Expresses concern that the future of English is a matter of dwindling importance except among English professors. Suggests English professors need to confront the growing irrelevance of English to the major developments in many institutions. Suggests the future of English may depend in part on what professors define, and defend, as the value of…

Based on his department's experience with curriculum change, the head of the English department at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) concluded that curriculum change must be local, incremental, and unending. A consequence of the claim that curriculum change should be local is that proposed changes must be consistent with local realities--and…

Urges that English departments can help university administrators rediscover the many contributions their faculties and courses can make to the institution at large. (MM)

Offers suggestions for use in establishing undergraduate career guidance programs in English departments. (AEA)

Discusses college English faculty in terms of the increase in temporary and part-time appointments, limitations on mobility, teaching assignments, and sabbatical leaves. (HOD)

Describes the management appropriate to different kinds of new curricula within the English program and urges the department chair to assume intellectual, as well as managerial leadership of the department. (HOD)

Exposes the myth of the department chairperson as omnipotent. Demonstrates that by identifying the common interest of the myriad components of an English department, a chairperson can unify them into a successful, dynamic department by power of the faculty members themselves. (HTH)

Describes the University of New Mexico's undergraduate writing program which provides a concentration in professional writing, offering students vocational and humanistic preparation by teaching skills and critically examining the contexts of their writing. Concludes that the English curriculum should accept the complementary importance of writing…

Describes the kinds of teaching jobs that most recent doctorates in English attain. Discusses the role of the English professor at regional universities. Considers how it is different from the role of professor at a larger state university or at a smaller private college. (HB)

Discusses the role of the English department head in a time of shrinking budgets. Considers popular and governmental conceptions of college faculty productivity. Calls for increased attention to undergraduate teaching. Criticizes attacks labeling college faculty as lazy and incompetent. (HB)

Considers the role of the English department malcontent, who constantly seems to spoil any chance of departmental consensus. Discusses the typical life of the English department. Analyzes departmental disputes with the aid of Jacques Lacan's notion of "jouissance." (HB)

Discusses the role of the teacher as authority in the classroom. Questions whether an assertive teacher can be understood as anything less than an abuser of students. Considers the place of the text in four classroom scenarios with regard to these questions of authority. (HB)

Film is not often taught for itself and by itself; it is too often viewed as the handmaiden of literature. More often than not it is taught in English departments because: (1) like novels, poems, plays and philosophical arguments, it is a humanistic text; (2) film writers and directors have historically turned to literary texts as their source…

The functioning of the college English department during a period of rapid societal change is important. English programs can and have been interrupted by student activists. Such crises in formal education are small in comparison with the overriding issues of whether or not man can survive as a species past the turn of the next century and of what…

Asserts that exploring convergences between composition and literature can bridge the gap between the two fields. (MM)