Contrasts the attitudes within the field of English taken toward the current job crisis, the utopian and the realist views. Discusses the recommendations of the MLA (Modern Language Association) Committee on Professional Employment. Suggests various actions to undertake in helping students decide whether to pursue a graduate degree. (CR)

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)

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)

Reports the results of a survey of the curricula of 259 college English departments which indicate that the growing demand for writing courses coupled with the need to maintain a well-balanced program of literature offerings is causing problems for departmental administrators. (AEA)

Proposes that English faculty and department heads often have a negative view of members of the administration. Describes how department heads can establish personal and departmental integrity and maintain it. Suggest that this is the best way to succeed in relations with administrative deans. (HB)

Offers a practical voice from an English department chair in the trenches at Arizona State University where posttenure review was mandated. Focuses on how the chair's job was transformed by this new personnel process in terms of workload and university support or lack of it. (RS)

Offers advice to graduate students studying English and those studying foreign languages, covering issues relevant to candidates for master's degrees or doctorates. Suggests questions to ask when selecting a graduate program, including those related to investigating the program and inquiring about employment and financial assistance, teaching…

Discusses responsibilities of the two-year college English department chairperson with regard to developing curriculum offerings to meet student and community needs, recruiting and hiring faculty, developing a sound basic writing program, working to achieve low faculty workloads, encouraging faculty development, and working to achieve public…

Argues that graduate schools are overproducing literary scholars and underproducing composition and rhetoric scholars, who carry the increasingly bulk of the work in English departments, and examines, in detail, this split between rhetoric and literary scholars. (SRT)

Considers the national curricular practices in college English departments, specifically with regard to "service" courses. Provides excerpts of data from the Modern Language Association's national survey of 92 English departments. (HB)

Describes the author's experiences teaching at four Taiwanese universities in eight years. Presents a way of dealing with students' needs called the discovery approach to teaching literature: the three main components are performances, activities, and journals. Notes that the Taiwanese students were hungry for talk about substantive issues. (RS)

Espouses cooperation between college English departments and schools of education in the training of English and reading teachers. (AEA)