Describes the political dynamics, hierarchy, and rituals of a typical college humanities department. Proposes reorganizing this academic structure, replacing the "humanities" with a philosophy of liberal education. (MM)

Urges college English departments to take a direct interest in what happens in secondary school classrooms and to be prepared to offer pedagogical diversity in both preservice and inservice teacher training. (AEA)

Describes tactics and approaches used by an English department chair in dealing with faculty, administration, and internal faculty strife. (SR)

Considers the potential use that English teachers might make of the discussions ensuing from curricular reform initiatives. Argues that the debates generated by the process of program reform are usually far better than the curricular results of those debates. Shows how assessment debates have great educational potential for curricular changes. (HB)

Analyzes 177 letters of application for a teaching job at Ohio Northern University. Explains that the letters were poorly written and inappropriately framed for a small liberal arts college. Suggests that applicants should be spending more time writing their applications letters and crafting the letters specifically for the school to which they…

Outlines the Association of Departments of English's position on: (1) the balance between teaching and scholarship in the lives of professors; (2) the use of outside reviewers for personnel decisions; (3) class size and workload for college and university English teachers; and (4) use of part-time and full-time adjunct faculty. (TB)

Sweeping reforms within general education have brought radical changes to traditional writing requirements at many institutions around the country, in some cases extending to the elimination of those requirements. At Portland State University (Oregon), writing is now to be the province of those teaching in the new general education program. Many…

This paper addresses civic educators on the left, who "babble" about liberation and empowerment by transformative intellectuals. The paper argues that many of those "leftists" belong to the group that could be called "boss" compositionists, comfortable lower managers of a corrupt system, who never tire of denouncing…

The development of a college writing program can offer many challenges to a program director drawn from the ranks of the English faculty. The discipline of writing, an act of production, is both scorned and clutched by faculty who have been trained to analyze literature, an act of perception. Literature specialists, to be qualified to teach…

Since public education must compete for public dollars with a range of other services, teachers must learn to present a good image and to create an environment in which their objectives and procedures are immediately obvious to parents, students, and school board members. A high priority for English department chairpersons, therefore, is to teach,…

There are three standard complaints given by teachers of freshman composition: (1) college freshman students are inferior to English majors and graduate students, or inferior to freshmen from when the teachers were in college; (2) the subject matter of a writing course is inferior to that of literature courses; and (3) those who teach composition…

In the many conferences, workshops, and panels for writing instructors the role of director of freshman English has been routinely ignored. The typical director does not even have a job description. But directors should interpret this lack of specifics to mean that they are not administrators set apart from faculty, but are engaged with faculty in…

Provides guidelines and practical advice for planning and running a computer lab for writing. (NKA)

Encourages professional dialogue to establish correspondent interests among college English faculty who have taken positions in defense of the teaching of either rhetoric or literature. (AEA)

Discusses two problems in current programs designed to train teaching assistants in composition: economics and attitude. (AEA)