Advocates a "trust relation" between English department chairpersons and the English teaching profession, examined in light of the composition-literature tension, cultural appreciation, literacy, student diversity, meetings and associations, English teacher education, course improvement, graduate education, reentering adult students, English…

Describes two college programs for writing across the curriculum that involve faculty workshops. The workshops are primarily designed to dispel misconceptions faculty have about writing and to teach them more critical methods of writing evaluation and grading. Includes an appendix with a workshop exercise for spotting plagiarism. (HTH)

Explores contextual differences between writing courses in two-year colleges and courses in four-year colleges and universities. Attempts to promote understanding of two-year college contexts in order to foster improved dialogue among teachers at all types of institutions. (MS)

Reveals that black professors make up 6 percent of the 979 full-time English department faculty at the 25 highest-ranked universities, with 30 being tenured and 10 holding chairs. The paper lists and briefly profiles these 30 tenured faculty. (GR)

Discusses research regarding two-career couples working within college English departments. Reports that institutions in large metropolitan areas are more hopeful about spousal placement. Observes that few colleges still have antinepotism laws forbidding spousal hiring. Notes that institutions are devising strategies for specific situations.…

Proposes, in general terms, three interrelated actions to begin to address the problems facing higher education English departments: (1) an enhanced public relations campaign for higher education; (2) greater collaboration with secondary schools and community colleges; and (3) an elevation of self-image and healing of the internecine stresses…

Suggests two principles for successful evaluation of college faculty members: chairs should know their departments; and "always, always pay attention." Describes how the chair of the English department at Michigan State University developed and implemented these suggestions. (RS)

Literature anthologies are part of the furniture of English departments. Like the putty or gunmetal-gray file cabinet that one might have gotten new or used, they are not a showpiece of academic decor, but it would be hard to imagine work spaces without them. Indeed, they are omnipresent, amassed on the shelves of campus bookstores, weighing down…

Women who wish to assume full voice in their writing have no choice but to raise questions regarding their status and the status of creative writing within the academy. Tillie Olsen and Elaine Showalter have documented the bias in texts taught at the university in which women have little place, if at all. The effects are devastating: if the voices…

When budget cuts affected the English department at the University of Georgia in 1991, the writing program was never cut sharply but did suffer in three important ways: class sizes in the freshman program went up, the department replaced full-time with part-time faculty, and a new assistant professor of rhetoric was not hired. Now most freshman…

A survey examined the attitudes of lecturers in the English department at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in an attempt to better define the role of the lecturer in the department. Twelve responses were received from 13 full and part-time lecturers. Results indicated that: (1) most favored a committee appointed by the chair using…

A middle ground, between picky concern for correctness and mushy libertarianism, must be found on which to base effective freshman composition courses. (JH)

Misconceptions about the teaching of writing prevail on many college campuses, partially because writing teachers fail to communicate with their colleagues. It is especially important for writing teachers to let their colleagues know that learning to write is a long term developmental process that needs support and reinforcement from the entire…

The training of doctoral candidates in English often does not match the kind of teaching they must do upon taking their first jobs: namely, training is in literature, while most jobs are available in composition. Even when acceptable composition teachers are found, keeping them in the face of budgetary restraints and declining enrollments is…

There is widespread belief that those in charge of selecting and promoting college teachers of English discriminate against women, either deliberately or unwittingly. An investigation of professed policies and actual practices of departments across the country revealed however, that the woman's lot is no longer simply that of a persecuted…