Mid-Atlantic Regional American Conference for Irish Studies
By: Beth O'Leary Anish

On October 26^th and 27^th, I had the privilege of using staff development funds to attend the annual Mid-Atlantic regional meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS), hosted by LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY.  I traveled to Syracuse for this conference to present a paper I had written entitled, “Specters of Catholicism in LeFanu’s Uncle Silas.”  J.S. LeFanu was a 19^th century Irish Protestant writer of gothic tales, notably the short story, “Carmilla,” which was the basis for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Uncle Silas was perhaps LeFanu’s best known novel, and in it I saw encoded fears of the crumbling Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland over assimilation with the Catholic majority.  I had written this paper in graduate school, and revised it recently as a way to get more involved with my professional organization and practice my public speaking skills in front of an audience of Irish Studies scholars.

On the morning of October 26^th, I gave my presentation, and I believe the paper was well accepted by my audience.  However, I learned an important lesson as to how prepared one needs to be for questions surrounding the topic of an academic paper.  I saw how well-read other presenters on my panel were on all aspects of their subject matter, and it made me realize I had only just scratched the surface of my scholarly pursuits.  I have subjects for future papers in mind already, and I will take much more time to prepare my talks by reading exhaustively on future topics.  I gained valuable experience and knowledge during this presentation that I will take forward with me in my professional career.

The chief advantage to my presenting during the first session of the conference was that I was then able to relax and enjoy the rest of the speakers and cultural events the weekend had to offer.  I sat through several interesting papers on a variety of topics in Irish history and literature.  I also took in a poetry reading by a group of Irish American poets from the ACIS group, as well as a college production of Brian Friel’s play, Translations, for the evening’s entertainment.  These cultural events gave me plenty of ideas to bring back to my ENG 102 class, where we just completed our study of poetry and have now moved on to drama.

All in all, my experience at the Mid-Atlantic Regional ACIS meeting helped me develop my skills as an academic researcher and presenter, and gave me an experience that I can share with my classes when I teach them introductory concepts in literature and research paper writing.  When I require my ENG 101 students to present the results of their research papers, I can now relate to them my experiences with doing the same thing.  I can relate to both the anxiety and the excitement of presenting my contributions to the world of academia.

Conference for Nurse Educators
Smooth Sailing: The Transition from New Graduate to Practicing Nurse
By: Jean Nicholas

This Nurse Educators conference was an excellent conference that provided very useful information, even for an experienced nursing faculty member.  The keynote speaker, Linda Caputi, a nationally recognized nursing education speaker, offered several sessions which I found extremely helpful, with many tools for teaching that I could take home and implement in my nursing classes.  She offered a list of lessons for the Nurse Educator, beginning with Knowing Yourself as a Teacher to Loving What You Teach and Striving to Be Your Best.  She coined the term “edutainment”, referring to the need to be stimulating and interesting so as to promote student learning.  A teacher may be teaching only if the student is receiving and retaining the information.

Linda’s second session, “Teaching Critical Thinking”, also offered helpful ways to teach students how to think critically by giving them some specific assignments to make them analyze information.  She discussed the role of the nurse as a surveillance system, detecting problems early and implementing interventions to “rescue” clients.

Her final session, “Humor in the Classroom”, was very entertaining and directly showed us the value of appropriate humor, how humor can increase retention of knowledge, actively engage the students, and make the faculty seem approachable and “human”.

Another session I attended was almost indescribable in its poignancy.  A nurse told her story of addiction, of diverting drugs in the work environment, and her ultimate recovery through a program offered through the Board of Nurse Registration designed to “save” the addicted nurse.  We were all very emotional after this talk.

It was great to network, as always, with other faculty and hospital providers, as well.  Many ideas were shared of how to ease the transition from education to practice.  A panel discussion, with members from both practice and education, included two recent graduates who shared their perspective on making the transition.

A wonderful closure to the conference was a theatrical performance of a talented actress portraying Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix.

I appreciated the wonderful opportunity to attend this conference.