Offers guidelines that specify the kinds of information that will assist faculties in identifying and rectifying problems in their graduate programs. Directs attention to eight areas: department goals; graduate admissions; retention and attrition of students; financial support for students; preparing students for careers within and outside the…

Provides an account of a successful staffing initiative at a PhD-granting institution, the University of Pittsburgh. States that the "Fix English" program aimed to improve the educational quality of undergraduate instruction by increasing full-time faculty involvement, correcting workload inequities, and bringing the English department's…

Considers how Phil Smith has given much thought in his own department, and in the national deliberations, to the staffing crisis in English departments, and he has done so with attention to the highest values and to the needs of all, from undergraduate students in the general education courses to part-timers to tenure-track and tenured faculty…

Explores and describes (from the standpoint of a retired department chair) the paradigm change, one of Copernican proportions, that has occurred in English departments from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Compares Modern Language Association bulletins from 1978 and from 1994. (TB)

Discusses the "latest forecast" for the future of English departments. Addresses departmental and institutional staffing practices, employment opportunities for PhDs, the acceleration of change in the institution, and the general state of the study and teaching of English. (RS)

Suggests that the intellectual challenges of contemporary literary study be seen as enriched by, rather than in competition with, knowledge of the history of literary theory; and that English departments cultivate a determined antagonism to disciplinary territorialism, whether in faculty hiring, curricular design, or graduate admissions. (RS)

Considers how decisions about curriculum, hiring, and institutional policies have changed due to increasing regulatory, legal, and financial pressures conflicting with ever-magnifying and multiplying sense of need. Identifies three dominant models of institutional governance--models that represent different emphases and that, for the purposes of…

Presents a discussion one year after the author received a tenure-track job and describes the strategies and tactics that made her search a success. Discusses certain strategies that candidates conducting a local search can employ to maximize their credentials and opportunities. (SG)

Discusses the roles of English department chairpersons, with special attention to current questions regarding the teaching of composition and literature. (GT)

Discusses procedures for choosing department chairpersons, essential characteristics for effective chairpersons of large departments, and the question of the rotating chairmanship. (GW)

Reviews five years' experience as an English department chairperson to show how a chairperson teeters between administration and faculty, constantly addressing questions of identity and allegiance. ( GW)

Seeks a redefinition of departmental goals and criteria for promotion. (AA)

Deplores the fact that most departments of English, as departments of literature, relegate the teaching of writing to graduate assistants and suggests that departments of English should become departments of rhetorical studies, focusing on both reading and writing. (JM)

Argues that English departments are experiencing a crisis of identity that is economic, political, and psychological. (SRT)