UMRA members are in for a special treat this Annual Meeting, May 23, particularly if you have ever had to write to recommend someone for an academic position or had a letter written on your behalf!

Our guest speaker will be Julie Schumacher, professor of English and creative writing at the University. She will be talking about her recent work—the widely acclaimed Dear Committee Members, which won numerous awards including the Thurber Prize for American Humor, New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, National Public Radio’s “Best Books of 2014,” Boston Globe’s one of “Best Books of 2014,” and the Chicago Tribune’s “Laugh Out Loud Book of the Year.” Continuing to be a best seller, it is required reading at some universities.

Dear Committee Members is an academic satire composed entirely of letters of recommendation written by a cranky, eccentric professor of English—Professor Jason T. Fitger—at Payne University, somewhere in the Midwest. Though he cares deeply about literature and the arts and humanities, Fitger is sorely lacking in diplomatic skills. In the letters he writes on behalf of his students and junior faculty, he gives into the temptation to discuss his own woes, failures both in academics and love, and to complain about the university and its emphasis on all things STEM. One could also be reminded of Woodrow Wilson’s quip when he left the presidency of Princeton to move to the White House saying that he was so happy to be leaving politics behind.

Julie has recently followed up with a splendidly wicked academic coloring book, “Doodling for Academics,” published this spring by University of Chicago Press. “To an outsider, working as a university professor might seem like a dream: summers off, a few hours of class each week, an exchange of ideas with brilliant colleagues, books and late afternoon latte...Who wouldn’t envy that life?” one reviewer said. But “Those in the trenches of academe are well acquainted with the professoriate’s dark underside: the hierarchies and pseudo-political power plays, the peculiar colleagues, the over-parented students, the stacks of essays that need to be graded ASAP.”

Julie has long ties to the University of Minnesota. A professor of English and creative writing since 1997, she also served as the director of the Creative Writing Program, a highly competitive top-ten MFA graduate program. Julie’s University ties also run in the family. Her husband, Lawrence Jacobs, holds the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies in the Humphrey School.

After what promises to be a lively talk, UMRA members will have an opportunity to meet and chat with Julie, buy a book, and have her sign it.

—Steve Benson, Program Committee