newly devised XIDS
course on the nature of creativity-an avenue unavailable to our
students before 2004.
In other words,
this is a systemic success and speaks to both our university's
commitment to creative writing as a legitimate academic pursuit,
and to our department's ability to train those students who wish
to become writers.
For our program, there is simply no better measure
of success, no better assessment tool, than our students' earning
spots in prestigious writing seminars that usually cater to ivy
leaguers and the like. It's the first step in what promises to
be a long writing career for Nick.
Chad
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