From (under) the Chair's Desk

How do we ensure that what we offer as a department is a rational and useful curriculum rather than a scattershot of courses?  The Registrar has released the latest statistical profile, with interesting information pulled out below, including the most recent count of English majors, now 940.  Are we offering them a good coherent major? 

One answer to that question lies in the group formulation of objectives and goals for the major (handily accessible on our website here and here.  Last spring’s exercise in surveying how well we have been doing collectively in meeting those goals was disrupted by the summer floods, but at least we have a clear statement of what we aspire to as a group.  Another answer lies in the new Introduction to the Major course (olim the Gateway), an innovation that likely will be giving our majors a more coherent sense of our discipline as put into practice by this department.  Finally, the process of renumbering courses, while itself a mere administrative task, has been encouraging me to ponder the range of our department’s offerings as well as the organization of those courses.  Details in the first story below, and I look forward to seeing you all at the discussion and report back on the Introduction to the Major at next week’s faculty meeting. 

Renumbering (and Curriculum) Matters

The renumbering process, you may remember, is something we took seriously a few years ago (2005?), that then went quiet, but that is now back for real.  For the next two-three years, we will be using both old and new number systems in parallel, with the expectation that the new numbers will take over from 2011.  Renumbering will give us a prefix and four digits for all courses.  It is particularly useful to English because we have run out of numbers between 100 and 199 and so the new system will allow us to create new courses to match faculty enthusiasms and curricular needs.  It also provides us, if much more quixotically, with an opportunity to present sequences and associated courses in a more rational sequence. 

There will be new conventions associated with the new numbers, which I will itemize her for clarity.  The first digit signals level.  This will be a constant for all courses throughout the university.

CLAS Undergraduate Courses
0000—0999 Non-credit courses
1000—1999 Introductory undergraduate courses
2000—2999 Lower-level undergraduate courses
3000—3999 Upper-level undergraduate courses
4000—4999 Advanced undergraduate courses
CLAS Graduate Courses
5000—5999 Introductory graduate courses
6000—6999 Intermediate graduate courses
7000—7999 Advanced graduate courses
8000—8999 Professional degree courses (used only by the professional colleges)
9000—9999 Professional degree courses (used only by the professional colleges)

The second digit will be meaningful within the English Department for undergraduate courses only, signaling which of our six areas a course fits into:

1 = literary theory and interdisciplinary studies
2 = medieval and early modern
3 = modern British
4 = American lit & cult
5 = transnational and postcolonial
6 = nonfiction and creative writing
8 = cross-listed courses where the administrative home is not in English (do not count towards area or historical distribution requirements for majors, but do count as credits towards major)

The final digit will also be meaningful within English only for signaling which of our three historical periods a course belongs to:

0-4 = 20c
8-9 = 18-19c
6-7 = medieval-17c
5 = not period specific
If you would like to see projected new numbers for any course, go to InfoBank, Course Renumbering: Course Admin, then select CLAS, English.  Let me know if you have any concerns. 

Some current loose ends will get clarified in the new system.  General Education Literature courses, for example, will be more clearly associated with English as they move from the 8G prefix to the standard ENGL prefix, followed by 1 to signal their introductory level.  The English major sequence will begin with Introduction to the Major, boldly signaled at ENGL 2000.  Our introductory major courses will be at the 2000-level, with other below-100 at 3000-level and above-100 at 4000-level.  Many of our odder prefixes (8A, 8L, 8P, 8W) will get eliminated and almost all English major courses will be gathered under ENGL.  Nonfiction writing courses (the current 8N) will move to the ENGL umbrella for undergraduate courses, while the distinctive graduate courses will have their own subject prefix (NWP).  The only anomaly will be courses offered by the Writers’ Workshop, which will keep their own prefix (8C will become WW), both for their undergraduate courses, as well as their graduate ones.

The review of courses necessitated by the renumbering process has led me to discuss with executive committee rationalizing some of the outer limits of our curriculum, as you will have seen in EC minutes.  In particular, we have decided to phase out English Department involvement in the existing Guided Independent Study courses (olim Correspondence courses) that had been relegated to 08A.  These have been serving a strikingly small population of students, and do not fit with our departmental insistence on the importance of discussion in workable small groups as part of the educational experience provided by an English Department.  We have also taken a critical look at some of the courses cross-listed into English from other departments, formulating the following statement of principle:

English Department policy on cross-listing courses
The English Department does not oversee or supervise the content and instruction of crosslisted courses where we are not the administrative home and faculty teaching such courses are not part of the discussions that shape the English Department’s common sense of a curriculum and of pedagogical objectives.  For these reasons, the English Department is strongly inclined against cross-listing courses, although we recognize that cross-lists may occasionally be appropriate, especially if they are taught by faculty who have partial appointments in English.  Minimal criteria for cross-listing a course include the subject matter fitting within the discipline of English as this department conceives it; an undergraduate course contributing to our carefully articulated mission statement and goals for the majors, including a significant writing component, and meaningful opportunity for student discussion.
(as ratified by executive committee discussion, 10/23/08)

You will notice some constructive haziness in this statement (what does the department conceive as the scope of the discipline of English?), but even this formulation is useful for reconsidering some of the more remote cross-lists that have attached to the English major in the distant past, without any mechanism for weeding and removing. 

The recurring curricular matters are all in hand—with an elegant 2009-10 roster now shaped up by area and curriculum committees, while Spring 2009 courses are visible on ISIS with advising in progress and early registration beginning November 17.  Renumbering, along with reflection on the Introduction to the Major, give us opportunities to consider the broad sweep of our curriculum. With such great offerings, no wonder students continue flocking to the English Major.

Number Matters: Statistical Profile

The Registrar has released the latest Profile of Students at the University of Iowa, based on Fall Semester 2008 (click here ).  It looks like enrollment in English is down a smidgen, at 940 majors, although this could be a result of a change in the gathering of the data.  This year, and for the future, the Registrar’s Office assembled information based on student enrollments and declared majors by the end of the second week of classes whereas in the past they had been using the end of the third week of classes.  Is it possible that half a percent of our flock declare their major in the third week of the semester?  In any event, a drop of 50 majors is pretty small in relation to our population of 940, unless it proves to be a trend. 

Here are the numbers in relation to previous years.  We now have 940 majors (990 in Fall 2007, 992 in Fall 2006, 1018 in Fall 2005, and 998 in Fall 2004), 378 men and 562 women.  Of the 770 who declared English as their first major we get additional information telling us that 64 are members of underrepresented minorities and 1 is foreign.  English proves to be the fourth most popular major in the university and the third most popular in CLAS, following Business, Engineering, Psychology, and somewhat ahead of Biology and Communication Studies, the next most popular. 

In another way of measuring our undergraduate activity, we awarded 267 B.A. degrees in 2007-08 (252 in 2006-07, 262 in 2005-06, 246 in 2004-05, 238 in 2003-04).  We awarded 49 minors in 2007-08 (compared with 47 in 2006-07, 65 in 2005-06, 57 in 2004-05). 

In terms of graduate numbers, in the second week of Fall semester we had 115 graduate students enrolled in the Ph.D. program (compared with 110 in Fall 2007, 113 in Fall 2006, 116 in Fall 2005, and 111 in Fall 2004), 48 men and 67 women.  Of these, 24 are members of underrepresented minorities and 3 are foreign (compared with 17 and 5 last year).  Those numbers make us the eighth most popular graduate major on campus.  The Nonfiction Writing Program has 38 enrolled MFA students (same as last year, with 44 in Fall 2006, 40 in Fall 2005, and 32 in Fall 2004), 11 men, 27 women, of whom 3 are members of underrepresented minorities. 

In terms of trends, I wonder if the small dip is merely a reflecting of the gathering of the statistics.  In general, we still look very stable in numbers.  The new Undergraduate Creative Writing Track, described in detail in the last Reading Matters, drew some 40 applications in its first application process for the spring.  As that number picks up, I wonder if we’ll see a small uptick in the number of majors?  

Faculty numbers are not included in the Registrar’s Statistical Profile, but those are somewhat easier to keep track of.  English currently has 52 faculty with more than a 0% position (6 assistant, 23 associate, and 23 full professors), along with three lecturers.  When due calculation is made for joint appointments, English has 46.73 FTEs.  In terms of crudest calculations, we therefore have a student:teacher ratio of approximately 22:1 majors:tt faculty (compared with an average CLAS ratio of about 28:1).  The two graduate programs combined add some 3.2:1 graduate student:faculty ratio.

Thank you, all, for your continuing work to educate those 940 majors and all the other students drawn to the wide and diverse range of learning offered by the Iowa English Department!

Policy Matters: Searches and Appointments

Our two searches are proceeding apace, with a healthy flow of applicants to the Early Modern Search (Alvin Snider (ch.), Huston Diehl, Miriam Gilbert, Kathy Lavezzo, and Lindsey Row as graduate committee member) and a positive flood to the 20c American Search  (Loren Glass/Harry Stecopoulos (co-chs.), Claire Fox, Miriam Thaggert, and Stephanie Blalock as graduate committee member).  The College recently released the following clarification for search committees in general for when one of the applicants is a committee member’s own graduate student, as will often be the case. 

In 2007, in consultation with the CLAS Executive Committee, the College formulated the following policy concerning the participation of CLAS faculty members in searches should their former advisees make themselves candidates in the search.
Search Committees for Faculty Positions
If an individual who applies for a tenure-track or clinical-track faculty position wrote his/her dissertation or MFA thesis under the supervision of a faculty member serving on the search committee, that faculty member must recuse him/herself from the search committee’s discussion of and vote on that application.
If the applicant becomes a finalist in the search, the faculty member must withdraw from membership on the search committee.
In such a case, the faculty member retains the right to participate in departmental discussions of the candidates for the position and the right to participate in departmental votes concerning the candidates

The College has also put out its call for new faculty requests for next year, a process that we will need to be engaged in late this semester or early next; see here. 

Finally, the College has put out a reminder about procedures for the moving of part or complete faculty lines (for example by adding or changing split appointments), a procedure which is now fairly elaborate, with an annual deadline of February 1 for apply for a change, and involving consultation with both departments as well as DEOs; see here.

Publications, Presentations, and other Faculty Matters