Argues that tenured English teachers at small liberal arts colleges want several things from prospective new faculty members, including the capacity to share authority among equals, and the ability to give up some radical intellectual independence in order to collaborate (not compromise or capitulate) professionally. (RS)

Argues that few modern English departments promote communal scholarship and that collegial interaction focuses more on contemporary literary culture than on shared scholarship. Describes a collaborative publication project in which 10 professors wrote a book introducing undergraduate English majors to literary studies. (RS)

Sketches a picture of how different institutions of learning engender different working and business environments for department heads. Discusses various departmental activities and how the departmental environment affects their success or failure. (HB)

Discusses the particular challenges of budgeting facing English department heads. Analyzes political and psychological issues related to department budget management. (HB)

Identifies the difficulties faced by a female English department head. Creates several case studies of typical moments of conflict experienced by a department chair of feminist leanings. (HB)

Traces the historically optimistic view of college-secondary school cooperation. Asks why such optimism has faded in recent years. Considers how college-level departments of English can collaborate with high school English programs, such as in collaborative conferences. (HB)

Considers the tension between deterministic social construction and individual autonomy of the subject in the act of reading literary texts. Develops a critical reading pedagogy that takes into account the balance between those two extremes of the dialectic of reading praxis. Illustrates the pedagogy with two concrete examples. (HB)

Presents one composition instructor's personal memoir regarding the horrific treatment he was exposed to as a marginalized member of a college English department. Considers the kind of atmosphere and collegiality to which successful college English departments should aspire. (HB)

Discusses the central issues regarding the formulation of a technology policy within college English departments. Examines the way that such a policy affects the teaching and research carried out in computer-supported environments. Provides extensive data concerning the support of computer-using faculty members. (HB)

Applauds the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) for maintaining its high principles in its attempt to develop national standards in English for the federal government. Suggests that NCTE acted wisely when it refused to be enticed by lucrative government contracts to bend its pedagogical principles. (TB)

Cautions that the economic woes faced by many colleges involve the risk of losing many graduate programs. Describes a scenario in which primarily research-oriented staff are forced to teach, thus forcing the collapse of graduate programs at all but a few institutions. Discusses a typical workload at many universities and its implications. (PA)

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)

Describes the difficulties of defining basic writers and basic writing. Argues that Michel Foucault's concept of the "author function" is applicable to academic and literary discourse and shows how it serves to organize curriculum and define the object of study in English departments. (HB)

Describes how the English department at Merrimack College 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 articulates two strategies marking the successful phases of the process. (HB)

Discusses the role of theory in the classroom practices of English professors. Defines the centrality of theory in English instruction and claims that theory is always implicit in any reading of texts. Advocates empowering students to deploy their own theoretical positions in classroom discussion and practice. (HB)