Remember the Writing University Task Force? That was that vast group of people from many constituencies, including Journalism, CCL, Communication Studies, Rhetoric, the Writers’ Workshop, POROI, and, from English, myself, Ed Folsom, and Robin Hemley, chaired by Associate Provost Pat Cain and Chris Merrill, who met repeatedly and at much length last year considering various aspects of writing at the UI, and concluded, on most issues, that there was a lot to be said on all sides. Which we did. At the end of a year, we seemed to have decided to make a website (the Virtual Writing University, apparently a very impressive website, to be released one of these days soon) and to record a split opinion on just about every other issue. As I reported at that time, the discussion that promised the most potential impact on the English Department was talk of a new undergraduate writing major. A somewhat complicated proposal was floated, discussed, and shelved.

Apparently undaunted, this year Pat and Chris convened a much smaller task force specifically to consider the possibilities of a writing major. This small group has proportionately greater representation from English—myself, Robin Hemley, Dee Morris, Doug Trevor—alongside Alan MacVey (Theatre Arts) and Russell Valentino (Russian/CCL, Translation Workshop). Apparently the Writers’ Workshop declined to attend since we were discussing undergraduate matters. But the charge of even starting to think about a writing degree made no sense without some realistic sense of the resources available. A new degree involves new faculty and we needed to know if that was a possibility. Chris promised us a second meeting to be attended by the Provost and by the Dean of CLAS where we could learn precisely that kind of thing.

And so I was expecting a meeting with much fire power, but perhaps limited excitement, when I dutifully turned up last week. Imagine my surprise to find also in attendance two students from English, Amy Domeyer and Sam Larsen-Ferree, along with Mary Ann Rasmussen and her honors program assistant, Kelly Ruth Anderson. My surprise increased when the meeting began with a presentation by Mary Ann and the students. And surprise turned into discomfiture as the students launched into an attack on the Department of English for the inadequacy of our writing concentration and their disappointment at coming to the UI only to find that faculty don’t teach undergraduates creative writing here—a disappointment shared by 151 student signatories to their online petition and some kind of developing Face Book presence. Should I be hearing this for the first time in front of my Dean and my Provost, I couldn’t help wondering? Do these students even know who the Provost is, I wondered? But even as I wondered those things, I was also having contradictory thoughts. These students are smart, I couldn’t help noticing, and articulate and passionate and organized and persuasive. These students are a great advertisement for the English Department! These students make us look good even as they are berating us, I thought. (Note to self: can we make the measure of Outcomes Assessment how well our majors can lead an agitation against us?)

And nor, to be fair, was the main thrust of their presentation to complain about the English Department but rather to make a proposal—“that the UI create a Creative Writing Track for the current English major”—as it says in bold on page 3 of their six-page handout, presented on behalf of “The Undergraduate Creative Writing Task Force.” They propose broadly keeping our existing major requirements in an 18 s.h. Literature requirement and adding an 18 s.h. Writing requirement that would offer courses at multiple levels in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. The Nonfiction Writing Program was held up as a model of how this can be done. The Creative Writing Track that they proposed would be selective, catering to a limited number of elite undergraduate writing students. The main additional need, they suggested, would be for faculty to offer advanced courses in undergraduate fiction and poetry writing beyond the 08C:097 and 08C:098 sections currently taught by Writers’ Workshop graduate students and currently counting towards our major. They envisaged two new faculty in fiction writing and two in poetry writing. To reinforce the point they provided another handout listing the myriad of Undergraduate Creative Writing programs at other CIC universities (mostly unimpressive when you looked at the small print, but who actually reads a handout at a meeting?) and at other rival institutions, just some of the 331 undergraduate writing opportunities that we are not providing.

Aha, thought I, if these students had been on our Task Force last year we might have seen less discussion and more outcome. They are making suggestions that appear reasonable but are, in fact, unthinkable on account of the political realities and minefields of the institution. Foremost, what last year seemed to involve every possible writing constituency on this campus seems to have just become an internal matter for the Department of English, which would call for a very different committee charge from the one we came into this meeting with. Except this is unthinkable because creative writing is the territory of the Writers’ Workshop, an independent unit that is not the Department of English. Institutionally speaking, there are huge problems here, but, by fearlessly ignoring all the pitfalls, these students are making thinkable what a faculty committee never got close to in a year. And the energy and the articulate idealism of these students is rather forceful, thought I. I wonder what the Provost is going to do about this.

The Provost’s first question was: do you really need 18 s.h.? Couldn’t you manage just as well with 15 s.h.? That gave me an uncanny sense that he might be reading my mind (I was looking at 18 s.h. in Literature courses and subtracting it from our current 33 s.h. requirement for the major and thinking the whole thing would be more elegant for us if the track could be trimmed so that it took the same number of hours as the current major). 15 s.h. would be fine, they said. Then the Provost politely got them to leave and the original committee resumed discussion. Alan MacVey presented the original writing major proposal, which now looked rather under-theorized as well as unlikely in its complicated iteration of 36 s.h. presented on one side of a greying sheet of paper. Then we all made our various pitches pretty much directly to the Provost. Dean Maxson pointed to the extensive faculty needs of CLAS and how it isn’t helpful to have new faculty lines given directly to any initiative behind the back of the existing College structures. Robin made a pitch for the need for a particular kind of high-visibility director. Dee made a passionate plea for the need for any initiative to feature tenure-track faculty, not temporary adjuncts.

As the hour came to an end, I figured we would finally know our true marching orders as the Provost told us what resources he was going to devote to the initiative. But I was wrong. “You’ve given me much to think about,” he said—and, to my surprise, left.

And so, this story is necessarily incomplete. I still don’t know if anything is going to happen and if it is going to impact the English Department. But it does now seem to me that the student proposal of a Creative Writing Track within the Department of English is the idea that has most traction, and is frankly the most attractive. I take seriously the suggestion of our executive committee that I should meet with Sam Chang and try to work up some joint English/Writers’ Workshop response to the proposal, although the Writers’ Workshop is, of course, an independent unit that can choose to participate or not. Whatever the outcome of that, and as soon as I hear more of what the Provost is going to enable, I can see that this is an issue that the department as a whole will need to discuss. Since we are now in the season of promotion review meetings, my current plan is to hold a faculty meeting to discuss our position on a Writing Track at the beginning of next semester, one week before the meeting we will need to hold on our five-year hiring plan and faculty requests for next year. However, if things develop faster than I foresee, I may yet need to call a special meeting on this issue this semester.

Graduate Matters

You will remember that CLAS has initiated a strategic assessment of all departments’ graduate programs. In conjunction with that review, I’ve recently received more data on our graduate programs which I’ll share with you in a subsequent Reading Matters. That review process is likely to allow comparisons between graduate programs within the university that may have significant impact on the distribution of resources.

At the same time, the Graduate College is overseeing the review of graduate programs that is currently being undertaken by the National Research Council (NRC). This is a comparison that allows for the ranking of graduate programs across the nation and is also likely to have a major impact on the distribution of resources within the university, not to mention on the selection of a graduate program by the best and brightest students. This, then, is an exercise that is extremely important for us as a department.

In relation to the NRC review, shortly after Thanksgiving, the Graduate College will be sending all faculty an electronic questionnaire that the NRC wants back by December 15 with your latest (electronic) cv attached. I admit that that is not the most faculty friendly timing—sorry about that! Apparently the questionnaire is some thirteen pages long, although most of the questions appear to be simple queries of fact. Our fearless DGS, Barbara Eckstein, will act as scout, previewing the questionnaire before it arrives in your in-box, looking for any tricky bits that might slow you down. For now, the best preparation would be to update your cv so that the department can appear at full strength in the NRC’s assessment. More on this as it comes, and again apologies for the wretched timing, but bear in mind that this is one questionnaire that is genuinely important for us.