Dr. Candis Pizzetta, associate professor in the Department of English and Modern Foreign Languages, has been named Director of the Center for University Scholars.
“I am pleased that Dr. Pizzetta has accepted the opportunity to lead the Center, which plays an instrumental role in faculty engagement and advancement. I have no doubt that through Dr. Pizzetta’s leadership the Center will expand its support of faculty and make an indelible mark on scholarship, research, and service,” says Dr. Loretta A. Moore, vice president for Research and Federal Relations.
Pizzetta currently serves as assistant department chair and coordinator of the graduate program. She earned her Ph.D. in English from Baylor University, where her dissertation focused on the development of the feminist mindset in early American fiction. In addition to being coordinator of graduate studies for English since 2008, Pizzetta has served as the interim chair of English and Modern Foreign Languages Department.
“The Center for University Scholars sits at the heart of intellectual life at JSU. I am very excited about the opportunity to continue the work of the Center and to expand its support of faculty research, travel, and grant writing. Scholarship is a collaborative activity, and the Center is an essential element in forming productive partnerships for our faculty,” Pizzetta said.
In her capacity as director, Pizzetta will be responsible for managing the current programming, including the Faculty Engagement and Advancement Program workshop series, the Brown Bag Research lecture series, the graduate assistantship and travel grant programs, and the Academy for Research and Scholarly Engagement. As well, she will lead the staff in designing and implementing additional programs aimed at supporting faculty research, providing faculty publication opportunities, assisting faculty with career planning, and supporting faculty in their roles as teachers.
Along with her administrative experience, Pizzetta brings an understanding of the processes involved in research, publication and grant writing. Her most recent research and writing efforts include an e-textbook companion for the Norton Anthology of American Literature, an article on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” in POMPA, a chapter in the anthology The Power of the Word: The Sacred and the Profane, and, as third author, an essay on diary reporting and phonetic transcription in the Online Journal of Rural and Urban Research.
She is currently an editorial assistant for the Gale Group Publishers’ Contemporary Literary Criticism series. In addition to writing grant proposals for submission to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education, she has been a reviewer and program evaluator for the Mississippi Humanities Council.