Cliff Hudder, accomplished Lone Star College-Montgomery English professor, was recently named one of three new councilors elected for the Conference of College Teachers of English (CCTE) at its annual meeting this spring.
 
CCTE is a statewide organization of English teachers devoted to improving teaching and advancing research in English language and literature in both two- and four-year colleges. As a councilor, Hudder will be influential in planning CCTE’s annual meeting, which features workshops and presentations by prominent scholars and writers in the field. He will be one of nine councilors who serve for three years each.
 
In addition, Hudder also received CCTE’s Texas College English Association award for his paper, “Barbarously Large and Final: Placing Texas in Billy Lee Brammer’s The Gay Place,” which will appear in the 2010 CCTE Studies journal. The paper is based on Brammer’s novel, which according to Hudder, is unlike most Texas books since “it doesn’t contain a single stock tank, heifer, or mosquito.”
 
“The paper is based on a book that I feel more Texans—and more lovers of literature in general—should read,” said Hudder. “I had the opportunity to meet the author’s daughter, and she kindly shared some intriguing materials about her father, which ended up being the gem of my paper.”
 
Hudder, whose background is in fiction writing, said that writing this paper, as well as scholarly essays, has transformed and recharged his style of teaching.
 
“I’m finding myself writing the same sort of essays I’m asking my students to produce, so I think it’s changed the way I present projects to students,” said Hudder. “I now bring in my own works-in-progress, my sources, and my notes to show them how I do things. It’s not so they can mimic me, but to get them to understand they can create their own methods and approaches and even have some fun with it.”
 
Hudder has been an English professor at LSC-Montgomery since 2002. He teaches Composition I and II, American and World Literature, Creative Writing, and Writing About Texas Film and Literature, a newly-developed thematic course. Hudder is also the faculty advisor for the campus’ literary journal, SWIRL, as well as the chair of the Writers in Performance committee.
 
He holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Texas A&M University and a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Houston. He is currently working toward a doctorate degree from Texas A&M University.
 
For more information about Hudder or the English department at LSC-Montgomery, please visit www.LoneStar.edu/english-dept-montgomery.
 
LSC-Montgomery is located at 3200 College Park Drive, one-half mile west of Interstate 45, between Conroe and The Woodlands. For more information about the college, call (936) 273-7000, or visit www.LoneStar.edu/montgomery.
 
With more than 62,000 students in credit classes in spring 2010, and a total enrollment of nearly 85,000, Lone Star College System is the largest institution of higher education in the Houston area, and the second largest and the fastest-growing community college system in Texas. LSCS consists of five colleges including LSC-CyFair, LSC-Kingwood, LSC-Montgomery, LSC-North Harris, and LSC-Tomball, six centers, LSC-University Park, LSC-University Center at Montgomery, LSC-University Center at University Park, Lone Star Corporate College, and LSC-Online. To learn more visit LoneStar.edu.