News from SUNY Cortland

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Karla Alwes Promoted to Distinguished Teaching Professor

CORTLAND, NY (05/21/2008; 1402)(readMedia)-- State University of New York has promoted Professor of English Karla Alwes, a member of the SUNY Cortland faculty since 1987, to the rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor.

The rank, which can only be conferred by the SUNY Board of Trustees on the recommendation of the campus, System Administration and SUNY chancellor, constitutes a promotion above that of full professor. Recipients must demonstrate consistently superior mastery of teaching, outstanding service to students and commitment to their ongoing intellectual growth, scholarship and professional growth, and adherence to rigorous academic standards and requirements.

To be eligible, the honoree must have attained and held the rank of full professor for five years, have completed at least three years of full-time teaching on the nominating campus, 10 years of full-time teaching in the SUNY System, and must have regularly carried a full-time teaching load as defined by the campus at the undergraduate, graduate, or professional level.

A 1994 recipient of a SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Alwes earned the coveted Rozanne Brooks Dedicated Teacher Award from SUNY Cortland in 2001.

Her exceptional classroom skills have received wide acclaim by students and faculty alike. Her course teacher evaluations are consistently outstanding. She frequently sponsors independent studies, both at the graduate and undergraduate levels, while also supervising a number of master’s theses.

Alwes plays a leadership role each semester in the College’s “Take Back the Night” rallies against sexual assault, where she is a passionate and motivational speaker. She organized a series of comprehensive forums titled “Why Can’t We Talk about Rape?” for the students.

A regularly invited speaker at student-sponsored events, Alwes has addressed students in residence halls and members of campus fraternities on “’Throwing Like a Girl’: The Origins of Sexist Language.” The Admissions Office has enlisted her as a speaker for prospective ethnic students. She has presented gender-sensitivity workshops to student organizations, while also serving as faculty advisor to the former SUNY Players Theatre Student Group and academic advisor to the SUNY Cortland women’s gymnastics team.

Within the community, she has served on the college scholarship selection committee at Moravia High School for the past decade, and initiated the Writing Club at the Cassavant School in McLean, N.Y.

The Louisville, Ky., native earned her bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and Ph.D. in English from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She came to SUNY Cortland in 1987 as a visiting assistant professor. She was promoted to associate professor in 1991 and to full professor in 1995. Since 2003, she has chaired the SUNY Cortland English Department.

A widely recognized scholar in her field, Alwes wrote Imagination Transformed: The Evolution of the Female Character in Keats’s Poetry. The seminal work in the field of British Romanticism is listed in “15 of the Best Books and Articles on John Keats,” compiled by Questia School Librarians.

A leading authority on Keats, Alwes has presented at many conferences and symposia. She published an article on John Keats in the prestigious refereed UCLA journal, Nineteenth-Century Literature, as well as two entries in The Encyclopedia of Romanticism: Culture in Britain, 1780s-1850s. She has published six book chapters.

Alwes chaired the College’s Faculty Senate in 1996-97 and in 2007-08. She headed the Multicultural and Gender Studies Council from 1992-96. She was invited to teach the poetry section of the team-taught Honors course for freshmen many times over the years.

In 1994, she became an honorary member of Phi Eta Sigma, the national college freshman honor society. In 1996, she was inducted into the Cortland Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi, the international interdisciplinary honor society, and served as president in 1998-99. The student group, Women of Color, recognized Alwes in 2007 for her service. In 2008, she was an honorary inductee into Alpha Sigma Lambda National Honor Society.

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