GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
EXTERNAL ACADEMIC PROGRAM REVIEW
MARCH 10-11, 2014
Review Team
Kimberly M. Blaeser, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Maureen Daly Goggin, Arizona State University
Gail Houston, University of New Mexico
Cynthia Selfe, Ohio State University
Introduction
We begin this report of our site visit, March 10-11, 2014, by thanking the
administrators, faculty, staff, and students for their graciousness in hosting us and in
making available all resources necessary to conduct an intensive academic program
review of the Department of English. In particular, we acknowledge the care and efforts
of the chair, Randy Malamud. We also especially commend the Academic Program
Review Committee—Chris Kocela, Beth Burmester, John Holman, Melissa McLeod,
LeeAnne Richardson, and Paul Schmidt—for their diligence and care in compiling a
thorough self-study report.
During our visit, we met with a wide range of individuals, including the Vice Provost and
Chief Enrollment Officer, the Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness, the Dean
of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Chair of the Department of English, the Director
of Graduate Studies, the Director of Undergraduate Studies, the Program Directors, the
Heads of Department-Affiliated Centers, the Creative Writing Faculty, the Literature
Faculty, the Rhetoric and Composition Faculty, Graduate students, and Undergraduate
students. Our review draws on these interviews, the Department Academic Program
Review Self-Study Report, the Dean’s Office Response to that report, other documents
supplied by the University and Department as well as University, College, and
Department websites. Like the Department, we paid special attention to the five
University strategic goals as outlined in the Strategic Plan 2011-2016/21. Finally, this
review is informed as well by the experiences that each of us has gained from working
in similar academic settings within comparable programs.
Historical and Current Context
University: Founded in 1913 as the Georgia School of Technology, the University has
been transformed several times and in 1995 was accorded research university status.
Today as a Research 1 urban university, it serves over 32,000 students from the state
of Georgia and beyond. Currently, its strategic plan lists five major goals that inform
objectives at both the college and department levels. Efforts in these areas have yielded
an increase in graduation rates, an innovative advising system, a commitment to
expand graduate programs, especially in relation to being an urban-serving university,
commitment to serving the needs of an urban clientele (such as serving as a place for
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community college students), and advancement in establishing an international
footprint. Currently, the university seeks to establish a ratio of 70 percent undergraduate
to 30 percent graduate populations.
College of Arts and Sciences: The College is guided by the University’s five strategic
goals. In particular, the College wants to strength PhD programs and to grow graduate
classes as well as professional MA degrees that meet an urban need. They emphasize
undergraduate success while encouraging diversity. With shrinking budgets and plans
to increase enrollment to 40,000 students, the College endeavors to obtain outside
funding through endowments and grants. The Committee suggests that this college is
the heart of the university by virtue of being the largest college, but also because it
delivers the classic liberal arts education while also including STEM-oriented programs
and departments. Hence, the reviewers recommend that this college be considered for
increased resources.
Department: Currently the Department has approximately 50 faculty, 500
undergraduate students, and 200 graduate students enrolled in several different
programs. The student numbers meet the balance 70%/30% sought by the university.
The Department is home to five self-sustaining journals. Like the College, the
Department’s goals are informed by the five University strategic goals. While activity
occurs on all five fronts, the Department recognizes the need to focus on globalization,
its unique urban setting, and digital humanities.
Outline of Report
In every area, the Department is operating as a top Research I English department.
Because our visit led us to see the department through the lenses of major areas of
study, (Secondary Education, Rhetoric/Composition, Literature, and Creative Writing),
and the goal to increase expertise in Digital Media, we have organized the report under
those major headings, with subheadings from the “Guidelines for Preparation of the
External Review Report: Academic Program Review” used implicitly to organize the
report. We believe this revised approach will provide a holistic, responsive, clear
evaluation. First and foremost, we find the departmental self-study to be astute,
objective, and practical in its outline of strengths, weaknesses, and pathways forward,
and we applaud the five goals in the Self-Study. If the department focuses on these five
goals, it will certainly see great improvements to its already excellent programs.
Quality of the Students and Faculty
GSU is a majority-minority university, with the highest percentage of minority students in
the category of African American (39% African American, 38% White, with small
percentages of other minorities making up the rest of the student body). This is also an
urban, commuter student population, with many of the students being first generation
college students. As the faculty and dean repeatedly noted, the students are an exciting
population to work with—they are enthusiastic, and have, in general, met the challenge
of fulfilling raised admissions standards. The undergraduate and graduate students we
met with were, across the board, thrilled (even ecstatic) about the quality of their
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professors—they reported that the professors’ passion for their areas of study is
infectious and that professors foster and encourage their students.
Reported high school GPA, Freshman Index, SAT and GRE scores of the Department
of English students are comparable, if not slightly higher, than the average GSU
student. GSU serves a diverse student population, itself reflecting the diversity of
Georgia and the Southeast.
As the Department’s Self-Study makes clear, the English faculty are productive scholars
with strong publication records. They are equally outstanding teachers, something every
student we spoke to affirmed. In our meeting with students, it was suggested that,
“Faculty are our greatest resource.” This sentence clearly captures the sentiment of the
students’ admiration for their faculty. In addition to their vigorous programs that intersect
with many of the University’s goals, faculty offer extracurricular opportunities that also
meet the University’s strategic goals: study abroad programs help “to achieve distinction
in globalizing the university,” professional development experiences offer
“undergraduate signature experience,” the ALTmaps contributes to GSU becoming “a
leader in understanding and addressing the complex challenges of cities.” The Philips
State Prison program and the syndicated Methodically Challenged WRAS radio show
likewise address ways of understanding complex problems of and reaching out to cities.
Based on our discussions with students, observations of faculty, and information from
reports, we, too, view the faculty as the chief resource of the department—they are
dedicated, outstanding teachers and scholars. The Dean remarks in his response to the
Self-Study, “The department’s high level of research and professional productivity, the
success of its faculty in tenure and promotion, the national rankings and awards for its
programs, and the quality of its recent hires suggest that the program will continue to
build on its strong foundation into the future.” As a large department (50 faculty), they
have figured out how to be harmonious and collegial and thus do not spend their
energies on petty fracases—this is extraordinary and to be highly commended, and
allows the faculty to follow through on their five goals. We also reserve the highest
praise for the chair of the department; Dr. Malamud receives unconditional support and
praise from virtually all the faculty. This, too, helps the department succeed at achieving
its goals.
SECONDARY EDUCATION
As noted in the Self-Study, “The Secondary English concentration prepares students for
a professional certification program in English Education for grades 7-12 by providing
them with a strong foundation in the content knowledge of English studies and by
introducing them to the pedagogy of English instruction.” The department takes
seriously the responsibility of preparing Georgia’s K-12 teachers.
Coordinating with the Department of Middle and Secondary Education, the department
offers courses that fulfill two TEEMS (Teacher Education in English, ESOL,
Mathematics, Middle Level Education, Social Studies, and Science) M.A.T. degrees:
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“The TEEMS M.A.T. in English Education provides initial teacher certification for
individuals interested in teaching secondary English language arts (grades 6-12) and
requires completion of 4 graduate English courses.” In addition, “The TEEMS M.A.T. in
Middle Level Education provides initial teacher certification for individuals interested in
teaching middle level students (grades 4-8) and requires completion of one graduatelevel course in English.”
Internships are important to the Secondary Education English major: says one such
major, the Secondary English internship “helped tremendously as a way to prepare me
for teaching,” and, indeed, this program seems to have a strong rationale based on
extensive experience and substantive coursework and internships. To ensure good
communication, a faculty member overseeing Secondary English helps advise students
in this concentration. One student does suggest that the department communicate
internship opportunities better by announcing them on the department website.
RHETORIC/COMPOSITION
Rhetoric and Composition demonstrated a particular strength in terms of its faculty, its
curriculum, its vision, and the passion of both faculty and students. The Dean remarks,
“We also value the department’s nationally recognized program in collaborative writing
program administration, its robust program of GTA teaching and research mentorship,
its expanding Writing Studio tutoring for students across campus” (Dean’s Response to
Self-Study) This thriving program is one characterized by a range of interests, including,
for example, historical, theoretical, and empirical research in digital literacies; digital
rhetoric, history and theories of rhetoric; literacies, modern composition theories,
professional and technical writing; visual rhetoric, writing centers, and writing
pedagogies, to name some—all areas central to the discipline of rhetoric and
composition.
The Rhetoric and Composition faculty recently reimagined and revised their
undergraduate and graduate curriculum according to best practices, and the other
programs in the department see RC as providing a model for updating their own
curricula. For example, the faculty integrated the Writing Studio into the undergraduate
and graduate curriculum, allowing for excellent professional development and signature
experiences for undergraduate students and exciting intellectual scholarship for the
Studio from graduate students. The rhetoric and composition programs are intricately
connected to the lower division writing courses and studio. For instance, the Lower
Division Studies program is infused with contemporary research undertaken by both
faculty and students; it thus provides the most up-to-date pedagogies and theories in all
of its writing courses. Hence, students in both degree programs and service courses
benefit greatly from the outstanding pedagogical work of this faculty.
The undergraduate curriculum is attractive not just to the rhetoric and composition
majors, but those in other majors commend it and suggest they should be required to
take some of the rhetoric and composition degree courses for their programs. The RC
graduate curriculum courses are also forward-thinking, including visual rhetoric, digital
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production, and writing for publication. Outside class, faculty help graduate students
develop abstracts for CFPs, develop conference papers, and write for publication. Given
the quality of the courses, the extracurricular activities, the highly productive faculty, and
the innovative program designs, the RC program promises to be one of the leading in
the country.
As productive researchers, this faculty has published in top venues, both digitally and in
print and has received awards for their scholarship. Undergraduate and graduate
students applaud the faculty and the courses in RC. These faculty provide
undergraduate students with such signature experiences as: peer tutoring at GSU,
tutoring in high schools, and mentoring, to name just a few. Graduate students also
spoke to the rigor of their programs and excellent preparation provided by said
programs and faculty. The informal record of successful job placement of rhetoric and
composition graduate students in and outside academia speaks volumes about the
preparation students receive. Because there are good job prospects for those with
credentials in rhetoric and composition, this program deserves attention and resources.
The rhetoric and composition faculty recognize that they need to improve the
mentorship, professional development, advising, and general welcome/transition for
rhetoric and composition graduate students and are already taking steps to resolve this
issue—for example, by involving experienced graduate students in communications and
social events, and by offering workshops on preparing conference proposals. As well,
workshops for job seekers should be provided each year to help students increase their
chances of obtaining good jobs. The outside reviewers suggest that said improvements
should become part of the Graduate Director’s responsibilities, as well as a Director of
RC’s responsibilities, thus making mentorship, professional development, and job
preparation official and programmatic parts of the graduate experience for all students.
Finally, just as Creative Writing has a Director, RC needs a designated director to
coordinate all program efforts. However, the RC faculty are already stretched very thin.
The burdens on the rhetoric and composition faculty are deep. First, serving students
throughout the entire university, they oversee the Writing Studio and the Lower Division
Studies (LDS) core writing requirements, which accounts for 70% of course offering.
Second, instructors for LDS require sustained training and supervision because the
majority are GTAs, some of whom have no teaching experience. GTAs are underpaid
and work more than those at other peer and aspirational peer universities, which, no
doubt, makes the work harder for rhetoric and composition faculty. Third, because of
their small faculty numbers, the rhetoric and composition faculty serve on a
disproportionate number of dissertations and theses. Fourth, many of the rhetoric and
composition faculty serve as affiliated faculty across the university in Women’s Studies,
Communication, Education, Linguistics, and so on. Fifth, a strong portion of RC faculty
hold positions as Directors of Centers related to the Department of English, such as the
Director of the Center for Instructional Innovation, the Director of the Confucius Institute,
the Director of Critical Thinking through Writing, and the Director of the Writing Studio.
Indeed, the Director of the Writing Studio also serves as the Director of the Lower
Division Studies.
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Clearly the demands on faculty time are great. Despite this situation, there has been
discussion in the Department about developing an MA in professional and technical
communication. While this is a noble idea, it is not feasible at the moment, given the
small number of faculty and the inordinate demands on their efforts. Rhetoric and
Composition needs more tenure-line positions to create an additional program and to
strengthen their efforts at achieving the University’s strategic goals. Hiring a designated
coordinator would be an important first step in assuring the continued success of this
program.
This proactive, cutting-edge faculty has worked hard to make progress on its goals and
has succeeded wonderfully in so many ways despite the lack of resources. This group
has proven they are up to the task of raising the national visibility of the Department and
University. Hence, they should receive special consideration under the University’s
strategic goal of “expand[ing] support for doctoral programs” by “increas[ing] the size of
faculty and number of PhD assistantships” and by “increas[ing] the level of scholarship
and assistant funds.” Imagine what the RC faculty could accomplish with adequate
resources.
Given the rhetoric and composition program’s successful efforts at simultaneously
revising the curriculum, providing excellent teaching and leadership, and increasing its
own enrollments, while fulfilling its service commitment by providing writing required
courses for incoming students, the reviewers believe this group has a strong argument
for receiving increased resources from the college, including awarding a new tenure
track line in RC.
In addition, it would be helpful to train more UG peer tutors, for at the end of training
said students could obtain a position in the Writing Studio and thus receive a signature
experience. Furthermore, the Associate Director of Lower Division is a lecturer with a
2/2 load, who also, by virtue of the lack of staff, has taken on staff duties. This position
is also not adequately paid. Attention must be given to this untenable situation. At the
end of this report, see recommendations regarding compensation, workload, and
needed personnel in RC.
LITERATURE
The literature faculty is the largest in numbers of any group in the department. They are
a strong group doing excellent scholarship— as the Self-Study notes, “English faculty
members have published books with Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press,
Palgrave/Macmillan, Routledge, St. Martin’s Press, Cengage, Bloomsbury, Lexington
Books, the University of Arizona Press, the University of Georgia Press, and Louisiana
State University Press, among others.” Likewise, their work appears in many of the
following prestigious journals: PMLA, The New Yorker, Shakespeare, Kenyon Review,
University of Toronto Quarterly, Journal of Popular Film and Television, College
Composition and Communication, Kairos, Computers and Composition, Composition
Studies, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.” In addition, they are passionate about
their teaching and subject areas and students remark on their excellence.
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Using its majority status to consolidate its accomplishments (use its intellectual capital,
as it were) is important; the literature group should see itself both holistically as the
“literature” group as much as they see themselves as subsections (American,
British/Irish, etc.)
The literature faculty is consciously self-evaluative: it knows that, as one member said,
the curriculum is downright ”fusty.” In addition, they shrewdly remark in the Self-Study
that, “Given the renowned diversity of GSU’s undergraduate student body, it is
imperative that we continue to develop more courses with a multicultural focus and to
better advertise—and permanently institutionalize--those that are presently offered
under the rubrics of Topics and Senior Seminar classes. We will eventually need to
increase the number of faculty who can teach Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the U.S.
(MELUS) through rehiring and retraining.” They rightly tie the increase of faculty who
can teach multi-ethnic literatures to the following data from the Self-Study, “The ethnic
diversity of graduate English students is: White 80.7%; Black 8.8%; Asian 2.8%;
American Indian or Alaska Native 0.3%; Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander 0.3%;
two or more races 3.5%; and ‘not reported’ 3.5%. Although the ethnic diversity of our
graduate students is similar to that of our peer departments (see Appendix 4), it is
considerably less than that of the graduate student body of GSU as a whole, suggesting
that we can do more to appeal to a wider diversity of graduate students. The
department might attract a more diverse graduate student body by offering better
funding and by creating additional courses with a transnational, multiethnic, and
comparative focus.”
Regarding the teaching of multi-ethnic literatures and the traditional canon, we suggest
that increasing the number of minority faculty is also crucial and requires a proactive will
to hire affirmatively; it is highly likely that the department will see an increase of minority
student majors if it increases the number of minority faculty. Having a higher number of
minority faculty is good for everyone, students, faculty, and the university.
Further, with a majority-minority student population, it behooves the department to
become a nationally renowned model of diverse faculty, students, curriculum, and
pedagogy. Based on its urban Southern setting and majority-minority status, having a
Southern literature focus seems to be a no-brainer; likewise, given Atlanta's increasingly
international draw (as evidenced, for example, by its airport being one of the busiest in
the world), the literature group could complement a Southern Studies focus, with a
focus on global, post-colonial, transnational, and diasporic literatures. Finally, as a result
of this multi-pronged movement towards diversity, the department should see
undergraduate and graduate enrollments increase while making GSU a destination
university for graduate students in English studies.
Rhetoric and Composition and Creative Writing just put into place sequencing of
courses (both together are 20% of program). The Literature section needs to do
sequencing as well—providing more enticing course titles and possibly institutionalizing
topics courses.
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The literature faculty rightly worries about growing the MA program. The graduate
program is much bigger in comparison with the outside reviewers’ universities. The
university and college’s goal of increasing enrollments should be tempered by
qualitative norms—no university ever proved its equivalency to ivy-league excellence
through drastic increases in enrollment, especially when reducing the very resources
(faculty lines and financial resources) necessary for establishing and maintaining
excellence.
The outside reviewers strongly agree that the foreign language requirement is high
compared to other peer and aspirational peer institutions. Many universities have
extended the notion of “language requirement” for English studies to include such areas
as computer languages and statistics, to name two. Reducing the language requirement
to 3 upper-division credits would provide immediate bang for no bucks: that is, student
morale, retention, and progress toward degree would increase.
CREATIVE WRITING
The Creative Writing program at Georgia State has a national reputation, ranking 15th
among CW doctoral programs in 2012, for example. Although small (six members), its
faculty is distinguished, with two members of the fiction contingent having been past
recipients of National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and the work of other faculty
members also having received major awards and recognition. Among the important
strengths of the program are its two journals, the graduate-student-run New South, and
the literary and arts journal Five Points, which is often rated as among the top ten or
fifteen of such journals. These journals effectively work as a recruiting tool for the
program, providing professional training for the students.
Similarly, involvement in other public sphere activities gives the program visibility in the
community and helps build the GSU relationship in the community. Those important
initiatives include: working with the Phillips State Prison population, the development of
the syndicated radio show “Melodically Challenged” with station WRAS, and the effort to
develop an international focus in the reading and visiting writers series. As the university
works to build its Creative Writing program profile and expand its reach into the
community, faculty should be encouraged in and rewarded for innovation in curriculum
and for interdisciplinary, inter-arts collaborations.
Like all the programs in the English Department, Creative Writing has struggled under
the low funding for graduate students, the lack of GTAs available, and the
unpredictability of or late notice given for GTA funding. While the program faculty have
attempted to build a system in which they would admit a cohort group of creative writing
students each year, move them through professionalization positions and on to
teaching—in effect creating continuity among peers and streamlining the PhD
process—they have been thwarted in this attempt by budgetary circumstances.
Nevertheless, the program has continued to maintain significant visibility among writing
programs and to attract (though not necessarily to finally win) strong applicants to its
PhD program.
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Though the faculty is keenly aware of the importance of creative non-fiction as the “third
genre,” current teaching demands have not allowed any regular offering in this area.
Both graduate and undergraduate students expressed some concern about course
offerings, and ideally, the program would offer an “Introduction to Creative Writing”
course that gives students exposure to fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Students
currently concentrating in poetry or fiction should not leave the program without some
exposure to the other genres in the classroom. This is particularly key for graduate
students who may anticipate seeking jobs in academia themselves. Likewise, students
should gain exposure to the digital and inter-art connections either through classroom
opportunities or participation in public programs. One course that would begin working
toward these goals is currently in the planning stages. The Creative Writing Director is
developing a team-taught course involving creative non-fiction and documentary film.
The process for implementing this kind of innovation should be streamlined at the
department and college levels in order to encourage further development of crossdisciplinary, team-taught offerings.
Students throughout the department expressed a need for more training as they
prepare for the job market. Creative writing students in particular might be coached to
develop the scholarly/critical introduction to their creative dissertation into the kind of job
talk they will be asked to give during the interview process. A regular student/faculty
reading series will also help them develop public performance skills.
Creative Writing is encouraged to investigate opportunities for creative collaborations in
the community, in the schools, or between students and faculty. The new trolley cars,
for example, might be a site to present video poems/flash fiction. The move to the new
home for English Department might allow the University a chance to incorporate or
showcase creative work from the faculty, students, or community. For example, the CW
program at the home institution of one review member has developed an “Eat Local,
Read Local,” initiative with local restaurants. It features regional writers in a competition,
offers winning entries as small postcard-size poems/flash fiction in the bill envelope at
restaurants, and sponsors a reading by writers at one of the restaurants. This is largely
run by graduate students who both love doing it and can add it to their vitae.
We suggest that CW tap into established alumni whenever possible. They might, for
example, be willing to offer an annual writing award or scholarship. The CW publications
might feature alumni and then schedule a reading event to launch the journal(s).
Likewise, in the “revenue neutral” campus climate, CW should work to extend the
collaborations across concentrations and across the university. For example, might the
Creative Writing program become involved in the selection of the text for the Common
Reading Program and then feature that author in their own programming? Similarly,
might they contribute to the selection for the “Five by Five” literary survey course and
then build on the selection in their journals, course planning, and public programming?
The program should do some careful thinking about whether or not it can continue to
meet the needs of 3 graduate degrees: MA, MFA, Ph.D., particularly when GSU is a
Research I university and is trying to raise its standards and national profile; each
student and each degree program adds work for the faculty and the department.
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DIGITAL PEDAGOGIES AND HUMANITIES
The department’s third goal is to “build upon recent hires in the area of digital
humanities and encourage development of technology-based courses,” an objective
that is necessary to address the University’s own third strategic goal. The department is
wise in working toward this goal while preserving the raison d’etre of humanities studies
and identifying the best practices of contemporary digital pedagogies. We are
concerned that only 24 percent of English Department faculty report using technology in
their teaching. We believe that a strengthened focus on digital humanities and digital
pedagogies could help expand faculty knowledge and extend their participation in
current initiatives. More faculty in the Department of English need training to make good
use of digital technologies as instructional and scholarly tools, as well as production
tools/environments (e.g., blogs, digital archives, animated poetry, mediated non-fiction).
Digital humanities and digital pedagogies offer the department of English strong foci of
scholarship that is bound to develop even more productively in the coming years.
Several strong junior faculty and a number of mid-career scholars lead the way, in
exploring a rich range of topics: among them, sonic rhetorics, digital archives,
broadcasts, text and data mining, digital humanities, and teaching and learning with
technologies. Digital technology classes focused on the rhetoric of sound, visual
rhetoric, electronic writing and publishing, digital pedagogies, among other topics,
provide innovative instruction at the undergraduate level and strong, marketable areas
of study for graduate students, which should greatly improve graduate students’
chances for employment in tenure-track positions. Several exciting cross-disciplinary,
cross-institutional, or geographically dispersed (Modernist Radio Archives, Digging into
Human Rights Violations, ATLmaps, the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, Sonic
Rhetoric) provide examples of innovative engagement with twenty-first century tools,
environments, pedagogies, and cultural contexts.
We observed that those faculty who both use digital technologies in their classrooms
and help graduate and undergraduate students to learn the limits and benefits of these
tools are largely, albeit not exclusively, based in rhetoric and composition, despite the
recent national explosion of such efforts in almost every humanities discipline and area
of study. And while this group of scholars and teachers is exceptionally strong and
provides productive leadership in this arena, the department needs to encourage and
support the efforts of additional faculty in other areas of scholarly endeavor to integrate
technology into their teaching: acquainting students with the use of appropriate digital
tools, helping them navigate new digital environments for scholarship, involving them in
the production of digital content.
Digital Humanities is an area in which recent departmental investments have paid
handsome dividends, and we believe it will continue to do so if the scholarly and
instructional efforts of faculty are supported at a level appropriate to their productivity.
This area could provide increasing national and international visibility for Georgia State
programs and offers an interdisciplinary focus for future hires in all areas of English
studies. Thus we suggest that all future faculty hires in English have some facility
teaching in digital environments and using digital tools (e.g., digital archives, textmining, virtual explorations of historical periods and places, digital mapping), even when
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this skill set doesn’t represent their primary disciplinary focus. Indeed, in national and
international arenas, all areas of humanities scholarship have been enhanced by digital
tools and environments in some way. The skills and understandings that undergraduate
and graduate students gain in technology-rich classes serve citizens both in the Atlanta
area and in the State of Georgia.
We note that the digital humanities group has contributed productively and successfully
to progress toward the departments’ objectives in both rhetoric and composition and
limited areas of literary studies (Modernism). Appropriately advised by several midcareer faculty with a perceptive understanding of their field and incisive professional
vision, junior faculty have lent energy, strength, and visibility to departmental efforts
despite the relative youth of several key junior faculty. The faculty currently active in
digital humanities are active, energetic scholars, leading the department forward in
grant acquisition, innovative teaching, nationally and internationally visible scholarly
projects. This group supports in productive and visible ways undergraduate research
and production skills, which are an absolutely necessary feature of twenty-first century
education. The department should continue to support their efforts and celebrate their
many scholarly successes, their effectiveness with students and curricula, and their
commitment to higher education. The courses taught by this group of faculty are strong
and deep, and instructionally rich. They are, however, limited by the numbers of faculty
who have some understanding of digital technologies and their role in the humanities. If
additional faculty could be supported in efforts to explore and integrate digital tools into
their classes, all curricula in the Department of English could benefit.
The undergraduate students in digital media and humanities are bright, enthusiastic,
and greatly pleased with the instruction they receive. These students praise GSU faculty
and note their generosity in providing guidance and opportunities for involvement in
digital projects. Graduate students in digital studies, too, are impressive in their
willingness to engage in the intellectual life of the department, to make the most of their
course work. At the graduate level, we particularly applaud the move to approve work in
digital research (translation studies, or specialized language skill in digital humanities or
emerging communications technologies) as alternatives to a foreign language at the
graduate level. We also think highly of the department’s close connection with the
Center for Instructional Innovation (Pullman). This work has led to productive, effective,
and innovative digital instruction supportive of traditional humanities goals, and, at the
same time, reflective of twenty-first century practices. In addition, we support and
applaud the efforts in writing-across-the-curriculum program to intersect with digital
technology use and pedagogies. Both graduate and undergraduate students
acknowledge the strength of the faculty and the support—intellectual, personal,
networking—that they so generously provide.
Material resources in digital media (labs, classrooms, office technology) are quite good.
At the same time, however, the department is sorely in need of instructional support for
faculty and students who already use digital technologies in their classes, and additional
training for faculty who want to integrate more technology into their instruction should be
significantly improved. This support could be accomplished with the hire of a lecturer in
Digital Pedagogies, but the teaching load for this position must be limited to allow
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sufficient time to help increasing numbers of faculty integrate digital technologies and
digital production into their classes. We certainly suggest no more than two classes a
semester as an appropriate load.
Finally, signature projects that involve digital technologies (Melodically Challenged,
online supplements to the Five Points project, digital exchanges of written work between
GSU courses and the Phillips State Prison writing program) in a multiplicity of
disciplinary areas should be encouraged with ongoing and increased funding. Such
efforts have served the department and GSU well by connecting them to the world
outside the walls of the university and should continue to do so.
We encourage GSU to change the 2CI program so that the funding promises anticipate
the Spring recruitment season, rather than following it. Without this change, making
effective use of funding for recruitment purposes is impossible.
Recommendations
*Provide GTAs a salary increase of 2,000 to 4,000 to raise salaries to 17,000 so they
are more in line with peer and aspirational peer universities. Reduce the GTA teaching
load to a 2-1. These steps can be accomplished by using the funds released from 2
faculty retirements and having the College and the University match these funds.
Adequate packages are crucial for attracting excellent graduate students, for keeping
them, and for increasing progress toward graduation.
We cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of this recommendation, which is
the first and the most important on our list. Without increased funding and decreased
teaching load the department cannot be expected to sustain a graduate program
appropriate to a research-active university of national caliber. Currently, the low salary
and high teaching load negatively impacts recruitment, increases students’ time to
degree completion, and restricts the all-round development of graduate students.
Since the primary goal the Department of English identified in its self-study is to
decrease the GTA teaching load to 2-1 and increase funding for GTA salaries, both the
College of Arts and Sciences and the University administration should support the
department in reaching this goal because it will reduce time-to-degree and improve the
quality of doctoral research. This goal is in line with the University’s second strategic
goal “to significantly strengthen and grow the base of distinctive graduate programs that
assure development of the next generation of researchers and societal leaders.”
*Add five staff positions:
Of all the resources, administrative resources are woefully inadequate. In comparison to
similar sized departments at GSU and at peer and aspirational peer institutions, seven
full-time staff members cannot serve the number of full-time faculty in the Department.
Indeed, it is apparent that faculty are performing staff duties above and beyond their
own labors because the staff position for this program (which enrolls 70% of the
courses) has been lost. For example, the Associate Director of the Lower Division
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Studies, a full-time lecturer, has increasingly been scheduling over 180 writing classes
as well as performing other duties. These two academic-staff positions need to be
separated. The previous APR report noted that the department needed 12 academicstaff positions. We agree with that previous report and recommend another five
academic-staff positions to help the department run more smoothly. Provide increased
staffing to the graduate and undergraduate internship program, which is admirably run
by a faculty member, but which requires much more attention and time than one faculty
member can give.
*Adjust the foreign language requirement. Consider allowing sign language and
computer programing to fulfill this requirement. By reducing the foreign language
requirement to 3 hours, English majors may be allowed to use the remaining hours for
English classes.
*Revise the Department of English website. As a global portal into the Department, the
website needs to convey all the exciting activities and programs. In particular, the
website should present a formalized listing of all internships and the appropriate dates
for applications. In order for students to properly plan their classes, and for faculty to
attract students to innovative classes, the course offering information must be expanded
and made available farther in advance. Generic area titles should give way to (or
include as subtitles) more descriptive and interesting class titles—this is true for all the
subgroups.
*Increase the number of faculty seeking grants for their scholarly work. Direct the Dean
to provide all possible assistance and encouragement to faculty who receive fellowships
that remove them, in full or part, from the teaching roster. The humanities do not receive
the same large grants as do the sciences; when English department faculty receive
fellowships they should receive positive signals from the university that it will cap off
salaries as needed in order for said fellowships to be accepted.
*Work with the College of Arts and Sciences and GSU administrators to streamline the
IRB process. The goal is to be more efficient in approving research, rather than
discouraging applicants. This process and support is part of what one expects from a
Research I university.
*Increase travel funding for faculty. Such funds are crucial to the life of a Research 1
university, and faculty cannot be expected to fund their own university travel to major
conferences where they are presenting papers on their research activities.
*Develop departmental incentives and guidelines for working with development advisors
in the College. Create a departmental committee focused on reaching out to graduates
and turning them into donors for departmental programs (e.g., funding English majors in
study abroad programs).
*The Executive Committee in the Department of English needs to develop more
systematic professional development of junior faculty: identifying departmental mentors
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for all junior faculty; starting a series of regular meetings between the junior faculty
cohort and the Chair to answer questions of concern; instituting a series of formative,
verbal evaluations in addition to summative written evaluations on an annual basis from
the Chair. Schedule colloquia where junior faculty may present their work to a broad
range of faculty (not just those in their areas) so that more colleagues will be invested in
and knowledgeable about their success.
*Make Sigma Tau Delta a stronger resource for graduates and undergraduates.
Conclusion
The department has been thoughtful about presenting solid, concrete plans for how they
will achieve their five goals, which we heartily support. Three of the goals are revenueneutral and only two require very little funding that could be shared across the
department, college, and provost’s office. Although the department is one with a heavy
workload and low resources, the morale is good and efforts to innovate admirable.
There is the inherent problem, however, that faculty at the assistant and associate level
may be recruited away by other competitive universities that offer better salaries and
stronger resources. The University’s administration can play a key role in ensuring the
future vitality of the department through strategic investment and other opportunities.
We cannot overestimate the importance of an academically rigorous English
Department to the mission and success of a research university.
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