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As a development editor at Bedford/St. Martin’s, I recognize the importance of keeping connected to the first-year writing classroom – to new pedagogy and practice, to instructors, and to students. Our English editorial team learns a great deal from working with our distinguished authors, communicating with instructors during textbook reviews, and attending professional conferences such as CCCC, MLA, NADE, and more. But one of my favorite events is the Bedford New Scholars Advisory Board, and the 2018 program and participants do not disappoint.
First, a bit of context: The Bedford New Scholars Advisory Board is an ongoing venture begun by the Bedford/St. Martin’s English editorial team in 2008; it was formerly known as the Bedford/St. Martin's TA Advisory Board. Each year we contact program directors from ten leading graduate programs and invite them to nominate one of their outstanding graduate students to serve on an advisory board for the calendar year. By bringing together a motivated group of graduate students from across the country, we hope to hear more about the teaching challenges they face and the research in the field that excites them. They also give us feedback on the direction of our new projects. In the process, Bedford New Scholars participants have the opportunity to connect with other graduate students from across the country and to learn a bit about how publishing works.
Without further ado, I present the Bedford New Scholars advisory board for 2018:
Though tenure in the program is a full year, the most anticipated event is when all participants – advisory board members and English editors – gather together for the annual summit. This year’s meeting took place in Boston on June 20-22, 2018, in and around the Bedford/St. Martin’s office. We spent time getting to know each other over good food, conversation, and city tours in between introducing and getting feedback on the projects we are all working on.
On the Bedford/St. Martin’s side, we shared some of our exciting first edition projects, in various stages of development, to receive feedback from this advisory board of rising composition teachers, scholars, and administrators. These projects included the soon-to-publish Becoming a College Writer: A Multimedia Text by Todd Taylor, as well as some other new book and media projects in the works.
Bedford New Scholars board members also led the group by presenting their Assignments that Work, successful or innovative activities or assignments they have used in the classroom. As always, this was one of our most lively sessions, providing excellent questions and insights into pedagogy and practice. (Never fear! We hope to make many of these assignments available to you on the English Community very soon.)
Here are my Four Key Takeaways from this summer’s Bedford New Scholars summit:
We at Bedford/St. Martin’s are excited to know and connect with these advisory board participants, who represent the future of the field. Speaking for myself, I certainly look forward to seeing each of them – not to mention past advisory board members! – at conferences and on scholarly (and textbook!) covers in the future.
Coming soon!: A Community page dedicated to the Bedford New Scholars program, where you can follow these advisory board members in the coming year as they publish Bits blog posts about their teaching and research. Stay tuned!
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