English Department Resources, Events, and Projects
Discussion
History and Background of La Sociedad para las Artes
For over 25 years, La Sociedad para las Artes has acted as the main outreach organization for the English department. Every year, the organization hosts free evening readings of national caliber, of readers who also offer manuscript consultation to graduate students and craft talks to high school students, undergraduates, graduate students and community members. Since 1996, we have offered a Writers-in-the-Schools (WITS) program, a creative writing arts program supporting our impoverished school system with one of the lowest literacy scores in the country. Finally, our annual hunger benefit, part of a nation-wide movement where writers coordinate reading events to raise money to fight hunger, is in its 12th year, having raised at least $45,000 for Casa de Peregrinos, a local food bank. La Sociedad's priorities are to interface with the school system and the community, helping to tear down boundaries between "town" and "gown." As part of a major research university in one of the poorest counties in the country, La Sociedad seeks out opportunities to involve the English department locally, in order to increase public access to our university, making positive connections between all involved. These connections, benefiting the community as they do, also improve our university, since social responsiveness makes NMSU a more flexible, active organization, qualities that generate vital kinds of research.
Distinguished Visiting Writer Series
Distinguished Visiting Writer Series
The cornerstone of La Sociedad's activities, the Distinguished Visiting Writer Series began almost 30 years ago by now retired faculty members, Joe Somoza and Keith Wilson. Since then, with a very modest budget, La Sociedad has provided NMSU, Las Cruces and El Paso (since no series exists there) with a steady stream of the major contemporary regional, national and international writers of our day. For example, in the past ten years La Sociedad has brought Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award winner Andrea Barrett, Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, three MacArthur "Genius Grant" Award winners-Ed Hirsh, Barrett, and David Foster Wallace-and Nobel Prize short-listed Chinese dissident poet Bei Dao. Other writers have received literature's highest honors, serving as models and inspiration for our local audience: Tim O'Brien, Ana Castillo, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Denise Chavez, Larry Brown, Zhang Ur, Dagoberto Gilb, etc. Our readings are popular and many writers comment on the numbers we attract to their readings. Poetry readings usually have at least 100 people in attendance and fiction readings have up to 400 and sometimes more. The audience comprises a mix of students, professors and community members in equal parts and the readings are always free.
La Sociedad Para Las Artes is seeking to establish a permanent endowed fund. this fund will be managed by the New Mexico State University Foundation, and earnings will support our many creative writing programs, including our visiting writers and reading series and creative writing workshops for the children in the Las Cruces Public Schools. Donations to La Sociedad Para Las Artes are gratefully accepted and tax deductible.
Any checks should be made payable to NMSU Foundation and sent to La Sociedad (address is below). For more information, please contact us at:
La Sociedad para las Artes
New Mexico State University
Department of English, Box 3E
Las Cruces, NM 88003
The effects of such a series are numerous. Students and non-students both learn that literature is a living thing, an active process that can be a part of a person's life. The Distinguished Visiting Writers give lectures concerning the craft and process of writing, either in the public schools or on campus, and all are welcome. The topics range from the translation of Chinese poetry, the intricacies of dialogue in short stories, to the importance of landscape to literature today. During these lectures, people read work, think about the writing process and interact informally with the writers, asking questions long after the talk is over. The series remains responsive to the interests and needs of NMSU and the community in its scheduling, collaborating with Chicano Programs, the Languages and Linguistics Department, the Asian Studies program, Alma De Arte Charter School, the Border Book Festival and locally owned presses such as Zephyr Press and Lannan Award-winning Cinco Puntos Press. Please find included in these materials a poster representing Fall 2005's reading series, and a draft of the Spring 2006 series.
Special Programs
Writers in the Schools
Since 1996, La Sociedad has provided at least 90 hours of creative writing instruction annually in the Las Cruces public schools by graduate students in NMSU's nationally recognized MFA Creative Writing Program. Its series of one-week residencies for students in grades 4th-12th have reached over 3,600 Las Cruces public school children. In 2004, La Sociedad was contracted by the Kellogg Foundation-funded program Engaging Latino Communities in Education (ENLACE) to provide 80 hours of similar creative writing instruction to at-risk students at four area high schools. La Sociedad's WITS program follows the national instructional model established by Teachers and Writers Collaborative of New York City and used by many other organizations nationwide.
The target population of this program is school children in Las Cruces/Doña Ana County in southern New Mexico. This student body is majority Latino/ Chicano. 26% of children in Doña Ana County live under the poverty line (New Mexico Voices for Children, 2004). In 1999-2000 the event dropout rate for Las Cruces students grades 9-12 was 6.8. New Mexico as a whole ranked 9th from the bottom out of 41 states in terms of the achievement of Latino 4th grate students on the reading assessment. The gap in grade 4 reading assessment between Latino and Anglo students in New Mexico was 25 points. In the Las Cruces Public School District, in 2000-2001 only 42.8% of students in grade 4 scored at or above grade level in the writing assessment. By grade 6, only 20.5% of students scored at or above grade level in the writing assessment. The need for arts education programs in southern New Mexico is also evidenced by the fact that of $1,105,386 given to arts programming by the state arts agency, New Mexico Arts, only 4.7% ($55,111) was given to Doña Ana County although the County is the second largest population center in New Mexico. This year was the first that WITS received funding from New Mexico Arts, nearly $3,800.
The benefits of WITS are threefold: 1) Public school students involved with WITS get 10 hours of intensive creative writing instruction, develop a publication of their work, and present it publicly for their friends and family to attend; 2) Classroom teachers aid in the residency and learn new skills for the teaching of creative writing; 3) Creative writing graduate student instructors gain valuable work experience and are encouraged to careers in elementary and high school education. Please find included with these materials some poems written by students who participated in WITS Fall 2005 semester.
La Sociedad's Annual Hunger Benefit
In 1993, La Sociedad decided to participate in a national fundraising drive to help combat hunger. Writers across the country would hold benefit readings during the month of November (near Thanksgiving), with all proceeds going to local food banks. Casa de Peregrinos was selected as La Sociedad's charity and has received at least $45,000 since then. The Hunger Benefit raises funds through program advertising, silent auctions and ticket sales; it is the only event sponsored by La Sociedad that charges a fee. It is estimated that 19% of New Mexicans go to sleep hungry each night. Every penny raised by ticket sales and auction items benefits Casa de Peregrinos. Casa de Peregrinos provides emergency food relief to individuals and families in Doña Ana County who find themselves faced with an unforeseen crisis. In 2005, over 6,000 families in Doña Ana were served food staples by Casa de Peregrinos. This year's benefit was held at the newly renovated Rio Grande Theater, due to their generous donation of time, staff and space. Though the original movement that sparked our annual Hunger Benefit is now defunct, La Sociedad remains dedicated to providing assistance to those in our community.
Endowed Fund Special Programs
Writers in the Schools
Since 1996, La Sociedad has provided at least 90 hours of creative writing instruction annually in the Las Cruces public schools by graduate students in NMSU's nationally recognized MFA Creative Writing Program. Its series of one-week residencies for students in grades 4th-12th have reached over 3,600 Las Cruces public school children. In 2004, La Sociedad was contracted by the Kellogg Foundation-funded program Engaging Latino Communities in Education (ENLACE) to provide 80 hours of similar creative writing instruction to at-risk students at four area high schools. La Sociedad's WITS program follows the national instructional model established by Teachers and Writers Collaborative of New York City and used by many other organizations nationwide.
The target population of this program is school children in Las Cruces/Doña Ana County in southern New Mexico. This student body is majority Latino/ Chicano. 26% of children in Doña Ana County live under the poverty line (New Mexico Voices for Children, 2004). In 1999-2000 the event dropout rate for Las Cruces students grades 9-12 was 6.8. New Mexico as a whole ranked 9th from the bottom out of 41 states in terms of the achievement of Latino 4th grate students on the reading assessment. The gap in grade 4 reading assessment between Latino and Anglo students in New Mexico was 25 points. In the Las Cruces Public School District, in 2000-2001 only 42.8% of students in grade 4 scored at or above grade level in the writing assessment. By grade 6, only 20.5% of students scored at or above grade level in the writing assessment. The need for arts education programs in southern New Mexico is also evidenced by the fact that of $1,105,386 given to arts programming by the state arts agency, New Mexico Arts, only 4.7% ($55,111) was given to Doña Ana County although the County is the second largest population center in New Mexico. This year was the first that WITS received funding from New Mexico Arts, nearly $3,800.
The benefits of WITS are threefold: 1) Public school students involved with WITS get 10 hours of intensive creative writing instruction, develop a publication of their work, and present it publicly for their friends and family to attend; 2) Classroom teachers aid in the residency and learn new skills for the teaching of creative writing; 3) Creative writing graduate student instructors gain valuable work experience and are encouraged to careers in elementary and high school education. Please find included with these materials some poems written by students who participated in WITS Fall 2005 semester.
La Sociedad's Annual Hunger Benefit
In 1993, La Sociedad decided to participate in a national fundraising drive to help combat hunger. Writers across the country would hold benefit readings during the month of November (near Thanksgiving), with all proceeds going to local food banks. Casa de Peregrinos was selected as La Sociedad's charity and has received at least $45,000 since then. The Hunger Benefit raises funds through program advertising, silent auctions and ticket sales; it is the only event sponsored by La Sociedad that charges a fee. It is estimated that 19% of New Mexicans go to sleep hungry each night. Every penny raised by ticket sales and auction items benefits Casa de Peregrinos. Casa de Peregrinos provides emergency food relief to individuals and families in Doña Ana County who find themselves faced with an unforeseen crisis. In 2005, over 6,000 families in Doña Ana were served food staples by Casa de Peregrinos. This year's benefit was held at the newly renovated Rio Grande Theater, due to their generous donation of time, staff and space. Though the original movement that sparked our annual Hunger Benefit is now defunct, La Sociedad remains dedicated to providing assistance to those in our community.
La Sociedad Para Las Artes is seeking to establish a permanent endowed fund. this fund will be managed by the New Mexico State University Foundation, and earnings will support our many creative writing programs, including our visiting writers and reading series and creative writing workshops for the children in the Las Cruces Public Schools. Donations to La Sociedad Para Las Artes are gratefully accepted and tax deductible.
Any checks should be made payable to NMSU Foundation and sent to La Sociedad (address is below). For more information, please contact us at:
La Sociedad para las Artes
New Mexico State University
Department of English, Box 3E
Las Cruces, NM 88003