Reports the results of a personally conducted survey on graduate programs in English that ranged from amusing to appalling. (JL)

Argues that composition instruction should not be irreversibly separated from the study of literature in the college English curriculum. (AEA)

Explores the state of college English instruction and suggests several solutions to the problems of the nineties, including erasing the division between literature and composition teachers and developing closer working relations between educational institutions. (AEA)

Discusses five aspects of English teacher preparation that need to be improved: (1) teacher certification requirements; (2) understanding by college professors of the realities of teaching English at the secondary level; (3) cooperation; (4) involvement by English professors in their students' student teaching experience; (5) screening of…

Presents an address by the chairman of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, which reflects on the changing state of composition teaching and how it compares to the 1960s, an era when many composition teachers came of age with the discipline of composition and rhetoric. (TB)

Describes the art of effective English departmental administration in a difficult time of budget constraints, calls for accountability, and intellectual turbulence. Considers the effect on departmental management of sustained scholarly interest in oppositional stances, powerlessness, and marginality. (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…

Describes the author's experiences during the 1970s while he was a graduate student; at that time, he knew almost nothing about community colleges. Presents a profile of the author's institution, Westchester Community College in New York, and the faculty search process that the college now uses. (PA)

Despite what institutions and departments are doing to make adjunct instructors feel valued and a part of the college community, there are always two groups: the full-time faculty and the adjuncts. To feel valued, what an adjunct instructor might need more than a mentor, a name tag, or even a raise in pay, is to be considered a professional equal…

New fields of English study are developing their own canons, their own majors, and their own departments: Black studies, Caribbean studies, women's studies. Yes, all scholars in English read Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Zora Neale Hurston, and Derek Walcott, but do they read them alike? Are the places of these works in the literary tradition the…

Ideological tensions at the heart of conflicting philosophies concerning the role of English department studies in higher education generate such questions as: "Should courses in literature be required?" and "Is the ultimate goal of the English major a good job or a good karma?" The answers to these questions are important, as…

While tenure-track faculty begin their careers with some sense of what they will teach, what they will earn, and how they will be promoted, lecturers are not allowed such assurances. In the early days, lecturers in the English Department at the University of Nevada Reno (UNR) taught basic composition courses, four per semester unless they were…

College composition instructors have the opportunity to take a step toward meeting the needs of a pluralistic society by defining a developmental writing curriculum that incorporates the same strategies that characterize the mainstream writing classroom. The "cognitive deficiency model" that characterizes most instruction in…

This book is a journal kept over 15 months from January 1987 to March 1988 by a tenured member of the English Department at Ohio State University (OSU). The book is an attempt to convey the quality and texture of life at OSU, with its ups, downs, and level places; its satisfactions, frustrations, and routines; its successes, disappointments, and…

Discusses the issue of hiring part-time faculty to teach college English courses. Suggests several ways to improve the situation. (MM)