Wendy Bashant

Graduating as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and magna cum laude from Middlebury College in Vermont, Wendy Bashant received her BA in English. Following graduation, Wendy Bashant continued her education by attending the University of Rochester, where she received her MA/PhD in English Literature. There she taught introductory courses in literature and worked as a writing consultant at the Eastman School of Music. Wendy Bashant began her career as an English Professor at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. When she arrived, she started the Gender Studies program, holding the position of inaugural Chair. Later, as Chair of the English Department, she initiated a Creative Writing program, as well. With her extensive background and travel experience, she planned and directed nine separate international trips to Scotland, Ireland, London, Japan, and Thailand for her students. In 2000, Wendy Bashant received a Japan Friends Research Grant from the University of Penn for curricular development on Asian literature and began teaching a course on contemporary Japanese Women's Literature. In spring, 2001, she directed the overseas London Theatre course for the Associated Colleges of the Midwest. During her employment at Coe College, Wendy Bashant additionally served as Interim Vice-President for Student Affairs, a position that she was asked to take on when an administrator resigned. Additionally, she served on various academic committees, including Faculty Welfare, Academic Policies, the Committee to Advise the President on Renewal, Promotion and Tenure (CAPRPT), and the Committee that introduced the Coe Plan - a plan that maps out a student's organized participation at the college, from first-year seminar through internships to senior projects and graduation While an English Professor at Coe College, Wendy Bashant taught many courses, from First-year Seminar to the Senior Capstone Project. Courses included: Literary Analysis, a class that was geared to mid-level students, introducing them to the concepts of contemporary literary theory; History of English Lit, a survey class that covered the Romantics to contemporary British literature; Modern British Fiction; Modern and Contemporary British Drama: and Style and Transformation in the Arts, an interdisciplinary course that explored music, art, and literature during the decadent era. She offered senior seminars on Yeats, the Brontës, Woolf, and Irish theatre. Her research focuses on the study of androgyny and the vexed role it plays in nineteenth-century poetry and prose. Recent publications include: "Aesthetes and Queens: Michael Field, John Ruskin, and Bellerphôn" in Pre-Raphaelite Studies and "Singing in Greek Drag: George Eliot's Love Affair with Orpheus" in En Travesti: Opera and Gender Subversion (Columbia UP). For 15 years, Wendy Bashant employed her talents with Coe College until 2005 when she took a promotion to Dean of Students at New College, the Honors College of Florida in Sarasota where she currently resides.