Traces the difficulties and exploitation encountered by a female faculty member beginning in the 1950s. Describes how personal voice is frustrated by the hegemonic powers of English departments and the exploitative system of part-time and untenured faculty. Concludes with a powerful affirmation of the teaching mission. (HB)

Describes how the English department at Willamette University set out to revise the English curriculum as a participant in the MLA-FIPSE English Programs Curriculum Review Project. Shows how the faculty redesigned the curriculum, and shares three important ideas that might be useful to other departments undertaking similar changes. (HB)

Presents, in dialogue form, reflections on the administration of an English department and a writing program (and the relationship between the two) by colleagues who held those positions for many years. (SR)

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)

Imagines the role of the male college professor in view of the erotic and sexual nature of his subjectivity and the glaring possibilities of sexual misconduct with students. Outlines some experiences related to the sexual harassment policies of one private college. (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)

Describes staffing of United States four-year college English departments. Notes the multitiered structure of professorial rank that has formed as a result of 20 years of increasing enrollment, and static or decreasing levels funding. Concludes that four-year English institutions are limited in their capacity to staff the full range of their…

Discusses the various roles that different generations of academics have played in defining community, and the need for local knowledge and local engagement. Suggests that the field of English needs a new generation of leaders who not only are willing to redefine academic citizenship and community, but to cultivate and encourage the support of…

Undertakes research into tension between structural planning and individual autonomy in the teaching of English and the dynamics of English departmental work in secondary schools. Examines the nature of constraints to individuals' autonomy, such as the British National Curriculum, to arrive at tentative conclusions as to whether they constitute a…

Offers guidelines that specify the kinds of information that will assist faculties in identifying and rectifying problems in their graduate programs. Directs attention to eight areas: department goals; graduate admissions; retention and attrition of students; financial support for students; preparing students for careers within and outside the…

Provides an account of a successful staffing initiative at a PhD-granting institution, the University of Pittsburgh. States that the "Fix English" program aimed to improve the educational quality of undergraduate instruction by increasing full-time faculty involvement, correcting workload inequities, and bringing the English department's…