Department of English

Here you will find information about our undergraduate and graduate programs; our faculty, staff, students, and alumni; our Read/Write Series; our Faculty Colloquium Series; our writing contests and scholarship opportunities; our literary journals; our study abroad program; and links to related programs and resources. Through a rich array of course offerings in literary, film, and cultural studies, we rigorously train our students in critical reading, thinking and writing skills, and ensure their preparation in a broad range of canonical and non-canonical texts. While the theoretical, methodological, and historical training of our faculty is diverse, we share the conviction that close, sustained engagement with the written word can be at once aesthetically exhilarating, ethically compelling, and politically transformative.

Our undergraduate program is challenging and flexible; many of our students complement English with work in closely related fields such as African and African-American Studies, Art History, Communications, Comparative Literature, Creative Writing, Film Media, History, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Women's Studies, and Writing and Rhetoric. Others combine their English B.A. with a Secondary Education major, allowing them to become public- or private-school teachers immediately after graduation. Many receive the advanced training and professional advising that enables them to enter first-rate graduate programs in English, Creative Writing, Comparative Literature, Film and Media Studies, History, Medicine, and Business Administration. Others go on to some of the country's top Law Schools, while many find that their strong writing and analytical skills prepare them to enter careers in publishing, journalism, advertising and marketing, college administration, grant writing, non-profit organizations, social services, insurance, civil service, retail business, and NGO's.

Our M.A. students either go on to enter Ph.D. programs of their choice, or put their advanced degree to good use in both academic and non-academic jobs. A high percentage of our Ph.D. graduates find full time teaching jobs in colleges and universities around the country.

Whatever your professional or creative goals, a Major in English provides you above all with the expertise to be an active interpreter, rather than a passive observer, of the world around you.

Ryan Trimm
Chair of English Department