Gives responses from English graduate students to the question, "What bothers you most about graduate school?" Considers the role that the study of literary theory should have in graduate English studies. Argues that theory should become more like a verb than a noun, which it currently tends to be. (HB)

Maintains that one of the most difficult problems faced by English department chairpersons arises from the widely divergent theoretical or ideological positions of faculty members. Argues for faculty to stop abusing one another and illustrates departmental discord in an imaginative fiction involving "Roger" and "Rose." (HB)

Dramatizes the attempts, including hunger strikes, to get the University of California at Los Angeles to create a department of Chicano studies. Considers the difficulty of dealing compassionately with protesters when faced with institutional budget cuts. (HB)

Sketches a scenario describing the possible future of English studies in the United States. Discusses the sources of division and anger within the profession. Considers the obstacles that impede healthy professional conversations within departments. (HB)

Identifies the ideas of the good that organize the professional lives of English college faculty. Discusses how these ideas should help faculty to constitute their departments, colleagues, and students. Applies insights from Aristotle's "Rhetoric" to departmental discussions. (HB)

Considers how students are represented in institutional discourse and how students are viewed by their teachers. Outlines historical and current examples of the way students are represented. Calls for a closer examination of the relationship between rhetorical representations of students and reality. (HB)

In forming a new curriculum for the English Department at Louisiana State University, the Literature Concentration Subcommittee faced a daunting array of competing demands. How can students gain a perspective on the terrain of literary studies, including canonical and non-canonical texts? How can they experience the rich diversity of the…

Planning of curriculum change should include planning to cope with let-down that threatens to undermine or routinize innovations. (JH)

Curriculum change is usually haphazard and externally motivated. (JH)

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)

Discusses the current understandings of the term and position "professional," the intentions of the college English curriculum, and the career opportunities for the English major. (TO)

Examines the dilemma facing English departments that teach literature only and suggests an interdisciplinary approach as the solution. (RB)

Discusses the benefits and pitfalls of English department efforts involving internship programs, increased attention to writing courses, new courses in mass media, and rethinking of traditional literature courses. (DD)