WeblogEntries tagged with “about” from Dennis G. Jerz
At a faculty senate meeting in 2008, I made a joke about parking. After the meeting was over, a colleague asked me to serve on a faculty committee she was forming, which led to my being named to a university parking committee. (Moral: don't make jokes at faculty senate meetings.)
I have presented to the university faculty/staff community on using Google as a teaching and research tool; on weblogs in the classroom, and on the educational applications of games (both computer and traditional). In the fall of 2009 I'm slated to give a talk on Google Apps.
Other service includes membership in the Basic Comp and STW instructors' committees.
In addition, I manage the SHU weblog site, blogs.setonhill.edu, which has hosted some 400 accounts -- mostly students in my own classes, but also accounts for colleagues and University offices such as Admissions, Reeves Library, and the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education.
My service in the Humanities Division has included doing the paperwork for the New Media Journalism major, proposing the new course Writing about Literature as part of SHU's writing-intensive course initiative, and proposing changes to the English major assessment in light of the university's recent decision to drop a university-wide portfolio requirement.
In
Fall 2003, I begin teaching new media journalism and assorted writing
and literature courses as an associate professor of English at Seton
Hill University.In 2001 I earned a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Toronto, and in March of 2003 my dissertation was published as Technology in American Drama 1920-1950: Soul and Society in the Age of the Machine.
I enjoy challenging my students to write, revise, and revise again (and this website includes a large collection of writing handouts). According to one former student, "Dr. Jerz will make you a better writer than you think you can be."
My scholarly interests include new media genres such as weblogs and interactive fiction, as well as literature and drama.
Since 1994, I've been married to the former Leigh Anne Gigliotti. She is working on a Ph.D. in Victorian literature from the University of Toronto. We have two children: Peter, born in 1998; and Carolyn, born in 2002. We are a home-schooling family (though both kids went to preschool).
Rainbow Hector Fan Page
 |
For reasons that still elude me, I started the Rainbow Hector Fan Page as a tribute to the favorite toy of my son Peter (born in 1998). As of 2009, Peter has moved on to military history and science, but thankfully his sister Carolyn (born in 2002) is now a Rainbow Hector fan. |
Jerz Family Name (A narrative essay on what "Jerz" means.)
"I still had a few minutes while the sausage cooked, so I asked,
"What does my name mean?" The sausage lady averted her eyes and
found something to do underneath the counter. When she emerged
again, her shoulders were shaking, and she was trying to keep a straight
face. I rolled my eyes. Oh no, not again..."
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My great-grandfather John Jerz lived in the back room of this tiny neighborhood shoe shop, in a Polish neighborhood in Chicago's West Side. My grandfather Joseph J. Jerz was a die-cutter in the auto industry. My father George J. Jerz was born in 1933. He guesses that this photo dates from 1920. |
On the walls of the Jerz shoe store are mostly posters for "O'Sullivan Heels," and "Tite-Edge Rubber Heels." In those days, a shoe was so well-made that when the heels wore out, you would take it to a neighborhood shoe shop such as this one, in order to get a new heel nailed onto the leather sole. I visited this house with my father in 1991. The Polish families had long since moved out, and the neighborhood was mostly Hispanic. The small shop window was still there, but the store had been converted into a living room. The boy in the photo is Walter Jerz, who my father says was the fifth-ranked middle-weight boxer in the 1930s (and had the same boxing manager as Joe Louis). Walter was one of my grandfather's six siblings: after Joseph there were Clara, Walter, Elizabeth, Florence, Raymond, and Ted. Ted, the youngest, died in the summer of 1999. He was not much older than my father, and the two had recently reconnected. My father found this photo while going through his Uncle Ted's personal effects.
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| Fluff & Stuff |
The model pictured below was used in the filming of the classic TV show Star Trek, and is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
I tried to think of some pedagogical value for the above photo, but I really put it here because I am a Star Trek nerd. Photo taken by [one of] my parents |
| My Mii |
 I
don't own any gaming consoles, but one evening a student
brought his Wii to class and during the break, I got 9 pins on
my first bowl, and picked
up
the spare
on my second. |
Fax: 724 830 4601
1 Seton Hill Drive
Box 461
Greensburg, PA 15601
Office Hours, Fall 2009
403 St. Joseph
- Tue 1:30-2:30
- Thu 1:30-2:30
- Fri 10:30-11:30
- and also by appointment.
Link Permissions: Feel free to link to any resources you find on my website--there's no need to wait for my permission (but I'd still enjoy hearing from you).
Reprint Requests: If you want to reprint an article or a long extract, please contact me first.
Dennis G. Jerz
I teach new media journalism as an associate professor of English at Seton Hill University. My recent scholarly interests cover weblogs, interactive fiction, technology in literature, and web usability and design.
My Social Networking Links
- Jerz's Literacy Weblog: http://jerz.setonhill.edu/weblog
(Winner of the John Lovas Memorial Weblog Award) - blogs.setonhill.edu http://blogs.setonhill.edu
- YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/DGJerz
- Instructional screencasts on using blogs at Seton Hill (Part 1, Part 2)
- Educational reviews of computer games (Civilization, TimezAttack, Crazy Machines)
- 3D design demos(storybook castle simulation)
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dennis.jerz
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/DennisJerz
This website began as a resource for my own students, though many of the pages have attracted traffic from search engines and weblogs. Many of the resources on this web site were originally created while I was teaching at the University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire (UWEC). A few pages even date from my grad student days at the University of Toronto.
During my five years in Eau Claire, I constantly expanded and fine-tuned the collection of instructional resources on my website, thanks to the feedback from my own students, students and teachers at other institutions, and random visitors (whose comments are always welcome and often helpful). In my last two months at UWEC, my site was drawing nearly 200,000 hits per month.
I'm very grateful to the administration at Seton Hill University for supplying me with internet service to support my continued online activities. (I used to use Supplehost, but when they stopped answering my e-mails for several months, I switched to RimuHosting. I understand SuppleHost has a new owner now, so it may be that they will change their ways.)
Will Gayther, a UWEC undergraduate majoring in computer science, updated my weblog software as part of an independent study, and for years continued to offer his services in a manner above and beyond the call of duty--even after I gave him an "A" for his project.
Now the blog runs on MovableType, and I am slowly converting the rest of the website from static HTML to pages served via MovableType.
Current Position
Associate Professor of English: New Media Journalism
Seton Hill University (2003-present)
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