Why YOU Should Apply for the Beebe Fellowship
Applications for the 2017-18 Joan Beebe Graduate Teaching Fellowship close on February 1. The Fellowship is available to all alumni of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, including those who received the degree during the years the program was at Goddard College. Information on how to apply is a this link: APPLYING FOR THE BEEBE
HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD DO IT:
From Alain Park (fiction, 2013), current Beebe Fellow:
What I see as most valuable to me as a Beebe Fellow is how the Fellowship condenses a wide range of teaching experiences into a single academic year. The fellowship provides the opportunity to gain experience on so many levels: teaching entry- as well as advanced-level and cross-genre courses, and guiding the upperclass creative writing majors. It would take years at other institutions to gain access to those kinds of teaching opportunities. And creating these courses from the ground up is also incredibly valuable; with the academic freedom you enjoy, you can truly make them your own.
Furthermore, I can’t stress enough how wonderful it is to be on the Warren Wilson campus as part of the undergraduate faculty. You’re a full member of this wonderful teaching community, and your input is valued and sought after, both by other faculty and by the great students, who are, by the way, everything you could expect from Warren Wilson: lively, independent thinkers who are distinctively imaginative, engaged, and passionate.
Previous Beebe Fellows reflect on their experiences:
The Joan Beebe Fellowship came at a time, like with most recent MFA grads, when I felt my greatest insecurity about entering the classroom as an instructor. Although I had had a couple of years’ experience teaching at a community college, I had not yet had an opportunity to teach creative writing. This fellowship afforded me an opportunity to teach in an environment that I not only cherished in memory, but also an environment in which I felt safe to write, teach, and grow as a writer in the world.
A.Van Jordan (poetry, 1998); Beebe Fellow 2000-2002
After five years of being a full-time college professor, I received the Beebe Fellowship—and that year, for the first time, I received real mentorship. My teaching improved immensely because of the guidance I received from the undergraduate Writing Program. Also, I grew to better understand the roles I want both teaching and writing to have in my life: I learned how to make writing my top priority while working a full-time job, that balance. Warren Wilson’s MFA Program is all about focusing on your craft; the Beebe Fellowship is all about professionalization. You become more adept and aware, more ready to fully enter the field of teaching–and you get to live in Appalachia, a place I’ve grown to adore.
Erin Stalcup (fiction, 2004 ); Beebe Fellow 2009-2010
As the Joan Beebe Teaching Fellow, I was able to live and work in the world of writing for a year, and was introduced to the possibility of a career in academia. I had the opportunity to pass on the great poems and ideas to which the MFA program exposed me to students, building connections between Warren Wilson’s undergraduate and graduate writing programs. Perhaps best of all was the learning that the fellowship has allowed me to do myself, as in preparing to teach, I studied what I thought I already knew in even greater depth.
Rose McLarney (poetry, 2010); Beebe Fellow 2010-11
