The Department envisions that its greatest strength will continue to be its diverse and talented faculty, who give it the ability to offer a full range of courses and programs in writing and literature at all levels, from the Master of Fine Arts in English for exceptionally talented writers to developmental courses for at-risk students. The faculty will continue to devote careful attention to all students, whether they enroll for required composition courses, humanities credit in Liberal Studies, courses toward one of the minors or majors, graduate study toward an advanced degree or simply personal enrichment.
We envision that the Department of English will continue to reflect the broad diversity of kinds of writing and study of literature that comprise the field. In all of its related areas, the Department will continue to adapt to changing societal and local circumstances to keep meeting its overall goal of preparing our students for their future encounters with literature and writing. We envision that the membership of the Department will seek to mirror the range of theoretical, critical, pedagogical and subject area perspectives of the discipline at large, including the conflicts and tensions among those perspectives. In so doing, however, the Department will strive to maintain an atmosphere of overall harmony, cooperation and mutual respect. We thus envision our Department and its programs as maintaining both consistency and resiliency, reflecting the best of the proven traditional practices and areas of study while also actively exploring and including new areas and approaches as they develop.
The Department further envisions that the goal of its programs will be to promote and enhance literacy in its four different but complementary senses. Through instruction in composition across a range of levels and approaches, the Department will continue to promote rhetorical literacy, the logical and persuasive presentation of information and opinion. Through a range of courses in literature and creative writing, the Department will also continue to promote textual literacy, the sensitive and skilled production and analysis of literary texts. Through specific courses in film study and the consideration of the role of visual elements in composition, technical communication and traditional literature, and in new forms of literary production like hypertext and multimedia, the Department will seek to enhance visual literacy. Finally, through continued development of courses in world literature and cultural approaches to literature, the Department will seek to enhance cultural literacy, the sensitivity to the range of cultural practices and values across different cultures.
While many English majors will continue to be "converts" who decide during their undergraduate careers that their love of literature and writing outweighs their interest in more directly vocational studies, we will continue to develop "destination programs," programs of study with strong and unique appeal that will attract highly qualified students directly to the NMU English Department. The Department envisions that it will continue to produce students who are well prepared for a variety of future goals, whether they aim for graduate study in literature or writing, law, careers in various aspects of the business world, journalism, technical communication, teaching in secondary schools, or many other possible career fields.
The Department envisions that we will continue to set the University standard for cooperation and collaboration with other departments and programs.
- We plan to continue the current involvement of Department members in courses for Gender Studies, Honors, Languages, Native American Studies, Technical Communication and the First Year Experience.
- We plan to develop additional courses in Native American literature to support the projected growth of the Native American Studies program.
- We plan to develop additional programs in world literatures and languages in cooperation with Languages, perhaps eventually leading to the creation of a Center for the Study of World Languages and Literatures at NMU.
- We are exploring the possibility of expanding offerings in film study to create a Film Studies minor.
- We will explore the possible development of a Cultural Studies minor in cooperation with various other departments.
- We will strengthen the Journalism program through more collaboration with Communication and Performance Studies.
- Finally, we will seek ways to work in cooperation with Art and Design to enhance the study of the interaction of visual and textual elements in technical communication, in film, and in hypertext, multimedia and other new literary environments.
The Department envisions that we will continue to balance a focus on outstanding undergraduate and graduate teaching with a focus on scholarly and creative activity. The Department thus seeks both to contribute to knowledge in the discipline nationally and to create an environment in which scholarly and creative activities are modeled for our students. Collectively, the members of the Department seek to be active in both traditional and developing fields of literary study, in the study of writing and literature pedagogy, and in the production of scholarly and creative works of nationally recognized quality. In support of such activities, members of the Department will continue to involve themselves in participation and presentations at professional meetings and conferences, related professional travel, and participation in professional development and exchange opportunities sponsored by NEH, the Fulbright Scholar Program and other sources.
The Department envisions that we will continue to expand our efforts to make NMU a cultural center for the Upper Peninsula. The development of the MFA program will allow us to expand the number of Visiting Writer programs during the summer session and eventually to support a Writer in Residence during the academic year. We envision that Passages North will achieve even greater national recognition after gaining more permanent University-wide financial support, and that it will become a recognized hallmark of both the University and the Department. Through our professional activity in a number of scholarly organizations, we will also seek to attract various professional organizations to hold some of their meetings and conferences on our campus. As the premier teacher-training institution in the Upper Peninsula, we will continue to cooperate with and to provide professional support for Upper Peninsula schools and especially secondary school English teachers.
The Department envisions a future of broadened outreach to other constituencies and markets for the study of literature and writing. The Department will develop:
- Programs to serve lifetime learners who wish to explore leisure interests or develop additional skills.
- A broader range of courses and educational programs that are not limited to the classroom context or a local audience.
- Experiments to seek out and adopt the most effective instructional strategies, including efforts to be cost effective and to incorporate technology (to the degree that such efforts are made possible by sufficient University support and training opportunities).