Form 1os-100

No' I A INorthern Virginia Rev. 02/14'VK Community College

President's Sabbatical Award Request

Employee name: Nicole Tong EMPLID: _5_4_7_3_4_3_9_____ Annandale . . . Languages and Literature . . . Developmental English

Campus: Dept/D1v1s1on: D1sc1plme: --------- ­

·. Associate Professor . . • d 0112001 (staff), oa12009 (faculty)Rank 0ngma1appointment ate: -------------- ­

N/ADates of previous educational leave with pay:------------------------- ­

Dates of requested sabbatical leave (limited to one semester): _F_a_l_l_2_0_1_6______________

JUSTIFICATION (purpose of sabbatical leave): Attach a description of proposed sabbatical plan, no more than 1,000 words

in length (excludfng bibliography). Include a 50-word executive summary. (Both proposal and summary should be sent as

attachments by e-mail to Human Resources.)

AGREEMENT

1. I agree to furnish a written report summarizing project accomplishments through the provost/dean

(if appropriate) to the College president.

2. I agree to present a seminar on the result of my sabbatical, to be presented at the president's award lecture

series, at an appropriate time during the academic year following the leave.

3. I agree to serve twice the time of the approved leave with pay at the College after return from leave with pay.

4. If selected, I agree to sign the promissory note (to be prepared by Human Resources).

11/24/2015 Date of leave request Provost approval

Human Resources approval

President approval

Executive Summary

I am requesting a semester-long sabbatical to complete a collection of poems and build the page of acknowledgments by submitting individual poems in that collection for publication.

Proposed Work During Sabbatical Requested

I joined the NOVA community inJuly 2007. after completing an MF A in poetry that May and being awarded a residency from the Vermont Studio Center and a fellowship from George Mason University.

In summer 2014, Finishing Line Press accepted for publication my chapbook of poems entitled 1v.[y lvli11e, which was published in March of this year. Editors have begun soliciting individual poems and a full-length collection, which I do not yet have. Following my chapbook publication, I have had the opportunity to give public readings at NOVA and George Mason's New Leaves Conference, and I have had invitations to participate in readings in Pittsburgh, Charlotte, and Washington, DC. These opportunities will only increase with a full-length collection. I request a sabbatical to complete a collection of poems tentatively titled How to Prove a Theory; I aim to accomplish this personal and professional goal while maintaining momentum \vith an already-successful project (see Praise for N.[y 1Vli11e).

I anticipate Ho111 to Prove a Theory will blend science, personal history, and ekphrasis to explore subject matter ranging from war, James Brown, genetics, and a rogue satellite. The collection will emphasize the difference between theory and the empirical, between loss and grief, a story and what came before its telling.

Poems from N.[y Nli11e have been published in The Cortland Review, Yalobusha &view, Clade So11g, Hem1ene11tic Chaos, &1st+ !Vloth, Still· the ]011mal, Cafyx: a ]011mal ofArt and Iiterat11re l?J rf7omen, a11d Emi/y: an Anthology ofDickinso11-I11spired lf7orks by Porkbelly Press. Individual poems in the chapbook have been awarded a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize for Lyric Poetry and two have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Benefits to the College

I teach English 237 Introduction to Poetry, which I have been regularly instructing for several years. The capstone project in the class is for students to examine and complete a researched review for a first collection of poems by an emerging poet. In addition to reading Emily Dickinson, TS Eliot, and Walt Whitman, it is important to me that my students understand that poetry is alive in the world in which they are living; their poet-peers are responding to Syria, Ferguson, and social justice movements like Black Lives Matter. The goal of the project is for English 237

students to produce a publishable review and in publishing it, offer a boost to a collection that may not already have the readership it deserves.

So versed are these literature students in contemporary poetry that two out of three of this year's Calliope prizes went co students in my 237 class for their final exam, which asked them to produce and analyze a persona poem without indicating that they authored the poem and despite never having written creatively in the course of the class.

In addition, as Associate Editor of The Northem Virgi11ia &view, I lead the genre discussion of those poems selected for current volume. So that we have a hearty pool from which to consider, I solicit poets living in the mid-Atlantic area for their best work. This year, the five poets the board accepted were poets I solicited for work. Moreover, in this position, I am also responsible, in part, for suggesting and securing featured readers for the annual reception. Last week, I sent a reception reading request to former Poet Laureate Rita Dove.

A completed collection would lend more credibility to my work teaching, soliciting work, and securing featured readers on behalfof the College, and as individual poems and the collection are published, it would increase exposure for the College.

Praise for N{y 1Vfi11e (the completed portion of this proposed project)

Nicole Tong's formal, gemlike precision gives material stability to these mercurial and mysterious meditative lyrics that approach the world of things and of lives from an oblique angle, at a slant. She writes, "I prefer moving out of, / around. Anything but/ staring the thing down directly ..." and in this predilection you will celebrate her kinship with Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore. These poems, as good poems should, leave us enchanted, leave us delightfully unsettled.

--Eric Pankey, Heritage Chair of Creative Writing, George Mason University Author of Trace and Crow-Work (Milk·weed Editions, 2014)

Dazzled into words, Nicole Tong sees such beauty you'll wish you were her. Instead, delight in her fine poems, these keen inquiries into experience and longing-somehow resistant to wistfulness, and always stirring-that on the page crackle with intelligence.

-- Alan Michael Parker, Houchens Chair of Creative Writing, Davidson College Author of The Committee 011 Town Happiness (Dzanc Books, 2014) and Long Division (Tupelo Press, 2012)

This sort of intelligence comes through intuition and imagination not through logic or the senses. It resides in this divided reality between a realm of spirit and a realm of matter. Such as in the Pushcart nominated poem "Enough Theory" where Tong weds the divined (enough) and the dissected (theory). Juxtaposing the abstract ideas of "enough" with the implied quantifiable "theory." Similarly, the poems "Grief Theory," "No Theory," "Inaccurate Theory," and "Intimacy Theory" all play with this combination of the immeasurable and the scientific. These poems explore the dichotomy of spirit and matter in a way that moves beyond their simply intriguing titles.

\Vith Tang's "Intimacy Theory" she ends the collection in stillness in opposition to its opening in flight, ''You are everything/If not each moment before. 0 /Transitivity, 0 verb waiting to be." This juxtaposition provides a full-circle for a collection that is carefully crafted and well planned. Yet, even in this stillness, there is a sense of promise. To end on a promise is always a good thing, and I can't wait for the poet's next collection.

--Catherine Moore, winner of the Gearhart Poetry prize Author of Story (Finishing Line Press, 2015)

Chapbook review from Up the Staircase Q11arter/y (2015)