PRESS RELEASE:

CLAS LAUNCHES STUDENT WRITTEN BIOGRAPHY SITE

Looking for something to put on your résumé? Know something interesting about the life of Herbert Hoover? Or just have a free weekend to kill?

The Persona Project may be just your thing. The project, new this year from the NIU CLAS web site, encourages students to write short biographies for publication on the College's web site. Any NIU student can submit a biography to the site for publication, as long as they follow the guidelines outlined on the site. Students whose submissions are accepted receive a byline and a short "about the author" piece.

Laura Laughlin, who will oversee the project, views it as meeting two needs of the college's web site. "The most evident benefit of the site is the traffic it will draw to our pages," she says, "If we can even get five percent of the college community to submit, we will have one of the most useful resources on the Web. More importantly, however, is what the site could mean to present students: it has a real potential to foster the sort of academic community we work to create at LA&S."

The current prototype of the site is rather skeletal, consisting of over 300 brief biographies of historical figures, both known and obscure. Mike Caulfield, the site's creator and prototyper, sees the brevity of the current collection of biographies as a strength, rather than a weakness. "I'm hoping that students will read the short biographies I've put up and become intrigued enough to write a longer version. My hope is that when I visit the site a year from now I won't find a single line I've written left."

Students are not limited to the choices on the site, however. "One of the benefits of the Persona Project is the flexibility of it," claims Caulfield. "While we are anticipating that most of our initial submissions will be from English majors, we are making a real effort to attract writers from other disciplines. I would love to see a biography of Feinman written by a physics major, or an article on Hypatia from someone in Women's Studies." Caulfield suggests that such experience could be useful to students when it comes time to find a job. "Employers in all professions are increasingly looking for communication skills. Putting an electronic publication on a résumé signals to an employer that you not only have the knowledge needed to complete the job, but also the ability to communicate that knowledge to co-workers. Frankly, I wish I had had an opportunity like this as an undergrad."

While the Persona Project is still in its infancy, it has already generated some interest among faculty. Todd Laufenberg, an English instructor at NIU, has decided to integrate the project into his syllabus. "In English 103 we generally try to move the students from personal narrative to more academic writing," he states, "Biographies supply the perfect bridge for that." Students in Laufenberg's class will each write a 300-word biography on the historical figure of their choice and submit the finished version to the project. While student grades will not be based on whether the biography is accepted, he regards the experience of writing for submission as an important one: "Very often in the teaching of English you run into this problem of audience. Students feel they are 'writing for the teacher', rather than for the general public. Having students submit articles to the project forces them to consider questions of audience and purpose in a very real way, and hopefully this will generate some productive class discussion on these issues."

Information on the project, as well as a rough prototype of the site, is available from http://www.clas.niu.edu/persona/index.htm. Faculty interested in integrating the project into their curriculum should contact Laura Laughlin directly at 753-0953, or through email at laughlin@niu.edu

CONTACT INFO:

Michael Caulfield, Site Creator and Prototyper 

Todd Laufenberg: 758-8429

Laura Laughlin, Site Supervisor: 753-0953