The past 50 years have witnessed a growing presence of critical theory within different social science academic departments across the western world. The joint existence of a theory committed to exposing and criticizing various inequalities of the social order within academic institutions based on traditional hierarchies and prestigious…

Summarizes issues raised in speeches and group discussions at the Minnesota Conference on the Future of Doctoral Study in English and makes personal observations about the conference in general. (MM)

Discusses the role of the English department head in a time of educational crisis. Examines the possibility that graduate study in English is losing its moral base. Considers the role of leadership and oppositional politics in the context of the crisis in graduate study. (HB)

Describes how the task of leading an English department has changed over the past 25 years. Considers the delicate yet essential task of the department head to provide leadership and vision for an entire department. Relates the general problems of English departments and specific problems in graduate education with diversity and difference gone…

Calls for college English faculty to embrace the challenge of a diversity that includes nonelite institutions. Suggests that graduate students in English who find themselves in nonelite undergraduate institutions teaching mostly nonmajors will have to learn a second language: the language of accommodation. (RS)

Suggests that the technical and professional writing concentration in the English department at Eastern Michigan University serves as an example of the way Master of Arts (MA) programs often reflect the economy of a particular region. Discusses the MA program at Eastern Michigan University. (RS)

Uses a baseball metaphor to advise students who want to pursue a doctoral degree--in many ways the Master's program at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, is like a triple-A minor league farm club, preparing players for the big leagues of the doctoral institutions. (RS)

Suggests that English departments have seen their power to shape the identity of their members diminish. Argues that an important part of the preparation of future professors takes place in a master-apprentice setting strengthened by an economic atmosphere that encourages students fearful of getting jobs to identify with those faculty members…

Notes that four computers and writing specialists and one librarian who had found work in a variety of nontraditional, nonteaching positions were asked to meet at LinguaMOO and talk about their careers. Contains a version of that conversation as edited for print purposes, and the annotations and responses made after the fact by the participants.…

In a response to the Minnesota Conference on the Future of Doctoral Study in English, discusses how to guide English graduate students through both their graduate study and their professional careers. Emphasizes the need to reinforce the connection between graduate and undergraduate study. (MM)

Answers two questions regarding preparing English teachers for two-year colleges: whether a PhD is appropriate for teaching in a two-year college (yes and no); and what graduate departments can do to help their students find work (candidates for two-year college teaching jobs need teaching experience beyond traditional freshman composition…

The violence of any literacy acquisition in the contact zone between the powered, the disempowered, and the empowered is never clearcut. But, nevertheless, calls to theory literacy from the late 70s and early 80s have been answered with a rush. Michael Berube writes that "graduate school in English seems to have a very bad effect on people…

In a response to the Minnesota Conference on the Future of Doctoral Study in English, argues that English departments can define future study in English by focusing on the trivium: grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Claims that, taken together, the three disciplines are potentially concerned with all issues involved in how we use words to make, do, and…

In a response to the Minnesota Conference on the Future of Doctoral Study in English, asserts that the English faculty in two-year colleges should not be omitted from discussions of graduate study in English. Offers several recommendations for graduate education in English, particularly in relation to the implications for instructors in two-year…

Gives responses from English graduate students to the question, "What bothers you most about graduate school?" Considers the role that the study of literary theory should have in graduate English studies. Argues that theory should become more like a verb than a noun, which it currently tends to be. (HB)