Describes how English department chairs might successfully order and structure their departments. Analyzes two central characteristics of English departments as political entities: purpose and values. Lists several observations about departmental organization. (HB)

Reflects on several issues confronting an English department chair, including part-time faculty, adequate writing programs, curriculum reform, and resource allocation. (MM)

Discusses the role of the English department head in a time of educational crisis. Examines the possibility that graduate study in English is losing its moral base. Considers the role of leadership and oppositional politics in the context of the crisis in graduate study. (HB)

Discusses three fundamental questions that figure prominently in any attempt to imagine the future of English departments: What is an English department? What is the goal of an English department? and What is to be done? (HB)

This research is a narrative analysis based on an investigation into the professional lives of heads of English Departments (HODs) in three New Zealand secondary schools. The main data collection methods of interviews and observations used in this study fall within an interpretive paradigm. While HODs play a pivotal role in secondary schools,…

Describes how the task of leading an English department has changed over the past 25 years. Considers the delicate yet essential task of the department head to provide leadership and vision for an entire department. Relates the general problems of English departments and specific problems in graduate education with diversity and difference gone…

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)

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)

Evidence indicates that the quality of a high school English department directly depends upon the effectiveness of the departmental organization. Despite the dangers of fragmenting and departmentalizing knowledge, some organization must be established for departmental work to be carried out. Among the variables which influence the organization and…

A survey of science and English teachers in 10 Scottish secondary schools indicated a complex relationship between a teacher's identity as a subject expert, subject department boundaries, and authority relationships. Teachers felt they had little influence on general school policies. (f=fiche numbers). (CP)