STRATEGIC PLANNING DOCUMENT
1. ENGLISH DEPARTMENT MISSION STATEMENT
Dedicated to the study and practice of the diverse uses of the English language in all its forms, the English Department devotes its energies and its teaching to English studies as understood in the richest sense, including the following areas of study and research: the heritage of literature written in English, the philosophy and practice of rhetoric and composition, creative writing, English education, linguistics, and teaching English as a second language (TESL).
To further this mission, the goals of the English Department are
• To prepare students to think, read, and write critically and creatively
and from a variety of perspectives so that they are prepared for life-long
learning and the challenges of a diverse, global economy which calls for
transferable employment skills
• To encourage the development of students’ imaginative vision and
to enrich their lives
by providing instruction in the European literary tradition, with emphasis
in British and American literature, and in the literatures of non-Western
cultures, women, and people of color
• To prepare students for the information technology age by teaching
them to use reflectively and effectively a variety of communication technologies
• To prepare undergraduate and graduate students for a variety of careers
and graduate programs by offering instruction and certification in English
language and literature, professional writing, English education and TESL;
internships in public and private organizations; and practical experience
in tutoring
• To prepare graduate students for college-level teaching by offering
instruction and practical experience through internships and assistantships
in first-year English (at university, community college, and technical
college sites), writing center tutorial consulting, TESL, and the Intensive
English Center
• To advise undergraduate and graduate students for academic and career
success
• To support writing as a mode of learning across the University by
providing a writing center and serving as a resource for other departments
and units which offer upper-level writing
• To facilitate connections between the Department and the community
at large through evening scheduling; internships in the private and public
sector; public school workshops, and teacher education program; the Mississippi
River Creative Writing Workshop in Poetry and Fiction; the Intensive English
Center; and resources such as Literacy Education Online (LEO) and the Grammar
Hotline
• To support student and faculty professional development activities
• To support life-long learning through attention to the critical and
creative reading, writing, and interpretation skills necessary for the
development of responsible citizens and for improved quality of life
2. ENGLISH DEPARTMENT ACADEMIC DISTINCTION
The English Department offers a BA with a choice of emphases (General
English, Creative Writing, Literature, Literature and Writing, Linguistics,
and Rhetorical and Applied Writing); a BS with a teaching licensure; an
English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching licensure; a graduate program
offering MA and MS degrees with several concentrations; and a College English
as a Second Language (College ESL) program and an Intensive English Center
(IEC) where international students gain proficiency in English.
We also provide university service for students through the Writing Center
and the IEC. Within these programs we have a varied backbone of three
and four credit courses. Our variety of programs contributes to our
strength as a department by allowing students to specialize. Please
see the catalog for course descriptions.
Our majors and minors by concentration are as follows:
| BA Majors: | As of December 1999 | As of January 2002 [These numbers are tentative - have not been fully verified] |
| Creative Writing | 38 | 53 |
| Rhetorical and Applied Writing | 21 | 20 |
| Literature | 21 | 23 |
| Linguistics | 10 | 25 |
| Literature and Writing | 07 | 29 |
| General | 07 | 19 |
| No concentration listed | 68 | 67 |
| Total BA Majors: | 183 | 236 |
| BS Majors | 176 | 206 |
| Bachelor of Elective Studies | 11 | |
| Minors: | ||
| Creative Writing | 63 | 70 |
| Rhetorical and Applied Writing | 05 | |
| ESL and Licensure | 99 | 165 |
| English | 41 | 47 |
| Total Minors: | 203 | 287 |
In planning for semester conversion, we streamlined
our course offerings. We are currently planning to initiate further
streamlining by eliminating and/or combining some courses into four credit
courses, perhaps by using topics, genres, authors, themes or time periods.
Such streamlining has two advantages: first, it would allow students to
concentrate their studies; and second, it would allow professors to teach
12 credits with a three course load, thus providing more time for research,
scholarship, and community service.
Another departmental change is due to Minnesota
Board of Teaching licensing changes. The BS in English combined with
Speech Communication to form a new licensure area. Our departmental
concern with this mandate centers on the necessity of formal pre-planning
and knowledgeable advising in order for students to graduate in four years.
New Initiatives:
• Develop a technical writing program at the undergraduate and graduate
level. This would
involve some release time for planning. The initiative itself
addresses a community need for writers, for example in the medical field,
and also would be an opportunity to coordinate with other MnSCU programs.
Majors might include courses from other programs here at SCSU (e.g. Graphic
Design, Mass Comm). We have already been asked by Alexandria
Technical College for an articulation agreement regarding their technical
writing certification program recently approved by MnSCU.
• Strengthen the graduate program.
- Attract more graduate
students.
- Increase TA stipends.
- Move to full-tuition waivers.
- Develop MA in Teaching
College Writing.
2.1.1. Meeting the CORE/General Education Demands
Members of the English Department understand our importance within
the Core but that we also must provide a balance between our General Education
offerings and our upper level offerings for majors. The Department
bases its General Education course offerings on the administration's enrollment
management plan of 2400 seats per year for English191, one of the five
core courses. We also offer three MGM courses within the General
Education program: American Indian Literature, African American Literature,
and Gender Issues in Literature.
English 191
(A) The "backlog"
We continue to explore alternatives for meeting the requirements for
English 191. Our goal is to have our planning take care of the demand.
Some alternatives include the following:
• Increased visibility of test outs. We plan to explore
changes in our current test out
program.
• Summer placement test. The summer of 2000 we piloted
a placement test for incoming students. We may continue this, based
on assessment and funding.
• PSEO classes in community secondary schools.
(B) Staffing
• More teaching assistants. Our goal is to increase
the number of teaching assistants. To do this, our stipends and tuition
waivers should be competitive with other universities in the region.
We would like to attract and retain between twenty and twenty-five graduate
students. This would greatly increase our ability to offer 191 and
would stabilize the number of students in our graduate program.
• Senior to Sophomore. Currently, we have three
high schools that offer 191 for college credit.
• Maintaining connections. We plan to maintain connections
with area in-service teachers qualified to teach 191. This
relates to the Senior to Sophomore program and also provides adjunct opportunities
for area teachers.
(C) Articulation
The Minnesota Transfer Curriculum ensures that students with an AA
will receive credit for all courses taken when they transfer to another
state institution. However, those without an AA degree often find
themselves struggling to receive credit for general education courses.
To address this issue, the English Department has agreed to accept any
combination of courses that add up to English 191.
2.1.2 Global Education and Focus on International Resources/
Programs Abroad
The English Department recognizes the importance of content, attitudes,
perspectives and experience in global education. Both undergraduate
and graduate international students are integrated into our programs on
campus, particularly through the Write Place, the College English as a
Second Language (College ESL) program, Intensive English Center (IEC),
and Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) graduate program.
While English is a large department with about 100
faculty and TAs and serves large numbers of students, this department functions
very well as a unit. The culture allows for diversity, and the resulting
synergy between its diverse components contributes to the quality of the
Department. The Write Place, College ESL, and IEC are examples
of the diversity, and they have gained a high level of professional and
academic credibility both inside and outside the department with students
and with faculty. These programs serve the needs of international
student populations while contributing to the enrichment of international
perspectives within our department and across campus. These programs
benefit from the strength that comes from co-location in such a large department.
The resulting synergy within the English Department provides a quality
educational environment for faculty and for students. Moreover, these
programs contribute to pedagogical research agendas for faculty, undergraduate
and graduate students.
In the 1990s, the TESL programs have grown from
non-existent in 1989 to one of the larger graduate programs on campus.
Now these programs are a growth area in the English Department.
We have 30 full-time graduate students with ten part-time graduate, a few
post baccalaureate, and twenty undergraduate students.
We offer a variety of courses with a global perspective,
such as Sociolinguistics, World Englishes, Contrastive Rhetoric, European
Literature, Literature with a Global Perspective, Studies in Chicano/a
American Literature, Literature from the Eastern World, and, for international
students, Cross-Cultural Communications.
The English Department faculty members participate
in international study abroad programs, such as the program at Alnwick.
We offer a summer program for Japanese students learning English, and we
offer a graduate program to Costa Rican teachers of English as a Foreign
Language (TEFL).
New Initiatives:
• To hire more faculty with diverse cultural backgrounds, thus enhancing
our students’ exposure to global perspectives;
• To form an articulation agreement with the Tribal Nations to provide
courses for tribal community colleges;
• To explore a semester English program in Alnwick, providing students
with an experience of studying English Literature and culture within the
appropriate setting;
• To explore offering our graduate program in TEFL in countries in
South America and Asia.
2.2. English Department Faculty
All of our tenure-line faculty have terminal degrees in their fields
of expertise. Documentation of their scholarship, research, and teaching
can be found in the Fine Arts and Humanities Compendium and in Article
22 materials. Below are listed our faculty and their areas of expertise.
| Abartis | Renaissance Literature, Creative Writing |
| Anderson | Shakespeare, Comparative Renaissance |
| Condon | Composition, Rhetoric, Critical Theory |
| Connaughton | Professional Writing, Irish Literature |
| Crow | American Indian Literature, Creative Writing |
| Dillman | American and Medieval British Literature |
| Dorn | Eighteenth-Century British Literature, Theory/Gender and Narrative |
| Foster | American Literature, Rhetoric/Pedagogy |
| Fountaine | Technical Communication, Composition/Cultural Rhetoric |
| Gordon | English Education, Composition |
| Gorrell | Rhetorical Theory/Pedagogy, Advanced Writing |
| Hibbard | Renaissance and Contemporary Christian Literature |
| Inkster | Rhetorical Theory/Pedagogy, Business Writing |
| Jackson | African American and African Literature |
| Keith | Rhetoric, American Literature |
| Kilborn | Rhetorical Theory/Pedagogy, Business Writing |
| Kim | TESL |
| Klepetar | British Romantics, Poetry |
| Koffi | Linguistics, Phonology-Orthography/Sociolinguistics/Translation |
| Linett | Twentieth-Century British Literature, Modernism, Jewish Literature |
| Lundquist | Literary Theory and Criticism, The Novel |
| Meissner | Creative Writing (Poetry and Fiction) |
| Moore | Rhetoric and Composition |
| Perry | Twentieth-Century American Literature, Women’s Literature |
| Philippot | English Education, Composition |
| Robinson | TESL, Cross-Cultural Education |
| Ross | Nature Literature and Ecocriticism, Linguistics |
| Rundquist | Linguistics, Sociolinguistics/Pragmatics |
| Sebberson | Rhetorical Theory/History and Interdisciplinary Rhetoric |
| Teutsch-Dwyer | TESL, Applied/General Linguistics |
| Veeder | English Education, Rhetoric/Composition |
We have 34 lines, 31 of which are staffed by tenure-track faculty.
However, this year four faculty members are on administrative leave and
three are on sabbatical. One will retire at the end of this year,
and two more will be on phased retirement over the next few years.
As a department we need to identify more ways to provide on-going support
and more flexible scheduling for all faculty to continue their research
agendas. This might involve reassigned time, identifying relevant
funding sources, providing short-term courses, and providing faculty exchanges.
This year we have 7 fixed-term, 2adjunct faculty
and 35 teaching assistants. The number of fixed-term and adjunct
positions is due partly to the large number of sections of English 191
required to fulfill the enrollment management plan, and also reflects the
number of our faculty on leave.
Hiring Recommendations:
All hires aim to represent cultural diversity.
• Composition/Rhetoric, to further develop college writing teaching
component, to address the writing needs of other departments as part of
the upper-level writing requirement, to serve as Composition Director:
working with TA’s to teach 191 and developing the graduate program in rhetoric/composition.
• Medievalist, with ability to teach History of the English Language
• TESL/K-12, owing to exponential expansion of program
• Creative writing (field to be decided by CW faculty)
* Many of our faculty teach
creative writing only as a secondary field
* We have 101 creative writing
majors and minors
* We have regularly hired
adjunct faculty to teach CW courses in recent years
* CW courses have been fully
enrolled (except for non-fiction)
* Expanding duties of the
CW director suggest need to hire someone to assist him
2.3. English Department Staff Lines
The English Department currently has 2 and 3/4 secretarial positions.
Because of our large department, our large number of students and programs,
staff members are overworked with some projects postponed.
Also, because of new technology demands, a technical support person
is a necessity. Faculty
and TAs are increasingly using computers in substantive ways in the
classroom and in their research; they need technological support so that
they can focus on the pedagogy of using computers in English rather than
on the hardware, software, and peripherals.
2.4. External Reviews
In order to strengthen programs and identify departmental strengths
and weaknesses, we conducted external reviews in 1986 and 1992. The
department has responded in a number of ways to the reviewers' recommendations.
In 1986, the department was in transition from a
traditional curriculum focused upon classic texts of English and American
literature to the more inclusive curricula now in place, which emphasize
both a broader range of literature and areas such as rhetoric and ESL.
The structure of the department was hierarchical, and the curriculum was
faculty rather than student driven. The reviewers commented on the
lack of opportunities for growth provided to junior faculty, the inadequate
facilities for teaching assistants and part-time faculty, and the extraordinarily
large number of narrowly focused courses, taught at sporadic intervals.
Further, they encouraged introduction of more lower division courses to
attract majors and more 600-level courses to distinguish graduate from
undergraduate programs.
Partially in response to this report, the department
hired faculty in the succeeding decade with specializations outside of
the traditional concerns of an English department: minority literature,
computers and writing, ESL, linguistics, and, especially, rhetoric.
The structure of assigning courses was completely overhauled, the committee
structure simplified, and decision making generally democratized.
The curriculum also changed extensively, adding or enhancing programs in
rhetoric and writing and ESL, and modifying both BS and BA programs.
The 1992 review focused largely upon issues of accountability;
the reviewers expressed concern at the lack of an assessment program for
the general education and major programs. They also felt that the
department was engaged in too many pursuits -- thus, to some extent, reversing
the recommendations of the 1986 team -- and lacked a coherent strategic
plan, as did the university. They emphasized the need to improve
teaching and office facilities, to upgrade resources for graduate education,
and to provide adequate release from teaching both for professional development
and program administration.
Also in 2001 the BS program successfully passed
NCTE and NCATE review.
In response to these reviews, the department has
engaged seriously in the need to assess student learning. Also, we
have engaged in an ongoing conversation about the varieties of scholarship
appropriate to our distinctive disciplines, have drastically consolidated
the curriculum, and have embraced strategic planning. We were puzzled
by the 1992 reviewers’ assertion that we were spread too thin programmatically,
especially in light of the success of rhetoric, ESL, TESL, and, most recently,
the IEC program.
The next external review is tentatively scheduled
for 2002-2003, during which time we will focus on English studies as understood
in the broadest and richest sense.
2.5 and 2.6. Art. 22 and EPT in the English Department
In general, the department is satisfied with both the execution and
the results of the EPT process. Faculty have generally compiled compelling
and well-documented files and have, for the most part, been successful
in being tenured and promoted. This suggests that faculty development
planning via Article 22 is also working well. In the spring of 1999,
we approved the following report related to issues of guidelines and mentoring:
(A) Guidelines for Professional Development. Given
the diversity of disciplines, fields, approaches, interests, and professional
activities historically represented in the English Department (and noted
at the beginning of the department's mission statement), we do not believe
it prudent or necessary to enumerate or limit the activities applicable
to the five criteria in
Art. 22. Appendix G of the Agreement is a reasonably
inclusive guideline for appropriately reporting aspects of one's duties
and accomplishments.
Further, we believe the substantial attention to
pedagogical issues by members of the faculty over many years attests to
our commitment to the "Scholarship of Teaching." Ongoing conversations
in the college on the Carnegie reports should clarify the distinction between
teaching excellence and the scholarship that may result from it.
(B) Success File. One of the best means to
assist new faculty is to maintain a file of successful applications for
tenure and promotion, or to extract from such applications a comprehensive
list of activities for the various criteria. Also within this file
we would like to collect narrative suggestions from experienced faculty
about ways to handle specific parts of one's file. Finally, the file
will contain information about the range of methods available to document
teaching excellence.
(C) Mentoring. We have no shortage of mentoring
talent. We currently have an informal mentoring system with a roster
of mentors available to new faculty.
(D) Research. We wish to make clear at this time that
we are under-funded in terms of research grants. More reassigned
time is needed to focus on research projects.
2.7. Directorships and Chair
Our chair and directors ensure strong programs. To continue as
such, the directors need to recruit, advise students, design curricula,
train and supervise teachers and tutors, and keep abreast of current standards
and requirements in their fields. The chair’s duties, as outlined
in Appendix "E" of the IFO Contract, must be performed for a department
that sometimes includes as many as 100 teaching faculty. The reassigned
time provided is not only necessary but often is not sufficient.
New Initiatives:
• To re-establish release time for the Creative Writing Director to
manage the continued growth of the program.
• To explore options for leadership development for the Chair.
Based on the University wide upper-level writing requirement, we support a coordinated effort to help the colleges work together on the advanced writing requirement. The English Department has traditionally offered assistance to other colleges and departments in this regard and would like to explore Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) activities. We also wish to explore ways to meet the demand for advanced writing courses.
3. MEETING THE OBJECTIVES OF THE UNIVERSITY WIDE STRATEGIC PLAN
3.1. "Service Community"
In order to determine how successfully we service our learning community,
we propose a new initiative to survey students regarding advising, course
scheduling, ease of applying
for the major, and general openness to their needs.
We also feel the need for funding to provide a student
lounge or meeting place for collaborative student work. At this time
our space limitations do not allow for such a place. (Refer to 4.2)
3.2. "Diversity and Justice"
The English Department has long been involved in creating courses and
opportunities for diversity in learning and for equal access to minority
populations. We teach a number of courses focusing on minority issues
through literature and linguistics. We offer three MGM courses within
the General Education program: American Indian Literature, African American
Literature, and Gender Issues in Literature. We continue to strengthen
our programs
through our hiring efforts.
New Initiatives:
• Recruiting minority students as part of our developing articulation
agreement with the Tribal
Nations
• To be involved in a number of Cultural Diversity grants and programs
• Development of distance learning packages in order to share courses
and information with
minority and rural peoples
• Hiring more faculty with diverse cultural backgrounds, thus enhancing
our students’ exposure to global perspectives \
3.3. "Information Technology"
We currently offer several courses in distance learning through ITV
and online. We would like to increase our offerings in these areas,
but only if we can get the technical support necessary to do so.
In order to provide more technologically sophisticated classes we need:
• to have access to smart classrooms with computers and video equipment;
• to hire a technology support person to provide faculty training and
ongoing support in this
area;
• to provide more technologically-based instruction in the IEC.
As part of this initiative we
need a technology person with TESL preparation to adequately prepare
future SCSU students who enroll in the IEC.
3.4. "University-External Relationships"
Our faculty periodically offer their expertise to the community, such
as in secondary schools, arts groups, creative writing programs and business
writing programs. We also offer course work to community members.
In order to increase these types of activities we need more support
from administrative services. At present the bureaucracy often hinders
the process. It is difficult, for instance, to offer courses within
businesses without running into problems; academic and business calendars
differ, and businesses want corporate billing.
We also have an internship program that works with the community.
(See 4.1.1)
4. ASSESSMENT
4.1. Student Learning
The BS program has portfolio and capstone requirements in place.
In addition, learning is also being documented with material selected from
portfolios and course work relative to program indicators for State (Board
of Teaching Licensure) and National (NCATE accreditation) assessment.
BA programs developed assessment projects under
an assessment mini-grant coordinated by Chris Gordon. This involved
focus group activities, development of a file of representative writing,
and a "key terms/concepts" list for the major programs.
College ESL, IEC and TESL programs have assessment
procedures in place based on a testing framework that connects placement,
staff training, and curriculum.
The graduate program has a developed assessment
process in place based on reviewing theses, documenting learning and standards
in courses, and final projects/theses. The Graduate Steering Committee
is currently planning implementation of the assessment process.
General Education core writing classes have an assessment
component based on a colloquium program in which writing program staff
review student learning information as well as theory and pedagogical methods.
Critical to effectively upgrading these current
efforts will be the ability to keep records departmentally on student course
taking and grade patterns. It would be useful to be able to connect
these records to general education records, admission testing records,
and alumni follow-up records. It would also be useful to have storage
capability for online portfolios.
4.1.1 Career Tracking and Information
The department has used its newsletter to elicit information from alumni
about their career development. We also periodically share and/or
file information sent to individual faculty about such matters. We
have had greater success keeping in touch with BS and graduate students
than BA recipients, but we recognize the need to do what we can in this
arena. We have not found Career Planning and Placement to be especially
helpful in this regard, perhaps because, like many liberal arts graduates,
our students tend not to use its services. The Alumni office lists
are valuable to us, however.
While our course in professional writing, English
332, includes a career-planning component, we also provide career information
via files maintained in the English office and by the internship director,
prominently displayed bulletin boards on the first floor of Riverview,
and by classroom presentations and open meetings for majors on career and
internship issues.
The department's internship program dates from the mid-1970's, and
it has benefited by having only three directors in that period.
A new initiative is to procure software that will
allow us to set up a database to keep track of our majors, both during
their time as students and after they graduate. At this time it is
difficult for us to get continuous updated information for planning purposes.
4.2. Space Utilization
Current Situation:
With the increased number of 191 sections offered, we have a constant
problem scheduling classrooms. Our present space does not have enough
classrooms for our needs. As presented above, we do not have any
smart classrooms, and, with technology more and more important in teaching,
along with our initiative to have a program in technical writing, we need
at least two. Presently we are short of faculty and TA office space,
and the space provided is spread among three buildings. We have one
small meeting room and one small lounge that also
houses faculty computers. Both of these spaces are in the basement
of Riverview and are not particularly pleasant.
Remaining Concerns:
In the past few years, the demand for office space in Riverview and
Eastman has forced the elimination of lounges and reading rooms.
The department is projected to move to Centennial Hall under the Campus
Master Plan, and we are concerned that the 5% increase in space is not
adequate to support long term needs for personal interaction, especially
since department meetings make use of classroom availability in Riverview,
availability that will not exist in
Centennial Hall. We are also concerned that growing Writing Center
needs and computer needs for composition classes are not being addressed
in the current plan.
4.3. New Media
In the past few years, the department has been able to make office
computing available to all faculty, though much of the equipment for instructors
in the writing program has been far from up to date. In our view,
the continued effectiveness of the writing program and the professional
writing programs will depend on strong computer media resources.
While we anticipate that there may be some advantages in moving to Centennial
Hall due to the availability of smart classrooms, computer lab space, and
improved accessibility of the library, we are concerned about our ability
to broadly incorporate likely future technologies such as electronic portfolios
into the composition classes, substantive computer and internet projects
into the professional writing curriculum, and online research in all major
and general education programs without an increase in the availability
of classroom computer lab resources. The department is also exploring
the possibility of a technical writing major program, and this would be
unrealizable without extended computer lab capabilities for sophisticated
document design programs and synchronized communication. Current
laboratory facilities seem to operate under supervision from the Academic
Computing Center, but it is difficult to predict the effect of necessary
facilities-growth over the next 5 to 10 years.
Since these needs bear directly on the department’s
ability to provide student learning experience relative to departmental
program goals, and in some cases relate to our capacity to do effective
student-learning assessment, these issues relate in multiple ways to the
issues of learning assessment.
To summarize, because of our writing programs we
need continuous updating of equipment, classrooms, laboratory facilities,
and a technology expert to keep things working and to keep us abreast of
the latest trends.
5. CLIMATE IN THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT: FACULTY AND STAFF CONCERNS
We have voiced several concerns above: first, the expansion of the workload
of the secretaries and increasing discontent on their part with work conditions;
second, the number of fixed-term faculty required to fulfill the university
demands for 191; third, space concerns; fourth, reassigned time; fifth,
the increasing numbers of international students without sufficient space
and support to serve them efficiently and with enough care to facilitate
their transition to American academic culture. Beyond these,
another major concern involves the general view within the University of
the English Department as a support for a university writing curriculum.
Our English 330 courses are frequently promoted/required in other departments,
providing a strain on our scheduling needs. The Write Place at present
provides tutoring services for ESL students, students in our writing courses,
and students from various courses requiring writing across the university.
To provide substantive support for upper division writing requirements,
more resources are required.
As a new initiative the department will formulate
and distribute a questionnaire on which faculty should express their concerns
on existing programs in the department, on how we relate to the College
of Fine Arts and Humanities, how we relate to the upper administration,
to the union, and to each other. The questionnaire will also
solicit suggestions for improvements.
6. COOPERATIVE VENTURES WITH OTHER DEPARTMENTS, COLLEGES, PROGRAMS
We would like to explore more interdisciplinary teaching, working with
other departments to offer unique configurations of core courses, for example,
or more advanced courses, such as the Holocaust Studies interdisciplinary
workshop offered the summer of 1999. In order to successfully design
and teach such courses, we need funding for reassigned time.
As mentioned above, we have offered an MA degree
to teachers of English in Costa Rica. We are exploring other
venues in South American and Asia.
Also mentioned above is the articulation agreement
with the Tribal colleges currently under study.
6.1. Partnerships with Industry and Other Partnerships
See section 3.4.
6.2. Fund Raising Opportunities
The English Department participates in nine scholarship programs through
the Foundation. Members of the department understand the need
for applying for significant grants. However, the faculty are
not given the time or sufficient support for grant proposal writing.
It would be helpful if Sponsored Programs were able to provide more support
for developing budgets, etc., and more advanced notice of appropriate funding
opportunities.
7. BRIEF CLOSING ARGUMENTS
The English Department offers opportunities for concentrated studies
in specific disciplinary fields, in the scholarship and practice of teaching,
and in the articulation of English language studies. We could be
described as a Center for English Language Studies, encompassing literature,
composition, rhetoric and technical writing, English Education, linguistics,
Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), and a strong graduate program.
The department's programs facilitate interaction with culturally diverse
peoples and academically diverse programs. Programs such as
ESL and the Intensive English Center act as bridges to the study and application
of diverse cultures and languages and to other programs within the University.
At first glance, the English Department may seem
chaotic. Rather than chaos, the department represents a complexity
of study, application, and reflection upon the study and uses of the English
language. This is appropriate since both the English language
and those who use it represent a living language that constantly changes
and adapts to the needs of the communities that use it. The English
Department, therefore, acts as a school of English language - its study
and applications. The rich opportunities for academic and professional
interaction in the department are our strength rather than a systemic weakness.
Given this, the department sees its role as one
of positive change in the ongoing description of academic life on our campus.
We offer services to St. Cloud State University while we maintain
the position that what we study and teach is a discipline in itself.
Our strength is in our unified understanding of English studies.
Suggestions for change represented in this report, when summarized, deal
with five main issues:
• The articulation of English studies within the university community,
including general
education, advanced writing courses, and education. Several new
initiatives involve a test-out program for English 191, exploration of
alternative methods of offering English 191, and an articulation agreement
with Tribal colleges.
• The promotion, development, and sustaining of programs dedicated
to cultural study and the cultural interaction involved in the study and
production of literature. New initiatives include promoting
the hiring of faculty to increase diversity in cultural approaches, and
hiring a medieval literature specialist.
• The continued support of courses dedicated to student success in
writing, reading, and speaking within the academic community and in the
professions as well. New initiatives include developing a technical
writing program articulated with community colleges and promoting the
hiring of technical writing and creative writing specialists.
• The continued dedication to excellence in understanding diverse and
global perspectives in
writing, speaking, and reading the English language. New initiatives
include instituting a semester
English program at Alnwick and a graduate program in TEFL for
English teachers abroad.
• The continued study of the English language, its sources and its
uses, and the continued study,
practice, and teaching of pedagogy for the present and the future.
For this we need support in
several areas:
* more faculty hires to
teach in specified areas;
* continued support for
graduate TA stipends to better compete with other institutions;
* more office staff help;
* support for the campus-wide
upper division writing requirement;
* support for development
of a Doctor of Arts program;
* larger space that allows
for the co-location of all our programs as well as a growing Write Place,
adequate office space, classroom space with smart
classrooms,
informal lounge space for interaction between faculty and students, and
computer needs for composition classes.
8. RESPONSE TO BUDGET PROBLEMS
• Faculty lines. We are short faculty already.
The only viable cuts in our department would be
fewer adjuncts and ftnps. As a temporary measure, we can
postpone replacing faculty who retire.
• Curriculum changes. We will increase the
number of seats in General Education offerings, specifically English 184:
Introduction to Literature. We will also increase the number
of seats in our major courses.
• Ways to do the above. We will offer 1 large section
of English 184 each semester (approx 180 students). We will
increase seats in other courses as follows: increase the caps of courses
by one student; pursue offering larger sections of other General Education
courses in Area A.
• Canceling low enrollment classes. We will carefully
scrutinize low enrollment based on several criteria, including: required
core curriculum; programmatic needs; and student graduation needs.
• Major courses. Low enrollment courses will be
offered in alternate years.
• Staff lines. We have no staff lines to spare.
• Supplies and equipment. We are holding back 10%
in equipment and supplies money.
• English 191. We cannot add students to 191 sections.
A class size of 25 is already beyond the national standard of 20 students
per section. We can and do add students to classes that are
not
writing-intensive.
• Quick-fix suggestions. Some of these suggestions
are a quick-fix, such as cutting back on supplies and temporarily not replacing
faculty who retire.
• Sustainable long-term model. If we offer more seats
in 184 and fewer in 191, we could hire fewer adjunct and fixed-term instructors.
We can continue to offer low-enrollment classes every other year.
We have increased the enrollment cap on most of our courses by one student
per section. We will continue to work on increasing our graduate
program, thus providing more TA’s to teach 191.