Evaluative criterion 1—Program quality Committee: Michael (chair)
English Department Colloquium Series
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- O’Donnell Research Colloquium
- Frances J. Chivers Scholarship
- Evaluative criterion 5—Adequacy of Human, Financial, and Physical Resources
- Type of Expenditure Total Amt., 2005-06 through 2009-10
- Table of Faculty Scholarly Activity, FA 2005-FA 2010
- Faculty Member Monog. Editions, Ed. Col. Articles/
English Department Colloquium Series at which every month graduate students and faculty present their research (one or two presentations per colloquium). Monthly Coffee House Readings, at which various local writers and Duquesne students and faculty members present their poetry, stories, and sketches. Outdoor stage productions of the Medieval and Renaissance Players. Indoor stage productions by Duquesne’s Red Masquers theater group. Participation in the production of the literary journal, :lexicon, which appears each semester. The large number of undergraduate students listed as aides in production of the journal and as contributors amply indicates widespread interest. Participation in the Duquesne chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the national honorary society for English majors. The chapter meets monthly to discuss chosen agendas of poetry, fiction, and critical issues; and it takes field trips to see movies and plays and to attend public readings by notable authors. The O’Donnell Research Colloquium, a yearly event to begin in the 2011-12 academic year, at which one to three undergraduate English majors present research projects in a public forum, enabled by the O’Donnell Undergraduate Research Award. The Department also sponsors a number of grant opportunities for undergraduate English majors each year, including:
Evaluative criterion 5—Adequacy of Human, Financial, and Physical Resources Committee: Callanan (chair), Kurland, T. Kinnahan, and Michael (for library information only) 1) Is the program able to meet its learning goals with the current level of resources provided by the library, facilities, information technology, etc.? The Gumberg Library holds the following resources:
As far as book holdings, Gumberg’s traditional areas of relative strength in English include medieval, early modern, and 18th century British literature. Acquisitions in these and other areas have been dependent on faculty research and teaching interests. In recent years, newly appointed tenure-track faculty members have received grants of $1500 apiece for collection development in their areas of specialization. Curriculum Enhancement Grants in support of teaching—not currently available due to economic conditions—have also allowed the purchase of books and DVDs in such areas as African-American Literature, 20th century British Literature, Film Studies, and Contemporary Poetry. A standing English Department committee provides liaison with the library and coordinates purchase requests. With regard to journals, due to storage and other considerations, the Library has in recent years relied more and more on electronic database subscriptions to provide journal access, cancelling print subscriptions and removing from the collection substantial runs of numerous journals, including ones Duquesne has subscribed to since their inception. While electronic journals do allow access to resources that were beyond the reach of our library and permit considerable ease of use—through 24-hour availability and full-text formats that can be emailed, downloaded, printed on demand, and conveniently saved in PDF or other electronic formats—faculty have registered concerns regarding the availability of articles, a particular concern with older volumes, where material may not have been scanned into electronic formats, and even more recent ones, where gaps in coverage between different databases are not uncommon. In addition, databases are not fully integrated, nor are searching protocols standardized, so finding and accessing journal articles in electronic formats can present both faculty and students with considerable challenges. English Library Budget In the five academic years 2005-06 through 2009-10, total annual expenditures on behalf of English Department programs ranged from a high of approximately $75,000 in 2005-06 (the healthiest year in almost all categories) to a low of approximately $47,000 in 2007-08. During this period, book purchases ranged from approximately $12,000 (in 2005-06) to approximately $7000 (in each of the other years), while standing orders ranged from $14,500 (in 2005-06) to $3400 (in 2008-09). Annual amounts budgeted to electronic resources and periodicals in this period varied considerably, with the highest expenditures in the former category occurring in the two most recent years and in the latter occurring in the two earliest years; total electronic resources (the largest category in the English budget) were almost six times those of periodicals. A table of total expenditures for the period follows:
The library is seeking donors for endowment funds that can be used to support collection development in literary studies. A recently established fund in memory of Albert C. Labriola, to be restricted to English Department needs, has not yet reached a level sufficient to allow disbursements. Facilities
Information Technology
2) Describe the activities of the faculty in terms of scholarship, teaching, and service to the department, school, and university. (See Appendix, Evaluative Criterion 1, for detailed information on all faculty activities summarized in this section) Teaching The standard teaching load for English Department faculty members is five courses per year. Course reductions are granted to the undergraduate director, the graduate director, the director of First-Year Writing, the Writing Center director, and the department chair. Teaching assignments range from First-Year Writing to advanced graduate seminars, and faculty develop new courses to meet student needs and interests on a regular basis. In addition, many faculty members teach in the College Learning Communities, and each fall one faculty member is appointed director of the Litterae community. Finally, faculty serve on M.A. and Ph.D. examination committees, assess capstone paper projects for M.A. students, and direct and serve as readers on doctoral dissertations. Scholarship The following statistics reflect faculty scholarship between Fall 2005 and Fall 2010:
In addition, faculty authored numerous book reviews, encyclopedia entries, and book and journal introductions. Recently, two members organized or co-organized regional conferences (Engel, Purdy) and one (L. Kinnahan) organized a national conference. Service Junior faculty members are generally assigned to one or two departmental committees; after tenure, faculty take on a larger service role, including college and university committees. In addition to serving the Duquesne community, many faculty provide service to professional organizations, most frequently as editors, editorial consultants, or reviewers. Faculty members are also active in mentoring. Senior faculty members are assigned to mentor junior faculty members in teaching, scholarship, and service. In addition, each Ph.D. student is assigned a faculty mentor in his or area of interest; students meet with faculty mentors on a regular basis to discuss their progress in the program, directions for future scholarship, the nature of the job search, and so forth. Finally, each faculty member mentors a number of undergraduate English majors. The primary role of the mentor is to guide students through the course selection process and ensure a sound course of studies, but students are also free to meet with their mentors to discuss other matters related to the major. Table of Faculty Scholarly Activity, FA 2005-FA 2010*
*Statistics may have slight discrepancies since some faculty included “forthcoming works” and others did not. Please see Appendix, Evaluative Criterion 1, for more detailed information. Data is not included for John Lane (Theater) and Bernard Beranek. 3) Describe the resources for support available to support faculty development and to mentor junior faculty. Upon joining the department, each junior faculty member is assigned a senior faculty mentor. The mentor generally works in the junior member’s literary area and provides ongoing advice and guidance regarding teaching, scholarship and service up to and throughout application for tenure. In addition, first-year faculty carry a reduced teaching load of two courses per term, generally work on no more than one or two departmental committees, take part in the College’s semester-long orientation program, and go through a review process with the department chair at the end of their first year, while also meeting informally with the department chair periodically. Junior faculty are encouraged to take part in the department’s monthly colloquium series to seek feedback on scholarly works in progress. They are also encouraged to attend faculty-development workshops offered by the Center for Teaching Excellence, and they are observed in the classroom by their faculty colleagues at least twice per semester. Following these observations, observers provide the chair and the junior faculty member with written evaluations and meet with the junior faculty members to discuss their observations and suggest strategies for improvement if necessary. Finally, junior faculty members may request a one-semester pre-tenure sabbatical to support scholarship after successfully undergoing the Third-Year Review. Like junior faculty, tenured associate professors undergo teaching observations four times per year by two of their senior colleagues, who provide written and verbal responses. Like junior faculty and graduate students, senior faculty members are invited to take part in the department’s monthly colloquium series to seek feedback on scholarly works in progress, and they are welcome to take part in CTE teaching workshops. The department and College offer a number of grants to support writing and research, including University Presidential Scholarship Awards ($5,000 to support summer writing and research); Wimmer Family Foundation Awards (@$3,500 aimed primarily at junior and mid-level faculty (these have been recently discontinued); and NEH College Grants (up to $5,000). The Department and College have also met all requests for funding for English faculty presentations of research at academic conferences (including multiple conferences for a number of faculty members). The Department funds 2/3 of the travel costs while the Dean’s Office funds 1/3 of the costs.
However, the department only has one tenure-track faculty member dedicated to creative writing (John Fried), and he is also one of two faculty member trained in film studies. The rest of the writing courses (Poetry Workshop 1, 2, and 3; Fiction Writing 1, 2, and 3; Screenwriting; Playwriting 1, 2, and 3; Memoir; and Creative Non-Fiction—all classes that consistently fill) are either taught by faculty for whom writing is a secondary area of specialization or by adjuncts. In addition, the department has no dedicated tenure-track film studies faculty members, even though film is one of three areas of concentration for English majors. Considering the number of writing and film courses being offered and their popularity, at the very least this department requires an additional tenure-track position in writing and a tenure-track position in film studies. In addition, the number of majors has risen in the past ten years from approximately 50 to over 200 (213 in 2009-10). Looking at comparable schools,
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