Academic Program Review Report

Department of English

California State University, Sacramento

Review Team

Dr. Jackie Donath

Department of Humanities & Religious Studies

Dr. Sue Escobar Division of Criminal Justice

Dr. Thomas Krabacher (Chair) Department of Geography

External Consultants

Dr. Kathryn Rummell Chair, Department of English

California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo

Dr. Sugie Goen-Salter Chair, Department of English

San Francisco State University

Spring 2016

INTRODUCTION

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The Department of English program review took place during 2014 according to the following

schedule:

Fall 2012: Self-study proposal submitted

November 2013: completed Self-study submitted

Spring & Fall 2014: review team conducted program review and external consultant

visit

Additional interviews took place in spring and summer, 2015.

The review was carried out as part of the 2012-2013 review cycle of Program Review Pilot

Project Study. The Pilot Project offered programs the choice of three different review formats

from which to choose. The Department chose Option C, “Focused Inquiry,” in which the

program review is organized around the following three components:

A general overview of the program, including degrees offered, curriculum, students,

faculty, staff, and facilities, etc.

A review of the program’s assessment process.

A Focused Inquiry that examines “issues of particular interest/concern to the department

itself, in the context of what is currently important to the college and university.”

For its Focused Inquiry the English Department elected to examine three topics: (1) the

effectiveness of the program’s student internship and experiential learning opportunities, (2) an

evaluation of alternative organizational models employed by English Departments elsewhere that

might be applicable here, and (3) future hiring strategies. All of this was laid out very clearly in

the Department’s self-study.

Commendation 1: The English Department for its preparation of a very detailed and thoughtful Self-

Study, proved to be an invaluable resource to the review team over the course of the program review.

This report is organized around the three components of Option C. The review team is cognizant

of the fact that the review takes place following a period of budgetary turmoil for the CSU in

which the university and departments were in a state of fiscal retrenchment. Although restoration

of the CSU budget is underway, funding levels (particularly state general fund support) still

remain below what they were a decade ago. The recommendations in this report have been made

with this in mind.

Individuals Consulted:

The review team met with a large number of individuals during the review process, all of whom

were unfailingly helpful. We thank them for their time and cooperation:

Dr. David Toise, Chair, Department of English

Dr. Brad Buchanan, Immediate Past Chair, Department of English

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Dean Edward S. Inch, College of Arts & Letters

Associate Dean Kimo Ah Yun, College of Arts & Letters

Interim Associate Dean Nicholas Burnett, College of Arts & Letters

Dr. Kathryn Rummell (External Consultant), Chair of the Department of English, California State

Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo

Dr. Sugie Goen-Salter (External Consultant), Chair of the Department of English, San Francisco

State University

Full-Time Faculty, Department of English: Separate meetings with members of the following

faculty groups:

All department faculty

Literature Committee faculty

Writing Program faculty

TESOL faculty

Tenure/Tenure Track junior faculty

Part-Time Faculty (lecturers), Department of English (Writing Program)

Department of English office staff

Dr. Amy Liu, Director, Office of Academic Program Assessment (OAPA)

Undergraduate students in ENG 20

Undergraduate majors representing all concentrations

Graduate students representing all concentrations

Documents Consulted:

The following documents were consulted during the review process:

Department of English Documents:

Self-Study Proposal (Fall, 2012)

http://www.csus.edu/acaf/programreview/Self_Study_Proposal/12-13_Proposal/English_Proposal_12-13.pdf

English Department Self-Study (Fall, 2013)

http://www.csus.edu/acaf/programreview/Self_Study_Report/12-13_Reports/English_SSReport_12-13.pdf

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Department of English 2006-2007 Program Review Report

http://www.csus.edu/acaf/programreview/Program_Review/0607_ProgramRev/English_ProgramReview_06-

07.pdf

Assessment Plan, Department of English (2011)

Department of English Annual Assessment Reports (2011-12 and 2012-13) and

Feedback (2011-2012)

http://www.csus.edu/programassessment/pages/pagesinsideassessmentreports11-12/english.html

http://www.csus.edu/programassessment/annual-assessment/2012-13Reports/pdfs/12-

13%20English%20Assessment.pdf

http://www.csus.edu/programassessment/Docs/pdfsinsideassessmentreports11-12/English.pdf

Department of English 2012-2014 CSUS catalog listing

http://catalog.csus.edu/12-14/programs/engl.html

Department of English website

http://csus.edu/engl/

Department of English student advising worksheets:

o Undergraduate Graduation Worksheet (BA in English)

o Undergraduate Graduation Worksheet: Single Subject-Matter Requirements

(BA in English w. Pre-Credential Certificate)

o Graduate Program (MA) requirements worksheet (composition concentration)

o Graduate Program (MA) requirements worksheet (creative writing concentration)

o Graduate Program (MA) requirements worksheet (literatures concentration)

Department of English By-Laws

Course syllabi

Faculty curriculum vitae/résumés

Office of Institutional Research, Department of English Fact Book, Fall 2013

External Consultants’ Report for the Department of English

Program Review Pilot Study: Manual of Procedures for 2010-2011 Cycle

Office of Academic Program Assessment. Feedback for both the 2001-2012 and 2012-2013

Department of English Annual Assessment Reports http://www.csus.edu/programassessment/Docs/pdfsinsideassessmentreports11-12/English.pdf

Office of Academic Program Assessment. 2013-2014 Annual Program Review Template

http://www.csus.edu/programassessment/annual

assessment/Guidelines,%20Template%20and%20Example%20pdfs/13-14%20template%204-18.pdf

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Bousquet, Marc. “The Moral Panic in Literary Studies.” Chronicle of Higher Education, April 7,

2014.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Moral-Panic-in-Literary/145757/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

In addition to the above, the program review team also received separate written comments from

individual faculty and students, all of which were greatly appreciated and informed the review

team’s final report.

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SUMMARY OF COMMENDATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Commendations to the Department: 1. The English Department for its preparation of a very detailed and thoughtful Self-Study,

proved to be an invaluable resource to the review team over the course of the program review.

2. The English Program is commended for the role it plays as an early and key point of contact

for first-time students and the University when they arrive at Sacramento State.

3. The English Program is commended for its successful merger with the Learning Skills program

and the subsequent development of an effective two-semester “stretch” curriculum to serve as an alternative to the traditional remedial pre-baccalaureate composition classes.

4. The English Program is commended for offering a broad-based curriculum, both within and

outside the major, at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

5. The English Department and – most especially – its Writing Program and faculty are

commended for providing the courses (and offering the WPJ) necessary for undergraduate

students to satisfy the University’s graduation writing requirements.

6. The English Department is commended for preserving the diverse suite of undergraduate and

graduate programs in the major during the recent era of budget shortfalls, even though

considerable retrenchment and increased faculty workloads were required to do so.

7. The English Program is commended for achieving graduation rates for first-time freshmen and

undergraduate transfer students that consistently equal or exceed those of both the College of

Arts & Letter and the University as a whole.

8. The English Program is commended for its effective, student-friendly advising structure and

for the clarity of its major advising worksheets.

9. The English Program faculty are commended for the knowledge, expertise, enthusiasm, and

passion for both their teaching and their students.

10. The English Program faculty are commended for their willingness to take on the increased

workload and make the other adjustments necessary in order to maintain its programs and

meet the Department’s FTES targets in the face of heavy attrition in the number of

tenured/tenure-track faculty.

11. The English Department staff, despite their reduction in numbers in recent years, are

commended for the strong morale and hard work in providing the needed support to the

English programs, the faculty, and their students.

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12. The English Department is to be commended for the efforts it has made in implementing a

clear sustainable assessment plan.

13. The English Program is commended for carrying out a detailed and thoughtful Focused

Inquiry as part of their Self-Study. It is among the best that the members of the review team

have ever seen.

Commendations to the College of Arts & Sciences and/or Academic Affairs:

14. The Dean of Arts & Letters is to be commended for (1) providing a separate budget line for

the Composition program and (2) investigating the possibility of establishing a free-standing

Composition program as a way of resolving the internal conflict within the English program.

15. The Dean of Arts & Letters and the Office of Academic Affairs are commended for their

efforts in trying to resolve the internal conflicts within the English Program, and particularly

for authorizing five new tenure-line faculty hires in the past three years.

16. The English Department faculty, both lecturer and tenure-line, are commended for bringing

the Department back from a point of crisis at the time of the review and creating what is now a

stable and forward looking atmosphere in the English Program.

17. Department Chair David Toise is to be commended for his leadership in helping the English

Department weather the internal divisiveness that had plagued it in recent years.

Recommendations to the Department:

1. The Department work with the College Dean to develop a department budget that would allow

for some strategic roll-back of class size, including a reduction of the number of mega-format

(120 cap) sections without raising class size in other areas of the curriculum.

2. The Department is urged to review the wait times involved for students using the Writing

Center and, if it finds they are a barrier to students using the center, look to develop strategies

for reducing them.

3. The department is urged to examine the curricula for ENGL 5 (formerly ENGL 1A) and

ENGL 20 to determine whether there is a disconnect between the content of ENGL 5 and the expectations placed on students enrolling in ENGL 20.

4. The Department should review its committee structure in order to reduce the increased

amount of time faculty have been obligated to devote to committee work in recent years due to faculty attrition.

5. The Department should clarify the faculty scholarship expectations necessary for tenure and

promotion and ensure that these expectations are clearly communicated to junior faculty.

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6. The Department should seek funding from the College or elsewhere in order to equip part-time faculty/lecturer offices with sufficient computers to meet the needs of the faculty sharing those offices.

7. The English Department should work with OAPA to further strengthen its assessment plan by

(1) developing a rubric for evaluating how undergraduate programs are meeting their learning goals and (2) identifying a process by which the assessment results would be incorporated into program planning.

8. The English Department should work with OAPA to complete work on the development of an

assessment plan for evaluation of the English Department’s graduate level offerings.

9. Any further expansion of internships and experiential learning should only be undertaken after

it has been evaluated as part of a broader discussion of faculty workload.

10. The Department and Dean should work together to develop a long-term Department hiring

plan for tenure-track faculty in order to alleviate workload demands on current tenure-line

faculty and fill gaps in the English Program curriculum. One goal of the hiring plan should

be to achieve the minimum 60% tenure density identified by the Dean as necessary for

program stability (See p. 18).

Recommendations to the College of Arts & Letters:

10. The Department and Dean should work together to develop a long-term Department hiring

plan for tenure-track faculty in order to alleviate workload demands on current tenure-line

faculty and fill gaps in the English Program curriculum. One goal of the hiring plan should

be to achieve the minimum 60% tenure density identified by the Dean as necessary from

program stability (See p. 18).

Recommendation to the Faculty Senate:

Based on this program review, the Self-study report prepared by the Department of English and

the external consultant’s report, the Review Team recommends that all of the Department’s

degree programs be approved for six years or until the next scheduled program review

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I. English Program Overview

The English Department is one of the eleven academic units that make up the College of Arts &

Letters. At the time of the review the Department offered the following programs:

At the undergraduate level:

BA degree in English

BA degree in English w. Pre-Credential Preparation

Minor in English

Minor in Creative Writing

Minor in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)

TESOL Certificate A

At the post-baccalaureate level:

MA degree in English

MA degree in TESOL

Certificate in Teaching Composition

TESOL Certificate B

In addition to the above, the Department houses the University’s writing program and is

responsible for overseeing the University’s graduation writing requirements. As the review’s

external consultants noted:

“Unlike most other departments on campus, English is a point of contact for first-time entering students,

since all are required to take writing courses during their first year of enrollment.” They went on to point

out that “Retention statistics nationwide have long confirmed that the vast majority of students who drop

out of higher education do so in their first year. As such, the English Department provides a pivotal source

of support for CSUS students during this crucial first year . . .”

Commendation 2: The English Program is commended for the role it plays as an early and key point of

contact for first-time students and the University when they arrive at Sacramento State.

In the interval since the previous program review in 2007 the English Department was merged

with the former Learning Skills program. The merger proved to be a fairly complex process that

involved granting retreat rights to two tenured full professors from Learning Skills, Dr. Robby

Ching and Dr. Sue McKee, as well as integrating Learning Skills lecturers into the English

Department’s part-time hiring pools. Additionally, by the time of the review the Department had

begun offering a “stretch” curriculum (a two-semester sequence comprised of ENGL 10/10M and

ENGL 11/11M) as an alternative to the remedial pre-baccalaureate composition classes offered

by Learning Skills. A three-year longitudinal survey showed that the stretch curriculum offered a

noticeable improvement over the more conventional remedial course sequences: students both

pass the stretch course at higher rates than those taking the standard remedial course sequence

and equal or exceed them in meeting their GE writing requirements as well.

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Commendation 3: The English Program is commended for its successful merger with the Learning Skills

program and the subsequent development of an effective two-semester “stretch” curriculum to serve as an

alternative to the traditional remedial pre-baccalaureate composition classes.

A second – and more crucial – set of changes to affect the English Department since its previous

review has come about as a result of the severe budget reductions experienced by the CSU, and

Sacramento State in particular, during that period. This led to fiscal retrenchment on the part of

all campus programs and the English Department has been no exception. The most serious result

of this was to exacerbate the decline already underway in the number of tenure/tenure-track

faculty in the Department while, at the same time, increasing the workload of those who

remained. This, in turn, has intensified the divisions and divisiveness among Department faculty

that had been growing for a number of years. Both of these factors – the decline in tenure-line

faculty and the internal strife among faculty – underlie much of what follows in this report.

A. Program Response to Previous Program Review Recommendations

The English Department responded to 13 recommendations made by the previous 2006-07

program review. The majority of these (11) dealt with program assessment; as a result, the

Department’s response to these will be addressed in the section of this report dealing with

assessment, below. The other two recommendations to which the Department responded were:

The Department should update the job descriptions of each current staff member.

The Department should consult with the Office of Human Resources and the University

UARTP Committee as part of an effort to reduce the draconian elements of its current

part-time personnel policies and practices.

In both cases the Department took the recommendations seriously. The position descriptions of

its staff members have been updated, and it now has in place a revised, streamlined set of policies

and procedures for the evaluation of its part-time personnel.

B. Undergraduate Programs

The English Department offers a baccalaureate degree (BA) in English along two different tracks,

an English minor with a choice of three different concentrations, and a TESOL certificate for

undergraduates. (See Appendix I.)

The English BA degree is a 45-unit major that offers the student an overview of British and

American literary traditions, an introduction to literary theory, genres, basic language and

linguistics, composition, and literary analysis. The major is relatively loosely structured,

allowing the student to select 27 of the required units as electives. Since the previous review, the

Program did away with the Area Concentration requirement for the major. This was done in part

to increase student flexibility in the major and reduce the time to degree, but it was also

necessitated by the Department’s inability to offer an increasing number of courses on a regular

basis as a consequence of the ongoing loss of tenure/tenure-track faculty.

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The English BA with Pre-Credential Preparation is a 51-unit major and has more specific and

rigid requirements than the regular English BA. It is a pre-credential program and is intended for

students planning to seek a secondary school level teaching credential in English. Currently the

program is coordinated by Dr. Susan Fanetti. She advises all the students, reviews graduation

applications, and completes reports that are required by the CA state organizations that oversee

teacher credentialing and preparation. The coordinator position currently carries no assigned time.

The English minor (21 units) and Creative Writing minor (18 units) are relatively flexible, each

allowing students to identify 12 elective units to complete the program requirements.

The TESOL minor (18 units), however, is highly structured, and provides undergraduate students

with an introduction to the theory and practice of teaching English to non-native speakers. The

TESOL Certificate A is a 15-unit supplemental program of study that provides advanced training

in language instruction and is designed primarily for individuals who want to teach English

abroad. Although not a teaching credential, it is nonetheless recognized as evidence that the

student has advanced training in the subject.

Enrollment by undergraduate program is shown below. (Data for minors and certificates were

unavailable.) For the period since the previous program review enrollments (i.e., number of

majors) remained constant, with approximately one in eight majors in the College of Arts &

Letters having been in the English program.

Table 1. Enrollment by Undergraduate Program 2008-2012

Program 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

English BA 465 494 470 470 421

English (Pre-Credential) 0 0 0 4 38

Total 465 494 470 474 459

% College Total 12.1 12.4 13.1 13.0 `12.6

Source: Fall 2013 Department of English Fact Book

The Department’s undergraduate 4-, 5-, and 6-year graduation rates for first-time freshmen and

the 2-, 3, and 4-yr graduation rates for undergraduate transfers equaled or exceeded those of the

College for the cohorts for which data was available. In general, however, the Departments rates

for these groups fell below the corresponding rates for the University, a pattern that was true for

the College as well.

C. Graduate Programs

MA Degree in English: Graduate students may pursue a 30-unit MA degree in English in one of

three different concentrations: Literature, Composition, or Creative Writing. All concentrations

allow students considerable choice of electives. The literature concentration may be completed

by either thesis or exam (depending on GPA), the Composition concentration requires a thesis,

while the concentration in Creative Writing is by exam.

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The Teaching Composition Certificate is 15-18 unit supplemental program of study that provides

advanced training in composition teaching. It is not a degree program or teaching credential per

se, but represents formal recognition of completion of an organized, integrated, specialized

program of study and is intended to prepare graduate students who wish to teach English

composition at the college level.

The TESOL Master of Arts (MA) is a 33-unit program designed for students who intend to teach

English to non-native speakers in community colleges, adult education programs, or abroad. In

addition to the TESOL MA program the Department partners with the Peace Corps to offer the

Master’s International Program option, which allows students to earn credit toward a Master’s

Degree in TESOL in conjunction with their Peace Corps volunteer service.

The TESOL Certificate B is an 18-unit graduate level equivalent to the undergraduate TESOL

Certificate A described above. Again, it is not a teaching credential but it does provide advanced

training in language instruction and is recognized as evidence of such.

The TESOL offerings, like other programs in the Department, have been affected by several years

of budget cuts (see below). Enrollment for both graduate and undergraduate TESOL programs at

the time of the review was approximately 25 MA students and 40 seeking a certificate, with

approximately seven minors per semester.

The following table shows enrollment trends in the Departments graduate degree programs since

the previous program review.

Table 2. Enrollment by MA Program 2008-2012

Program* 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

English 102 91 70 55 49

English (Composition) 23 33 28 20 11

English (Creative Writing) 27 28 29 28 20

TESOL 43 38 32 22 31

Total 195 190 159` 125 111

% College Total 36.9 37.7 34.8 35.4 35.4

Source: Fall 2013 Department of English Fact Book

Trends show the graduate enrollments decreasing over this period among all degree types. A

comparison with the College data, however, suggests that this is likely a reflection of general

trends in the College of Arts & Letters and not necessarily the result of program-specific factors.

Commendation 4: The English Program is commended for offering a broad-based curriculum, both

within and outside the major, at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

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D. Service Offerings The university requires that all undergraduates satisfactorily complete, with a grade of “C-“ or

better, two-semesters of college-level English Composition courses, ENGL 5 and ENGL 20 (or

their equivalent) in order to graduate. In addition, students must satisfy the Graduation Writing

Assessment Requirement (GWAR) in order to graduate, the first part of which requires taking

either ENGL 109M or 109W, or by challenging the course by way of the Writing Placement for

Juniors (WPJ) examination.

Table 3. FTES and WTU by program/track 2010-1013

Source: Fall 2013 Department of English Fact Book

Note: Percentages don’t total to 100% due to rounding.

The English Department, specifically the composition faculty, is responsible for providing the

course offerings that enable students to meet these requirements, a responsibility that utilizes a

large majority of the Department’s instructional resources. As Table 3 illustrates, in the three

years leading up to the program review, 81.2% of the Department’s WTU went toward offering

the courses in composition, which provided 69.6% of the Department’s generated FTES.

E. Impact of Budget Cuts

All programs offered by the English Department have been affected by the budget cuts of the past

decade. The attrition in the tenured faculty ranks due to the inability to replace those who have

retired or otherwise separated, has made it difficult for the Department to offer as rich a schedule

of classes as it has in the past. An increasing number of classes are offered with less frequency

than they had in previous years and in other cases curricular areas go uncovered with faculty no

longer available to teach them. While the Department has been diligent in ensuring that a

sufficiently rich mix of course offerings is available each semester to allow students, with careful

planning, to meet their degree requirements, the student’s flexibility in scheduling and the range

of course options to choose from have been reduced. Class sizes have increased and the use of

‘mega’ sections (those with enrollments of 120 or greater) for lower-division survey courses has

increased, while lower enrolled classes, particularly specialized upper-division offerings, are now

subject to greater risk of cancellation. The higher enrollment caps on classes, particularly the

mega-format sections, are of concern not only because of increased faculty workload but because

it means that, to accommodate the larger size, compromises have to be made in the way classes

are offered, reducing the quality of the class experience for the student.

Program FTES FTES % WTU WTU %

Composition 4335.9 69.6 3091 81.2

BA: Literature 983.6 15.7 330 8.7

BA: Pre-Credential 222.6 3.6 84 2.2

Creative Writing 138.4 2.2 78 2.1

TESO L 551.4 8.8 219 5.7

Total 6231.9 3802

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The case of the TESOL program is illustrative of this. Since the onset of major budget cuts

beginning in 2008 the English Department has managed to preserve the TESOL programs, but at

the expense of significant retrenchment. At the graduate level the Department has retained the

certificate but has reduced the number of graduate program prerequisites. Class sizes have

increased while the frequency of class offerings has been reduced, with many courses only being

offered every third semester. The number of full-time faculty in the program (nominally 4, but

realistically 3 ½) are now not quite sufficient to cover classes and the program has now begun to

use lecturers.

Commendation 5: The English Department and – most especially – its Writing Program

and faculty are commended for providing the courses (and offering the WPJ) necessary for undergraduate

students to satisfy the University’s graduation writing requirements.

Commendation 6: The English Department is commended for managing to preserve its diverse suite of

undergraduate and graduate programs in the major during the recent era of budget shortfalls, despite the

fact that considerable retrenchment and increased faculty workloads were required to do so.

Recommendation 1: The Department work with the College Dean to develop a department budget that

would allow for some strategic roll-back of class size, including a reduction of the number of mega-format

(120 cap) sections without raising class size in other areas of the curriculum.

F. Students

Table 4 shows the general profile of undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in programs

offered by the English Department for the five years leading up to the program review. Table 2

(above) provides a breakdown of enrollment by specific program.

Table 4. Student Profile (semester avg.) 2008-2012

Total

Students

% Minority % Female

UG Major 472 28.3% 68.7%

College 12.6% 36.3% 60.3%

Graduate 161 17.1% 67.3%

College 36% 21.4% 64.4%

Source: Fall 2013 Department of English Fact Book

During that time the Department carried approximately 470 undergraduate and 160 graduate

students each semester, representing respectively 12.6% and 36% of the College totals. A

breakdown by ethnicity and gender show that approximately 28% of undergraduate and 17% of

graduate students self-identified as minorities, both of which fall below the overall College

average.

Graduation rates for both first-time freshmen and transfer student cohorts during the period since

the previous program review were above the averages for both the College and University (Tables

5 and 6).

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Table 5. English Program Graduation Rates for First Time Freshmen

Source: Fall 2013 Department of English Fact Book

Table 6. English Program Graduation Rates for Undergraduate Transfers

2-yr Rate 3-year Rate 4-yr Rate

Department 29.4 60.3 70.7

College 22.2 48.7 61.0

University 20.6 48.0 59.3

Source: Fall 2013 Department of English Fact Book

Commendation 7. The English Program is commended for achieving graduation for first-time freshmen

and undergraduate transfer students that consistently equal or exceed those of booth the College of Arts &

Letter and the University as a whole.

The review team met separately with groups of undergraduate and graduate students from the

Program; in addition, the team met students in a section of ENGL 20 to get input from non-

majors in one of the writing courses. The overall impression students in all groups had of their

faculty and classes was very positive. They complimented the faculty on their approachability,

the knowledge of and enthusiasm for the subject matter, and skill in the classroom. Nonetheless –

students being students -- there were minor criticisms and suggestions of ways things might be

improved.

Students in ENGL 20 were positive about their instructors and felt they were learning something

useful and that their writing was improving. They also liked the computer lab and the

opportunity to submit assignments electronically. At the same time, however, while they thought

the Writing Center was helpful, it often involved long wait times to see a tutor. Only 4 of the 29

students present in class that day had made use of the Center that semester; the most common

reason offered by those who didn’t was that the wait times made it too time-consuming to be

worthwhile.

Recommendation 2: The Department is urged to review the wait times involved for students using the

Writing Center and, if it finds they are a barrier to students using the center, look to develop strategies for

reducing them.

At second criticism was that there seemed at times to be a disconnect between ENGL 5 (formerly

ENGL 1A) and ENGL 20. Sometimes ENGL 20 instructors assumed that students had been

exposed to topics in ENGL 5 when that wasn’t the case. They saw a need for better coordination.

Recommendation 3: The Department is urged to examine the curricula for ENGL 5 (formerly ENGL

1A) and ENGL 20 to determine whether there is a disconnect between the content of ENGL 5 and the

expectations placed on students enrolling in ENGL 20.

4-year Rate 5-year Rate 6-yr Rate

Department 14.8 41.5 48.3

College 10.6 31.8 41.7

University 9.0 29.8 41.0

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Among English majors and graduate students there were also strong positive feelings about the

faculty. Everyone liked and respected the faculty and praised their commitment. They felt fully

supported by the Program. They appreciated the flexibility of the course requirements, which

facilitated their progress to degree. They spoke appreciated the advising opportunities available

from the Department and praised the clarity and helpfulness of the detailed requirements

worksheets for the undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

Commendation 8: The English Program is commended for its effective, student-friendly advising

structure and for the clarity of its major advising worksheets .

The most common criticism from undergraduate majors involved the scheduling and availability

of course offerings. While some complaints were voiced about the times and days during which

specific classes were offered (a seemingly universal student complaint regardless of the program),

the bigger issue was the unavailability of courses listed in the catalog. While they acknowledged

that the flexibility in the major requirements has meant that they can always find something to

take that counts toward their degree, the repeated non-availability of specific classes they hoped

to take was an ongoing frustration.

The graduate students with whom the review team met also praised the faculty, many of whom

they worked with on an individual level. They had concerns, however, about the state of the

English Program and expressed them in detail. They basically fell into two categories:

1) The need for more faculty:

Creative Writing – Students felt there were not enough faculty. With only two faculty,

course offerings are limited and it becomes a real problem when one of them goes on

leave. They feels there’s a shortage of creative writing classes in the key genres.

Composition – Similar concerns existed. Course offerings were limited, making it

difficult to provide a composition class for students each semester. Student schedules

frequently have to be padded with a TESOL or literature course. Lack of a composition

theory course bemoaned. Limited diversity in the composition courses offered.

Students can complete their Composition certificate on schedule with careful planning,

but there is little flexibility here, and progress to completion can be delayed if a class is

cancelled.

TESOL – Same concern as for Composition: the every-third-semester rotation makes it

difficult to ensure that there is a course to take each semester. A one-semester delay in

taking a course can mean a 3-semester delay in graduating.

Literature: Students were frustrated in that while there were a lot of courses in the

catalog, many were not offered due to a lack of faculty to teach them.

2) Department Discord:

Students were well aware of the faculty discord in the Department and have felt its impact.

Specific observations included the following:

The impact is not always overt but it’s there in the form of rumors, stress, and uncertainty.

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There is a feeling that the “Students come first attitude” is not always there.

Literature students who want to take a composition class sometimes feel they have to

prove themselves.

Students feel they’re no longer viewed as simply a graduate student in English but are

increasingly being asked to identify themselves as to which camp they fall into: Literature,

Composition, or TESOL.

As one student succinctly put it, “It feels like mom and dad are fighting.” And it isn’t pleasant.

G. Faculty

The external consultants observed in their report that:

“Without a doubt, the biggest strength of the English Department is its faculty. Undergraduates

and graduate students alike praised the faculty for their knowledge, expertise, enthusiasm, and

passion. Additionally, they were grateful for the welcoming atmosphere created by the faculty,

which facil itated students’ comfort in class, in office hours, and in campus conversations.”

The program review team wholeheartedly agrees with this assessment, as indicated in its

comments on student attitudes above. In recent years, however, the English department faculty

has found itself facing serious challenges as result of the attrition of tenure-tenure track faculty in

its ranks that has occurred over the past decade (or longer).

Commendation 9: The English Program faculty are commended for the knowledge, expertise,

enthusiasm, and passion for both their teaching and their students .

At the time of the program review, the English Department faculty consisted of 25 tenured or

tenure-track faculty members, seven of whom had entered the FERP program and were only

teaching half-time. This left the Department at the time of the review, in effect, with 18 full-time

tenure-track faculty. This number was less than half the size of the Department’s tenure-track

faculty in 2001 but, as several faculty members have pointed out, the Department is still being

asked to serve the same number of students. Much of the decline has taken place since the last

program review in 2007 (see Appendix 2), resulting in major gaps in curriculum coverage. At the

time of the review, the distribution of tenure-line faculty by program area was as follows:

Literature 9

Composition 2

TESOL 4

Creative Writing 2

English Education 1

Gaps have begun to appear in the curriculum, particularly in the case of literature; some areas

have no faculty and in others coverage is only one faculty deep.

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Despite depletion of the tenure-track faculty ranks the Department has been able to continue

meeting its FTES targets through larger class sizes, particularly in the lower-division survey

courses, and the increased use of lecturers (non- tenure track faculty). Approximately 40

lecturers were accounting for between 700-800 WTU, almost all of it in teaching composition

courses at the time of the review.

Commendation 10: The English Program faculty are commended for their willingness to take on the

increased workload and make the other adjustments necessary in order to maintain its programs and meet

the Department’s FTES targets in the face of heavy attrition in the number of tenured/tenure -track faculty.

There is an urgent need for tenure-track faculty hiring, a situation the external consultants have

described as ‘dire.’ As the English Department notes in the Self-Study, with this “massive loss of

faculty . . . the English Department is in danger of no longer being able to serve its major or

graduate programs adequately, and the paucity of tenure-track faculty has meant a huge increase

in workload for individual faculty members.” The review team refers the reader to Section 3 – III

of the Self-Study (“Focused Inquiry: Hiring Strategies”) where the consequences of the loss of

tenure-track faculty are discussed in detail.

The Dean of Arts & Letters has agreed, arguing that a 60% tenure density (the ratio of tenure-

track to non-tenure-track faculty, based on generated FTES) is the minimum needed for program

stability. The challenge for the Department has been to rank its hiring needs. The need to hire

exists across all program areas (see Appendix 2 and student comments above) and, given that the

most the Department can expect is to be authorized to conduct one to three faculty searches a year

under a best case scenario, the debate over prioritization has contributed to the tension within the

Department.

In addition to difficulties in covering the curriculum, the attrition of the tenure-track faculty ranks

has created problems in other areas as well. First, faculty workload is increasing. This was a

major complaint of all faculty, especially those in the junior ranks. This has come about not only

as a result of larger class sizes – mega-sections of the lower-division survey courses can contain

up to 120+ students each. Of equal concern, however, was the growing burden of Department

committee obligations. Committee workload has increased significantly; currently 20 faculty

must staff up to 10 committees, each with a membership of 4-6 each. In the past, one could

expect to serve on 2 committees, now it can be up to 5. The external consultants identified this

as a priority issue that the Department needs to address. The review team agrees.

Recommendation 4: The Department should undertake a review of its committee structure in order to

reduce the increased amount of time faculty have been obligated to devote to committee work in recent

years due to faculty attrition.

Second, the opportunities to engage in scholarship are increasingly restricted. Faculty feel there

has been a noticeable decrease in time available for scholarship. Workload means that, more

often than not, it can no longer do it during the semester, but other summer demands can make it

difficult to find time for it in the summer. The perception is that this is exacerbated by the fact

18

that the previous generation didn’t place much emphasis on scholarship so the support structures

aren’t in place. This is increasingly becoming an issue as new faculty members are brought on

board.

Recommendation 5: The Department should clarify the faculty scholarship expectations necessary for

tenure and promotion and ensure that these expectations are clearly communicated to junior faculty.

Connected to the above, there is a sense that expectations for scholarship are unclear and fail to

take into account the changing circumstances of recent years. Whether accurate or not, among

junior faculty this is particularly felt to be the case at the Dean and Provost levels. A strong

tradition in this regard doesn’t exist, and a number of faculty – especially junior faculty – s tated

the felt that current expectations in this area have not been clearly articulated.

H. Staff and Facilities

The English Department is housed primarily in Calaveras Hall with additional faculty offices in

and Douglas Hall. Classes are taught primarily (but not exclusively) in those buildings as well.

Calaveras Hall also contains the Department’s main offices, a study lounge (Rm 126) and the

Writing Center and Lab (Rms 128 & 128A). Tenure-track faculty have individual offices while

lecturer office space is shared. The latter increasingly has become a concern as the number of

lecturers has increased. Currently there are 11 shared offices for lecturer faculty, but they are

equipped with only one computer each. Five of the offices require three or more faculty members

to share one computer and, in one case, a single computer was shared by seven lecturers.

Computer access, more than the idea of shared office space, was the principal problem. The

Department chair identified this as a problem that needed to be addressed.

Recommendation 6: The Department should seek funding from the College or elsewhere in order to equip

part-time faculty/lecturer offices with sufficient computers to meet the needs of the faculty sharing those

offices.

There are currently four staff (one ASC-I and three ASC-II) working in the Department office. In

the past the number used to be six, but tight budgets in recent years have reduced the number to

four. At the time of the program review these consisted of an office supervisor, a staff person

with responsibility for the writing program (GE and the GWAR), and an office receptionist on a

10-12 appointment, who tended to spend much of his time either working with students or with

the writing program. The Department was attempting to get this position reclassified as a year-

round 12-month position. The fourth staff member at the time of the review was out on

pregnancy leave.

The office staff described their morale as good, noting that the work gets done even with the

smaller staff size than in recent years. Working relationships with the faculty were described as

generally good.

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Commendation 11: The English Department staff, despite their reduction in numbers in recent years, are

commended for the strong morale and hard work in providing the needed support to the English programs,

the faculty, and their students.

II. Assessment The 2007 program review contained 11 recommendations related to assessment that, when taken

together, recommended that the English Department, working in conjunction with the Faculty

Coordinator for Assessment, revisit and update its assessment plan to bring it in line with

university assessment guidelines. Recommendations included:

the development of specific departmental and/or programmatic learning expectations for both

undergraduate and graduate programs;

the identification of meaningful ways of measuring how effectively individual programs

meet the agreed-upon learning goals;

providing students with a set of clear and specific learning goals and expectations;

Establishing procedures that delineate the use of data for program modification.

The English Department began the process in 2009 when it replaced its Graduate and

Undergraduate Programs committees with a Curriculum and Assessment Committee.

This was followed in 2011 by an updating and revision of the Department assessment plan and

learning outcomes to be more cohesive and to align the Department-level more explicitly with the

university’s Baccalaureate Learning Goals. The new assessment now follows a five-year cycle,

with each of the first four years examining a different learning outcome and the fifth year

providing a holistic overview of the cycle. The four principal learning outcomes focus on:

Critical reading

Critical writing

Scholarly Research

Content Area Knowledge

The Director of the Office of Program Assessment (OAPA) noted that this was a big step forward

in the development of the English Department’s assessment process. The plan has been in use for

the past several review cycles. As the OAPA director also noted, the Department now needs to

(1) develop a rubric for evaluating how its undergraduate programs are meeting their learning

goals and (2) identify a process by which the results would be incorporated into program

planning.

Commendation 12: The English Department is to be commended for the efforts it has made in

implementing a clear sustainable assessment plan.

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Recommendation 7: The English Department should work with OAPA to further strengthen its

assessment plan by (1) developing a rubric for evaluating how undergraduate programs are meeting their

learning goals and (2) identifying a process by which the assessment results would be incorporated into

program planning.

Development of an assessment plan for the evaluation of the English Department’s graduate

offerings, including TESOL and the various certificates, was not yet complete at the time of the

review.

Recommendation 8: The English Department should work with OAPA to complete work on the

development of an assessment plan for evaluation of the English Department’s graduate level offerings.

III. Focused Inquiry

Guidelines for the program review pilot study hold that the focused inquiry should address

“issues of particular interest/concern to the department itself, in the context of what is currently

important to the college and university.” The English Department decided to focus on the

following three topics for its focused inquiry.

1. The role of internships and experiential learning in the curriculum

The Department generally agreed that experiential learning offered a positive experience for its

students. As one faculty member noted, such an experience would be useful since many of their

students have little idea what they will do with their English major; such as experience “would

help them envision some of the possibilities for their future.” At the same time , it was pointed

out that internships are labor intensive for the instructor and that their supervision often has to be

done on overload. Currently, 35-50 are enrolled for an experiential learning or internship

experience each semester.

The goal of this part of the focused inquiry was to assess how the Department was coping with

the workload and administrative demands of these activities and identify what future possibilities

might exist. A questionnaire was circulated to faculty asking them about their experience in

administering internship experiences or conducting experiential learning, and asking them about

what they saw as potential future opportunities. The results of the survey were mixed and no

clear consensus was reached.

The review team refers the Department to the observations on this topic found in the external

consultants’ report, namely that the Department not expand internship opportunities until a way is

found to compensate faculty for the supervisory work it entails.

Recommendation 9: Any further expansion of internships and experiential learning should only be

undertaken after it has been evaluated as part of a broader discussion of faculty workload.

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2. Alternative Models of Diverse English Departments

The English Department elected to conduct a survey other English Departments of similar size

and diversity to see if there were other organizational models that might inform its own future.

The question was open-ended and, as the self-study notes, the conversation lacked a clear sense

of direction: there was not unanimous agreement that there was a need change.

The inquiry helped the Department identify several key issues about the major and the structure

of the Department. It also suggested possible steps the Department might wish to take should it

choose to move forward in addressing these issues. No concrete course of action resulted from

this inquiry.

3. Hiring Strategies

This inquiry comes in direct response to fact that over the past decade the Department has lost 29

tenured/tenure-track faculty members, during which time they have replaced only four. In

addressing the inquiry the Department analyzed its faculty needs in terms of what they meant for

the stability, capacity, and efficiency of both the Department’s administrative workload and for

the health of its programs. Possible hiring plans were then proposed. (See Recommendation 10).

. . . . . .

The review team notes the thoughtfulness and comprehensiveness of English Program’s focused

inquiry. It is one of the best examples of this element of a self-study that the team has ever seen.

The team also notes that question #2 and #3 have direct relevance for the subject that follows

below.

Commendation 13: The English Program is commended for carrying out a detailed and thoughtful

Focused Inquiry as part of their Self-Study. It is among the best that the members of the review team have

ever seen.

IV. Collegiality & Divisiveness

As has been referred to earlier in this report, the English faculty in recent years has been riven by

severe factionalism. The review team found that throughout the program review the subject

dominated discussions at all levels, from meetings with undergraduate majors to the College

Dean. The review team commonly heard terms such as turmoil, civil war, demoralization, and

toxic environment used to describe the current relations among faculty within the Department.

There was a general sense that collegiality had been greatly damaged; everyone was quick to take

offense. This feeling was especially strong among junior faculty. Several faculty departures

from the program, either through retirement or by moving on to positions elsewhere, have been

attributed to this. Addressing this situation must be the top priority of both the Department and

the College. All other recommendations in this report are of secondary importance.

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The roots appear to go back well over a decade. While much of it originated in philosophical

differences over departmental priorities, in more recent years these have been exacerbated by

budget cuts and the decline in the number of tenure-track faculty over the last decade. By the time

of the program review it had reached the level of frequently being personalities-driven with

faculty grievances against one another, either as individuals or as groups.

In recent years, tensions have focused on the role of Composition/Rhetoric program in the

Department. At the time of the program review the Composition program had been reduced to

two full-time tenured faculty following the loss of two other faculty members in recent years. A

result of this was that the remaining two faculty felt themselves marginalized in Departmental

decision-making. The Composition faculty in particular have felt their program short-changed in

recent resource allocation decisions, most notably faculty hiring. The issue is further complicated

by the fact the Composition program is the largest FTES generator in the Department, employees

all (or mostly all) of the Department’s 40 or so lecturers each semester, and utilizes all 36 units of

the Department’s available assigned time. As a solution, the Composition faculty has sought to

separate from English and become its own department, citing the separation of Communication

Studies from the English Department over 30 years ago as precedent.

On the other side of the divide, the literature faculty also feel frustrated and short-changed. They

find themselves teaching larger classes, including mega-sections, in order to support the lower-

enrolled composition classes. While they acknowledge the pedagogical reasons for keeping

composition class size low, they nonetheless feel that the literature faculty are increasingly

expected to fund the Department FTES. And, again, such sentiments are only made worse as the

faculty are being increasingly stretched thin as faculty retirements are not replaced by new hires.

Both sides agree, however, that much of the conflict reflects generational changes within both the

Department and the field of English generally. Fifteen years ago the Department was mostly

literature-based, but that has changed. Composition and Rhetoric has emerged as a separate

discipline nationwide, and it has brought to the English program its own separate set of concepts,

including distinctive pedagogical models. On the discipline level this has contributed to a “silo-

ization” of the faculty, with little overlap between those who teach literature and composition.

While the Department had in the past a large contingent of faculty who regularly taught both

literature and composition, they are now gone. The review team came away with the impression

that, increasingly, the two ‘sides’ saw themselves as, increasingly, having little in common with

one another.

TESOL has largely been able to stay on the edges of the conflict although there is some tension

here with Composition as well, primarily because it finds itself in conflict with them over control

of the multilingual writing program.

No easy solutions present themselves. Tensions were relieved somewhat after the Dean provided

the Composition program with a separate budget line and suggested that the two remaining full-

time Composition faculty stop attending English Department faculty meetings. This, however,

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had the unintended consequence of making the Composition faculty feel even more isolated and

marginalized than before.

At the time of the review, the Composition faculty saw the only viable long-term solution to be

the establishment of a free-standing Composition program independent for the English

Department. The program review team, however, does not see this as realistic. Two faculty are

too small to serve as the basis for separate department without an undergraduate major, the costs

of setting up a separate department (office space and staff) would be significant, and – for all the

divisiveness – curriculum and degree requirements continue to tie Composition and the English

program together. Moreover, the Dean of Arts & Letters reportedly made some preliminary

inquiries but was unable to find a new home for the program.

Commendation 14: The Dean is to be commended for (1) providing a separate budget line for the

Composition program and (2) investigating the possibility of establishing a free-standing Composition

program as a way of resolving the internal conflict within the English program.

A large part of any solution will have to come in the form of new faculty hires, which would help

to both relieve pent-up curricular and workload needs and, equally importantly, broaden the

Department culture and bring new thinking that might ameliorate some of the current

resentments. The external consultants, arguing that the Composition program is “on life support”,

have recommended that, with the next two faculty hires, priority be given to Composition.

The review team, however, strongly disagrees with this recommendation. Not only would it be

politically unviable, sparking vehement protest from the faculty in the Literature, Creative

Writing, and TESOL faculty, it ignores the pressing needs of the other programs as well. Instead,

while acknowledging the urgency of Composition’s tenure-track faculty needs, it urges that the

English Department be approved for two faculty searches: one in Composition and one in

Literature. Subsequent hiring must then focus on the needs of the Creative Writing and TESOL

programs as well.

Recommendation 10: The Department and Dean should work together to develop a long-term Department

hiring plan for tenure-track faculty in order to alleviate workload demands on current tenure-line faculty

and fill gaps in the English Program curriculum. One goal of the hiring plan should be to achieve the

minimum 60% tenure density identified by the Dean as necessary from program stability (See p. 18).

Ultimately, the solution to the currently existing faculty discord, however, is likely only to come

with time.

V. Spring 2016 Update

As described in the introduction, this report is based upon the English Department’s 2013 Self-

Study and the meetings between the review team and members of the Department in 2014 and

early 2015. Several events have taken place since that time, however, that have changed things

significantly for the better.

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First, a new faculty member joined the Department in 2014-15 and is now in his second year, as

part of the Literature program. Second, the Department was approved to conduct two faculty

searches for positions starting in Fall 2015. Both searches were successful and two new tenure-

track faculty have now joined the English Department. Both have a background in teaching

writing. One has a PhD in Education with experience in composition and writing across the

disciplines. The second is a specialist in English Education and was formerly the director of the

writing program at Arizona State. Both are in their first year as faculty at Sacramento State and

appear to be fitting in well.

Third, two additional searches were approved, and were successful, for tenure track faculty who

will join the Department in Fall 2016, one in Composition and the other in Literature.

Commendation 15: The Dean of Arts & Letters and the Office of Academic Affairs are commended for

their efforts in trying to resolve the internal conflicts within the English Program, and particularly for

authorizing five new tenure-line faculty hires in the past three years.

The result has been five new faculty hires in three years and the effect has been positive. The

turmoil among the English faculty has died down and, with that, people are starting to re-engage

again. Not all problems have been solved but things appear to have stabilized. According to the

chair, the Department seems to have regained its forward momentum. The Department now

hopes to host a national academic conference (Council of Writing Program Administrators) in

2018; the effort to bring the event to campus is spearheaded by one of the new faculty hires.

Commendation 16: The English Department faculty, both lecturer and tenure-line, are commended for

bringing the Department back from a point of crisis at the time of the review and creating what is now a

stable and forward looking atmosphere in the English Program.

Commendation 17: Department Chair David Toise is to be commended for his leadership in helping the

English Department weather the internal divisiveness that had plagued it in recent years.

VI. Conclusion

The Department of English Program Review Team recommends the following to the Faculty Senate:

Recommendation: Based on this program review, the Self-study report prepared by the Department of

English and the external consultant’s report, the Review Team recommends that all of the Department’s

degree programs be approved for six years or until the next scheduled program review.

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Appendix I: English Program Requirements I. Undergraduate Program Requirements: Undergraduate BA: 45 units -- 27-30 UD

Required LD courses: Includes 3 survey courses

Required UD courses: Advanced Comp (ENG 120A) & Senior Seminar ENG 198T

Required: one historical breadth course (choices available)

Electives: 27-30 (18 UD)

Undergraduate BA – Single-Subject Matter (Pre-Credential Preparation): 51 units

Minor: 12 units (at least 12 UD)

9 units specific requirements (Brit & American surveys, & a Shakespeare)

Minor-Creative Writing: 18 units (6 required, 12 elective)

Minor- TESOL: 18 units (s required course, no electives)

Required courses: 39 units – Literature coursework

Required courses: 12 units – Core language courses

TESOL Certificate A (undergraduate): 15 units

Required courses: 9 units (3 specified courses)

Electives courses: 6 units in Pegagogy (2 courses selected from a list of 3)

II. Graduate Program Requirements

Master of Arts Degree – 3 concentrations: Composition, Creative Writing, Literature

Literature Concentration: 30 units (Thesis or comprehensive examination options)

Required Courses: 9 units

Elective Courses: 18 units

Culminating Requirement: 3 units

Composition Concentration: 30 units (Thesis)

Required:12 9 units

Electives: 15 units

Culminating Requirement: 3 units

Creative Writing Concentration: 30 units (Exam)

Required:12 9 units

Electives: 15 units

Culminating Requirement: 3 units

Master of Arts Degree – TESOL: 33 units

Required Courses: 9 units

Elective Courses: 18 units

Culminating Requirement: 3 units

TESOL Certificate B (graduate): 18 units

Required courses: 9 units (3 specified courses)

Electives courses: 6 units in Pegagogy (2 courses selected from a list of 3)

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Appendix II: English Attrition of Tenure/Tenure-Track Faculty since 2007 Program Review

Between the time of the previous program review (2007) and the beginning of the current review, Changes

in the composition of the English tenure/tenure track faculty were as follows:

Faculty Separations: 29 total

Fourteen tenure-track faculty members retured and finished their FERP

seven began FERPing

eight left for positions elsewhere

Faculty Additions/Replacements (hired & retained): 4 total

Tenure-line faculty losses during this period due to retirements or FERPS, along with areas of

expertise, are as follows:

1. Richard Adams (British Literature, Shakespeare)

2. Lucien Agosta (English Education, Literary Pedagogy, Career Advising, British Literature)

3. Stephanie Antalocy (Shakespeare, Career Advising, Women’s Studies, Writing for Television

and Film, Professional Writing)

4. David Bell (British Literature, Composition, Rhetoric)

5. Robby Ching (TESOL, ESL)

6. Angus Dunstan (English Education, Children’s Literature, Literary Pedagogy)*

7. Marie Helt (TESOL, Applied Linguistics, Gender and Language, Corpus Linguistics)

8. Mark Hennelly (British Literature, Film, Fiction)

9. Jack Jamieson (American Literature, Literary Theory, Literary Criticism)

10. Mary Mackey (Creative Writing, Poetry, Fiction, Film)

11. David Madden (American Literature, Postcolonial Literature, Irish Literature)*

12. Fred Marshall (TESOL, Applied Linguistics)

13. Sue McKee (TESOL, ESL)

14. Robert Meindl (British Literature, Medieval Literature)

15. Jon Price (American Literature, Fiction, Composition)

16. Ron Santora (Drama, Literary Pedagogy)

17. Hortense Simmons (American Literature, African-American Literature, Women’s Studies)

18. Cherryl Smith (Composition, Rhetoric)*

19. Chauncey Ridley (American Literature, African-American Literature)*

20. Ron Tanaka (Creative Writing, Poetry, Literary Criticism, Literary Theory)

21. Stephanie Tucker (Drama, Fiction, American Literature, British Literature)

(* currently still teaching classes through the FERP program)

The following left to take positions elsewhere:

22. Linda Buckley (TESOL, Applied Linguistics, Gender and Language

23. Dana Ferris (TESOL, Applied Linguistics, ESL)

24. Cathy Gabor (Composition, Rhetoric)

25. Fiona Glade (Composition, Rhetoric)

26. Supriya Goswami (Postcolonial Literature, Children’s Literature)

27. Peter Grandbois (Creative Writing, Fiction, Latin American Literature)

28. Wendy Matlock (British Literature, Medieval Literature)

29. Sheree Meyer (Renaissance Literature, Literary Criticism, Women’s Studies)*

* Now Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies

New tenure-track faculty hires:

Susan Fanetti (English Education, Children’s Literature, American Literature)

Reiko Komiyama (TESOL, Applied Linguistics, ESL/EFL)

Mi-Suk Seo (TESOL)

Kim Zarins (Medieval Literature, Children’s Literature)