MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS

The AUM English Department is proud that many of its graduates have become published authors, not only after their graduations but even during their time as students.

Kurt Niland, who graduated from the AUM English Department in the early 1990s, is surely one of the most widely published of all AUM English majors. During his time as an undergraduate at AUM, Kurt was the author or co-author of five peer-reviewed scholarly publications (all of which are indexed in the MLA Bibliography). He was selected as a recipient of a highly prestigious Younger Scholars fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (just before that program was eliminated because of budget cuts). His fellowship allowed him to do intensive research for one month at the Beinecke Library at Yale University.

In the time since his graduation, Kurt turned to publishing of a different sort. He worked as a writer and editor for a number of companies, and he also found time to write a number of his own books, including such coffee-table guide books as Florida's Emerald Coast (1995), Philadelphia (2002), Gwinnett: Success Lives Here (2003), and, most recently, The Churches of Alabama (2003), which has been a major best-seller and is now in its second printing. Kurt, who spent a year in Thailand while in high school, has always been interested in foreign travel; recent trips have taken him several times to Polynesia, especially Tahiti.

Meanwhile, Kurt's good friend, Wendi Lewis, also a graduate of the AUM English program, now serves as Director of Communications for the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce. Wendi is the co-author of a very handsome coffee-table book titled Montgomery: At the Forefront of a New Century (1996). A similar book titled Montgomery and the River Region: Together We Build (2001) contained significant contributions by Heather Edwards, who currently works for the AUM Speech and Hearing Clinic.

Ben Beard, an especially dynamic former English major who graduated in the late 1990s, is the author or co-author not only of Muhammed Ali: The Greatest (2002) but also of This Day in Civil Rights History (2005). Ben, who was himself a highly talented actor (especially noted for his role as Roderigo in a summer production of Shakespeare's Othello), for a time was a journalist whose job was to interview Hollywood celebrities (we are serious: this is not a joke).

Foster Dickson, who graduated with an undergraduate degree in English from AUM and is currently working on his Master of Liberal Arts degree, has become an award-winning creative writing teacher at Booker T. Washington magnet high school in Montgomery, where he has taken an active hand in fostering (pun intended) published work by his own students. In 2005, for instance, he helped edit (along with current stellar AUM English major Kevin Garner) a collection titled Taking the Time: Young Writers and Old Stories, and most recently he was the driving force behind a new book titled Our Hope, which was the subject of a major article in the Montgomery Advertiser (http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070816/NEWS01/708160322/1007)

Foster and Ben, who were good friends and who worked together at Montgomery's NewSouth publishing company, co-edited a number of books, including Hollow Bodies and Other Stories, King Midas in Reverse, and Kindling Not Yet Split (all published in 2002).

Scott Johnson, who graduated with a degree in English in the early 90s, was for years a copy-editor at the Montgomery Advertiser before recently trying his hand as a reporter. Scott's stories frequently appeared on the front pages of various sections of the paper, but he has now resumed the quieter life of a copy-editor -- a position also fulfilled at the Advertiser by Gary Goodson, also a graduate from Scott's era and a man widely admired for his skills as a wit, bon vivant, and raconteur. Neil Probst, also a graduate from the Age of Johnson and Goodson and also a one-time copy-editor and reporter at The Advertiser, now works as a full-time writer for the national magazine of the Civil Air Patrol. Before taking that job, Neil was a writer for Colonial Bank. His greatest accomplishment, however, was persuading fellow English major (and one-time departmental secretary) Julliana Ooi to become his wife. They are now the very proud parents of four very brilliant children: Noah, Caleb, Jonas, and Hannah.



MONTGOMERY
AS IT APPEARED
DURING THE
YOUTH OF GARY GOODSON