1. business and industrial
2. business operations
3. business plans

Time
8:00 – 8:45
9:00– 9:50
10:00 – 11:20
Event
Breakfast
And Registration
Jubilee Hall
JH Atrium
Keynote: “Getting in Sync With Our Superconnected Students”
Mary Chayko, School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University
JH Atrium
Session 1
Panel 1A
JH 211
After the Book: Critical Reflections on Digital Storytelling and its Challenges to
Traditional Narrative Models in Electronic Literature.
Co-Moderators: Angela Ferraiolo and Una Chung, Sarah Lawrence College
Although a powerful cultural symbol of enlightenment and modern learning in general, the
printed book with its ability to build powerfully complex narrative chronotropes in multiple
prose genres seems to be increasingly less dominant in electronic literature and digital
humanities programs in general. As the literary arts continue to expand and broaden in scope
and structure to include multimodal formats as well as an increasingly wide variety of
production and distribution tools, the very concept of what a text is and how it functions
socially, politically and culturally is now undergoing its most significant transformation in half a
millennium. This panel welcomes papers on how, or even if, traditional print-based modes of
narration and storytelling will continue to develop as digital media.
Panelists:
● “Transmedia Fictive Documents in Children's Literature: Hypertextual Reading and
Diegetic Status” Gervanne Bourquin, York University
● “The transformation of narratives in the digital age and exploration of multimedia”
Katie Albany, CUNY
● “Implementing Technology and Neuroscience Texts in the Interdisciplinary Research
Writing Classroom” Justin Ligi, West Chester University
Panel 1B
JH 212
“Class Politics and Modernism”
Moderator: Jerry Paris, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Panelists:
● “Tom Sawyer and His Surroundings: The Influence of Class Separation in The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer” Christopher Pollin, Seton Hall University
● “Robert Browning, the Duke, and the Risorgimento” Crystal Hernandez, Seton Hall
University
● “James Joyce: Priesthood through His Art of Writing” Lillian Melendez, Seton Hall
University
Panel 1C
“Reading and Misreading Early American Literature”
Moderator: John Wargacki, Seton Hall University
JH 214
11:20 – 11:30
Panelists:
●
“Ghostly Pinches: Sensory Manipulation in the Salem Witch Trials” Robin Kneblick,
Seton Hall University
● “A Crime of Dark Dye”: Critics Misreading Poe Reading Hawthorne” John Gruesser,
Kean University
● “The New and the Dying in Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’ ” Dennis O’Connell, Seton Hall
University
Coffee break
11:30 – 12:50
Session 2
Panel 2A
JH 218
“New Approaches to Medieval Literature”
Moderator: Angela Jane Weisl, Seton Hall University
Panelists:
● “Dante’s Inferno: Perfect Justice and Cannibals Within the State of Exception” Dena
Arguelles, Seton Hall University
● “The Treatment of the Female Body in the Plays of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim”
Rachael Warmington, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
● "The 'Wonderful Parliament' of 1386 and the Perils or Virtues of Patronage in
Chaucer and Gower: Machaldian Poetics in Late Medieval England" Burt
Kimmelman, New Jersey Institute of Technology
● “’I have felled many men and made this poem about it:’ Violence and Masculinities in
Late-Icelandic literature and Chaucer” Angela Jane Weisl, Seton Hall University
Panel 2B
JH 219
“Negotiating Nature across Literary Genres”
Moderator: Catherine Siemann, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Panelists:
● “Surrendering to Nature, Snakes and All” Lisa L Cunningham, Seton Hall University
● “Greetings from Beach Isle: Real and Fictional Geographies of New Jersey in Joyce
Carol Oates’s The Barrens” (2001)” Stanley S. Blair, Monmouth University.
● “Where Nature Abides, Freedom Abounds” Daniella Pic, Seton Hall University
Roundtable Discussion 2C
JH 132
“Innovative Projects in Digital Media”
Moderator: Richard Marranca, Passaic County Community College
Panelists:
● “Discussing his poetry documentary and its use in classroom” Billy Tooma, Essex
County College
● “Innovative Projects in Digital Media” Melda Yildiz, Kean University
● Digital Yeats: No Separation between Dancer & Dance” Douglas Rosentrater, Bucks
County College, PA
● “Have No Fear – Technology and Literature Are Here” Kelly Bender, Passaic County
Community College
● “"Facebook and Blackboard: Digital Ideas for the Creative and Practical Writing
Instructor” Alex Della Fera, Passaic County Community College
Panel 2D
JH 214
“Love Among the Ruins”: Human Connection and Social Disintegration in Three
Modern Plays by Frank McGuiness, Charles Mee and Sam Shepard”
Moderator: Mary Lindroth, Caldwell University
1:00 – 1:50
Panelists:
● “Making Peace: Shared Humanity Trumps Political Divisiveness in Frank
McGuinness’ Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” Trish Verrone, Caldwell University
● “Exploding the Marriage Plot: Gender Wars in Charles Mee’s Big Love” Mary
Lindroth, Caldwell University
● “Home, Hospital, Highway: the Search for Love and Meaning in Sam Shepard’s
Heartless” Doug Anderson, Caldwell University
Lunch
Business Meeting
Ongoing
11:00 – 2:50
Tables will be
set up at 11 am
and taken down
by 3 pm
Technology Test Kitchen Exhibitors
JH Atrium
Facilitator: Sharla Sava, Office of Instructional & Research Technology, Rutgers
University
Ponder (Alex Selkirk)
Ponder is the first “micro-response” tool. It gives teachers a view into the invisible process of
learning through higher-order critical thinking. Ponder is a browser add-on and an iOS app.
Once installed, Ponder allows you to create micro-responses anywhere on the web (on text
and video) and measures reading activity on sites listed in the Class Reading List. Ponder
micro-responses are shared through a Class Feed that aggregates class activity by topic area,
student reactions (Sentiments) and course concepts (Themes).
Exhibitor Bio: Alex Selkirk is a passionate reader who spent the past 15 years designing
systems to generate thoughtful data. The most recent example of that path is Ponder
(https://www.ponder.co), a higher-order literacy tool. The Ponder team has spent most of the
last four years collaborating closely with teachers and professors in their classrooms so that
instructors at any level, anywhere can build a habit of inquiry and critical thinking in each of
their students. Designing technology for successful implementation and measuring impact on
educational outcomes are core principles for us. Alex is excited to be part of the discussion at
NJCEA.
Cafe Learn (Lyn Maize)
Café Learn is a cloud based application for instructors and students replacing or enhancing
traditional course materials. It has a clean intuitive interface and workflows that helps facilitate
learning and course delivery; in class and online. It operates seamlessly with other campus
technology and systems. Café Learn promotes deliver of outcomes based instructional
design; includes tools for curated search and upload of content, including open education
resources, Mooc content, campus-resident and commercial. Each instructor can upload their
own content and customize a course on the fly; bringing in any print, digital or rich media
resources needed for great teaching and learning. Collaboration and social tools are
imbedded, providing instructors with the ability to facilitate grouping, peer to peer learning and
best-practice in teaching blended classes – and students to work together in and out of class.
Assessment types are varied; formative and summative, including activities and projects tied
to rubrics.
Café Learn is a new company with a next generation course design platform that helps
colleges improve retention by increasing student engagement, scaling innovation and
reducing costs. We enable instructors to shift from lecturer to facilitator by helping them easily
redesign traditional lecture-based “gateway” courses into, fun, engaging, active and social
learning experiences for college students.
Exhibitor Bio: Lyn Maize is Co-Founder of Café Learn. Lyn is an experienced higher education
marketing and product development executive with a track record of bringing engaging,
innovative solutions to the college classroom. Lyn has assisted in the launch of first
generation technology products in higher education, a virtual University in Africa, and multitenant, global corporate learning programs.
Humanoid Robots & Literacy (Sofia Levchak)
Nao robots are humanoid robots that have the ability to interact and creatively engage
students in the learning process. In this demonstration, we will explore how humanoid robots
are being creatively integrated into STEM and literacy curricula. These robots engage and
connect with students through the use of facial recognition, sound/voice cues, tactile sensors,
song, and dance. A Nao humanoid robot will be demonstrated during the presentation.
Exhibitor Bio: Sofia Levchak is an Educational Technology Leadership Doctoral Candidate
and adjunct professor at New Jersey City University. She has dedicated her career in
education to working with elementary education students in the areas of Bilingual Education,
ESL and Literacy. Currently, Sofia is a Literacy Coach in the Kearny School District and
coordinator of the district’s S.T.A.R. after school reading intervention program.
Oculus Rift in Higher Ed (Jennifer Serviss)
When you think of higher education, chances are that virtual reality is not something that
immediately comes to mind. With the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset that provides a fully
immersive 3D experience, you have the ability to visit a different place everyday through the
use of Virtual Reality. Just by placing a headset and downloading software, individuals have
the ability to be engaged in online field trips and experience places and things in a 3D
experience. Students using the Oculus Rift in history courses, for example, can be introduced
to the Civil War, or experience virtual field trips to tour the battlefields, or march in high speed
where the armies travelled in The South, or meet George Washington. Similarly for political
science, students can walk through the Washington, DC to follow a bill as it gets turned into a
law.
Exhibitor Bio: Jennifer Serviss is the Technology Advisor and Educator at the Gregory School
in New Jersey. She holds a New Jersey State teaching certification in Special Education; a
New Jersey State certification as a School Library Media Specialist and a Supervisor
certification in the state of New Jersey. She has also earned a South Carolina State teaching
certification in Special Education. Her Master in Arts Degree is in Educational Technology .
She is currently a doctoral candidate in Educational Technology and Leadership at New
Jersey City University.
io (Giovanna Olmos)
We will exhibit/demo a LeapMotion keyboard that uses the hand gestures of sign language to
type, select letters. My partner and I have created working gestures with Processing for
certain letters and symbols at this moment. Future additions to the piece include an interactive
messaging system, so that to people can send texts, chat, my each using a leap motion.
Finally, when we have the whole alphabet we'll launch it as an App in the LeapMotion library.
It will offer a wider conception of writing by inventing a new keyboard and bodily engagement
with writing. It will show how writing is also a certain physical activity and practice. It will be a
more ergonomical typing option. It will be an easier way for the deaf to engage with the online.
Exhibitor Bios: Giovanna Olmos is a NY based poet and artist creating work that explores how
images and text are consumed and produced via the virtual body. Abdel is a savvy Computer
Scientist who enjoys anything code. He likes exploring the boundaries of software and
hardware and recently worked with a team to prototype a hand typing application. In his spare
time he likes hacking things and going flying.
2:00 – 3:20 pm
Session 3
Panel 3A
JH 218
Precariat Labor and University Teaching in the Humanities
By now we’re all familiar with the same oft-quoted statistics: the ratio of available tenure-track
positions in American universities to the amount of Ph.Ds awarded each year is roughly 1:7. In
Humanities related fields that ratio is even more unbalanced. Undergraduates in most English
programs across the country have less than a 50 per cent chance of having a tenured or
tenure-track faculty member as their professor. This panel welcomes papers on how the
increasingly precarious state of employment for university professors is likely affecting
scholarship, pedagogy and course and program design in the literary arts and beyond.
Moderator: Eli Nadeau New School for Social Research
Panelists:
● Worlds Without Beginning or End: Exploring the Roles, Relationships, and
Implications of Multiple Storyworlds in Interactive Digital Fiction and of the Contingent
Labor Force in Higher Education” Johanna Rogers, CUNY
● “Different Worlds?: First-Year Composition in the Community College and the
University” Eric D. Brown, j
● “Shelf Life/Working at the intersection of art and commerce” Jillian Abbott,
Queensborough Community College.
Panel 3B
JH 219
“Reclaiming Rhetoric in the Renaissance”
Moderator: Donovan Sherman, Seton Hall University
The papers in this panel explore diverse strategies of reclaiming, re-appropriating, and
repurposing rhetorical modes in Renaissance literature. Language, in these essays, becomes
not merely a representational system but also performative and, ultimately, the grounds for
radical re-conceptualizations of subjectivity. The panelists examine how rhetoric can obscure,
defer, distract, and rebuild identities—at times explicitly, at times tacitly—and how these
renegotiations can help prompt new understandings of both the literature and broader
disciplinary fields, including gender, politics, economics, and illness.
Panelists:
● “To Pluck Your Berries Harsh and Crude”: Violent Interruption and Female Presence
in “Lycidas” Jacqueline Joewono, Seton Hall University
● “Millions of False Eyes Are Stuck Upon Thee:” Gentrifying the Female Body in
Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure" Rachel Wagner, Seton Hall University
● “No, ‘tis slander; /Whose edge is sharper than the sword”: Words as Weapons in
Shakespeare’s Cymbeline" Ashley Ganem,Seton Hall University
● "Indefinable Melancholy” Norah Hatch, Seton Hall University
Panel 3C
JH 211
“New Directions in Poetry and Fiction: Sound, Narrative, and the Zero Complex”
Moderator: Stanley Blair, Monmouth University
Panelists:
● “Robert Pinksky’s Soundscapes: Literary Cartography and the Sounds of Poetry”
Colleen King, Monmouth University
● “Closure Through Self-Deception: Poetry as Narrative and Understanding” Eric
Farwell, Independent Scholar
● “Economic Perspective in Kevin Holton’s The Zero Complex” Kevin Holton,
Monmouth University
3:30 – 4:50
Session 4
Round Table: Technology Test Kitchen Discussion 4A
Moderator: Andrew Klobucar, New Jersey Institute of Technology
JH Atrium
Panel 4B
JH 212
“Gender and Lit: Female Characters and Agents of Deconstruction”
Moderator: Angela Weisl, Seton Hall University
Panelists:
● “The Tragedy of Jacob’s Room: Jacob Flanders as a Tragic Hero” Olivia Innamorato,
Seton Hall University
● “Transforming the Past into the Present: Walpole’s Deconstruction of Medieval
Gender Definitions in The Castle of Otranto” Anthony Cunder, Seton Hall University
● “Her Very Particular Friend”: Ambiguity and Intimacy of Female Friendship in
Austen’s Emma” Katlin Kocher, Seton Hall University
Panel 4C
JH 214
“Tropes of Materiality in 19th Century Literature
Moderator: Mary McAleer Balkun, Seton Hall University
Panelists:
● “Emily Dickinson and the Natural World: The Construction of an Alternate Universe”
John P. Wargacki, Seton Hall University.
● “A Radical Ecology; Sarah Orne Jewett`s Feminist Landscape” Nasreen Khan, Seton
Hall University
● “As I Lay Living: Faulkner’s Anti-Gothic and the Thing” Benjamin Rader, Seton Hall
University
Panel 4D
“Strategies for Responding to Student “Feedback”
Moderator/ Convener: Maria Plochocki, Pace University
JH 218
Panelists:
● “Muslim, Arab, and Your Writing Teacher: Responding to Racism in the Classroom.”
Tamara Issak, Syracuse University
● “Word, PowerPoint & Excel: Simple, and Not So Simple, Sources of Teaching
Power” Harold Ingram, Pace University
● “Think like a Lawyer: How To Survive as an Adjunct in the Age of Low Academic
Standards” Angelo Liberta, Pace University
● “Learning from the Past, Determining the Future” Maria Plochocki, Pace University
5:00 – 6:00
Wine and Cheese Reception
Presentation of Graduate Student Paper Prize
Presentation of Rosen Mentor Award
JH Atrium