Peter Ellertsen

211 Beata Hall, Benedictine University/Springfield College, 1500 North Fifth Street, Springfield, Illinois 62702. Telephone: (217) 525-1420, ext. 519. Email: pellertsen@sci.edu. Home: 545 South Feldkamp Avenue, Springfield, Illinois 62704. Telephone/fax: (217) 793-2587. Email: peterellertsen@yahoo.com.

Professional experience

• Tenured instructor in Arts and Letters Division, Benedictine University and Springfield College, 1993-present. Teach English, journalism and interdisciplinary humanities courses in Native American cultures and American roots music. Serve as faculty adviser to Benedictine/Springfield College's literary magazine, The Sleepy Weasel, 1996-present, and chair Springfield College's Assessment Committee, dealing with learning outcomes assessment and accreditation issues, 2001-present. Named to the LaFata Endowed Chair for distinguished service to the College and its students, 2002-03. Listed in Who's Who Among America's Teachers.  
• Webmaster and editor of two online campus publications at Benedictine/Springfield College. As faculty adviser to The Sleepy Weasel, I produce an online magazine featuring public affairs, research and creative writing by students, faculty, alumni and others in the Benedictine/Springfield College community. As assessment committee chair, I write and edit Nuts & Bolts, a monthly newsletter for faculty providing updates on federal education policy as it affects classroom instructors and discussing learning outcomes assessment techniques and issues.
• Administrator of two Web logs for student assignments at SCI-Benedictine. Hogfiddle, at http://www.hogfiddle.blogspot.com/, is about Appalachian dulcimers (hogfiddles), shape-note hymnody, Doctor Watts spirituals, gospel, blues, Anglo-Celtic ballads, old-time string band music, cultural studies, folklore and Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, where I'm a volunteer interpreter. The Mackerel Wrapper, at http://www.mackerelwrapper.blogspot.com/, has assignments for my mass comm. students plus links and comment on newspapering and journalism. My students blog on my website in COMM 207 (copyediting) and create their own professional blogs in 300-level courses.
• Living history interpreter, free-lance speaker and Appalachian dulcimer player, 1995-present. As a volunteer interpreter at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, I interpret a log schoolhouse and sing with the New Salem Shape Note Singers. I developed presentations on on shape-note singing schools and 19th-century "ballads, Bobby Burns and fiddle tunes" for the Road Scholars Program, a speaker's bureau of the Illinois Humanities Council, 2001-2004, and currently give talks on music history for a negotiable fee. Click here for more information. I also coordinate meetings of the Prairieland Dulcimer Strings in Springfield.
• Desktop publisher. 1992-present. Rosehill Press, 545 South Feldkamp, Springfield. Sole proprietor, with wife Debi S. Edmund, of home-based desktop publishing business specializing in short-run literary titles including the chinkapin oak: poems, 1993-1995 by John Knoepfle and Tramping Across America (1999), a reissue of Vachel Lindsay's travel writing. Rosehill Press is currently on hiatus due to the press of other professional duties.
• Administrative assistant. 1991-1993. Office of the Treasurer, Illinois Capitol, Springfield 62706. Researched banking, taxation and legislative issues assigned by state Treasurer Patrick Quinn; wrote office profile in the Illinois Blue Book and estate tax manual for county treasurers; drafted press releases and assisted with downstate news media advance.
• Political reporter and columnist. 1985-91. The State Journal Register, One Copley Plaza, Springfield 62701. Covered city, county, state and federal elections and political news. Wrote op-ed column, spoke to civic groups and served on candidate debate panels.
• Courthouse reporter. 1984-1985. The Rock Island Argus, 1724 4th Avenue, Rock Island, Illinois 61201. Covered county government, political and economic news. As weekend city editor, assigned spot news stories, sized photographs, edited copy, wrote headlines and laid out inside pages.
• Reporter and state editor. 1975-1982. The Oak Ridger, 785 Oak Ridge Turnpike, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37828. Covered government, schools, politics, environmental and nuclear industry issues, labor relations, courts and police news in a four-county area. Supervised and edited regional correspondents, helped train beginning reporters.
• Member of Society of Professional Journalists, National Council of Teachers of English, Modern Language Association. Coordinate meetings and performances for Prairie Land Dulcimer Strings. Volunteer interpreter at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, Route 1, Petersburg, demonstrating the Appalachian dulcimer, interpreting in the New Salem historic village and performing with the New Salem Shape Note Singers.

• "Minding the Store at New Salem." Illinois Times Nov. 13, 2008. http://illinoistimes.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A8908
• "A legend about Peter Cartwright." The Prairie Picayune [Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site] July 2008. Archived at http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2008/06/legend-about-peter-cartwright.html 
• "Tales of Sir Galahad." Illinois Times Jan. 17, 2008. http://illinoistimes.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A7238
• "A Shape-Note Sing-Along." Presentation at Pioneer Days, W.H. Sommer Park, Peoria. Aug. 26, 2007.
• "Alaskan liturgical hymns, Our Lady of Sitka and the 'presence of the holy' in cross-town traffic." The Sleepy Weasel 12 (2007-2008). http://www.sci.edu/comm_arts/sleepyweasel/v12/sitka.htm
• Sacred Music: Early Black and White Gospel Music Traditions." Presentation at Dixon Mounds State Museum, Lewistown, Illinois. July 22, 2007.
• "A 'Doleful Sound' at Springfield's First Hanging." The Prairie Picayune [Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site] March 2006. Archived at http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2006/02/at-springfields-first-public-hanging.html
• "Anglo-Celtic Ballads and Fiddle Tunes in Southern Illinois, 1800-1850" Presentation at John A. Logan Museum during Apple Festival, Murphysboro, Illinois. Sept. 16, 2006.
• "Seeking the Old Paths: Shape-Note Singing at Eagle Creek." Midwest Open Air Museums Magazine 37.1 (Spring 2006) 22-28.
• "Sacred Harp Singing in a Living History Environment." Paper presented at Midwest Open Air Museums Coordinating Council, Fall Conference, Eagle Creek Conference Center, Findlay, Illinois, November 10, 2005. http://www.sci.edu/classes/ellertsen/livinghistory.html
• "For Dulcimer: Gospel Hits of 1830s?" The Prairie Picayune [Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site] November 2005. Archived at http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2006/02/appalachian-dulcimer-1830s-style.html
• Classroom Assessment for Continuous Improvement: A Guide for Instructors. Springfield: Springfield College/Benedictine, 2005.
• Introduction, The Missouri Harmony Songbook [with Karen Isabell]. Wings of Song ed. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society, 2005.
• "Healing Power of Art" [Review of prayer against famine & other irish poems by John Knoepfle]. The Sleepy Weasel 10 (2004-2005) http://www.sci.edu/comm_arts/sleepyweasel/archive/weasel05/review.html
• "The Missouri Harmony: Revisiting the Hymnbook of Shape-Note Music" [with Karen Isabell]. Gateway 25.1 (Summer 2004): 33-41.
• "Praise on the Prairie: The Dark Poetry of the Missouri Harmony." Illinois Heritage, April-May 2004: 8-9.
• "'Untaught melody of grateful hearts': Southern Appalachian Folk Hymnody in Illinois, 1800-1850." Journal of Illinois History 5.4 (Winter 2002): 258-82.
• "Closing the Loop: Assessment in the Springfield College English Department" [with Judi Anderson and Lynette D. Shaw-Smith]." Presentation at Allerton Community College and University English Articulation Conference, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, April 26, 2001.
• "Soul of the Wind." Illinois Times April 19, 2001: 9. http://www.sci.edu/classes/ellertsen/cedarflute.html.
• "'It Takes a Whole Village' ... to Pass a Referendum." Illinois School Board Journal Nov.-Dec. 2000: 4-7 http://www.iasb.com/files/J0111202.htm; Jan.-Feb. 2001: 26-31 http://www.iasb.com/files/j1010206.htm.
• "American Folk Hymnody in Illinois, 1800-1850." Paper presented at Conference on Illinois History, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, Springfield, October 14, 2000. http://www.sci.edu/classes/ellertsen/hymn102400.html.
• "Dulcimer: Home-Made Southern Upland Music." The Prairie Picayune [Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site] September 2000. http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2006/02/for-dulcimer-gospel-hits-of-1830s.html
• "Faith, Hope and Poetry: (Pre-)Postmodern Ways of Knowing in the Poetry of Kathleen Norris." Last Lecture Series, Springfield College in Illinois, March 9, 2000. http://www.sci.edu/classes/ellertsen/norris.html.
• Tramping Across America: Travel Writings of Vachel Lindsay. Springfield: Rosehill Press, 1999. Edited, designed, researched and wrote endnotes for the book, which was self-published by William Furry of Springfield.
• "[Paul] Simon: We Have to Stand for Something" [with Debi Edmund]. Illinois School Board Journal Nov.-Dec. 1998: 8-11.
• "Beyond Press Releases: Building Community while Building a School" [with Debi Edmund]. Illinois School Board Journal July-Aug. 1997: 18-22.
• "Shape Note Singing Returns to New Salem." Illinois Times 14 Nov. 1996: 14.
• "The Battle of Belmont and the Citizen Soldiers of the 27th Illinois Infantry." Civil War Regiments 3.4 (1994): 24-67.
• "Richard Durbin: Congressman Who Loves his Job." Illinois Issues April 1991: 11-13.
• "Paul Simon: First Stop, Iowa." Illinois Issues July 1987: 8-11.
• "Moline Election Fouled Up by Computer." Illinois Issues Nov. 1985: 12-15.
• "James Agee, the Bomb and Oliver the Cat." Christian Century 31 July 1984: 709-11.