Elizabeth C. Dodd
Chapter Artist Award, presented April 2002
We are very pleased to present the Phi Kappa Phi Artist Award to Dr. Elizabeth Dodd, Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program here at Kansas State University.
As an undergraduate at Ohio University, Dr. Dodd was a double major in English/Creative Writing and French. She received both a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing/Poetry and Ph.D. in Twentieth-Century British and American Literature from Indiana University.
Dr. Dodd is an award winning poet of national prominence. She has published several books, both collections of poetry and works of academic scholarship. Her book Like Memory, Caverns, is a collection of poems that was selected as recipient of the Elmer Holmes Bobst Emerging Writer Award in Poetry, which was given by New York University Press in 1992. Her book The Veiled Mirror and the Woman Poet critically examined the work of four women poets. A second collection of her poetry appeared in 2001, in a work titled Archetypal Light. Dr. Dodd has a collection of essays forthcoming from the University of Utah Press, entitled Prospect: Journeys Toward a Usable Past, and is currently at work on a book dealing with the Deep Image Movement. In addition to books, she has also had her poetry published in anthologies and journals, and has published a large number of essays, scholarly articles and reviews. Dr. Dodd has made numerous scholarly presentations around the country and has given many public poetry readings.
Dr. Dodd was recipient of the Kansas State University William L. Stamey Teaching Award in both 1991 and 1992. It is a singular honor for a faculty member to have received this distinguished teaching award for two years in a row, and is evidence of her strong commitment to teaching.
As Director of the Kansas State University Creative Writing Program, Dr. Dodd interacts with some one hundred undergraduate and twenty graduate students who are pursuing English degrees in creative writing tracks. She has been the driving force behind a large scale literary festival that is held each autumn and has actively worked to bring many visiting writers to our campus.
The Head of the English Department writes that "...she is unwilling to do anything ‘good enough'. Rather, she is someone who seeks excellence and pushes those around her to be excellent as well." This exemplifies the ideals of Phi Kappa Phi.
