Presents seven practical and two abstract problems encountered when composition was removed from an English department by the dean during the spring of 1998. Lists four main reasons for moving composition out of English including: organization; quality; lack of commitment; and pedagogy. (SG)

Discusses the importance of a curriculum planning policy which considers student diversity and is accountable to the student, the profession, and society. (RB)

Suggests that verbal and visual literacy are interdependent and that English departments should take on the task of heightening visual literacy. (AEA)

Reviews the history of a college English department from the 1960s through the mid-1980s. (MM)

Describes a conference entitled Teaching for the Public Good: The Future of the Humanities in Public Higher Education. Considers what effect the humanities can and should have on public higher education now. Outlines the objectives of the conference. Discusses what is meant by public education. Considers the responsibility of humanities educators…

Examines (in the context of how English programs have been or should be changed) the assumption that intellectual life has become structured around issues. (RS)

Spotlights one site where the new curriculum calls the English department at Louisiana State University toward further change: the juncture between the undergraduate and graduate curricula. Illustrates the benefits of adopting a document that articulates curricular goals. Describes a five-year curriculum revision process. Attaches excerpts from a…

Offers a case study in curriculum change that reveals a very different experience--one that demonstrates a discipline more alive than ever. Presents a story of how the lively canon debates prompted the English department at Montclair State University to restructure the English major. Finds that the culture wars, critical theory, poststructuralism,…

Recounts an imaginary conversation between "literature" and "composition" concerning the writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) movement. Suggests that literature instruction pays no heed to WAC and overlooks writing purposes other than literary ones. Argues that literature and composition proponents should both support a broader…

Notes the author's experiences that led him to gravitate toward educational partnerships. Notes that partnerships signal an answer to the discontinuities in curriculum planning and in general awareness within and among institutions; and hint at the absence of communication (let alone planning) between educators at the university and college level…

Suggests that when the university devotes itself to "excellence," it substitutes, for a vision of what should be taught, a contentless measure, a bureaucratic concept that extends the range of managerial control without presuming to make judgments about content. Suggests that English departments should try to design sequences of courses that are…

Offers some reflections on the professional commitments of undergraduate English and argues the need for establishing clearly defined educational goals. (RB)

Indicates how the province of English has changed in recent years, using a dialogue between Socrates and an English professor to dramatize the point. (RB)

Describes the efforts of a college English department to redesign its English curriculum. Includes a curriculum outline and descriptions of specific courses. (AEA)