One of my colleagues pointed out an article in Profession 2004 written by an MLA committee on the issue of building programs in English and attracting more students. The article turned me on to this NSF site that makes available a range of statistical information. Over the past day I’ve been playing with it to see how we compare with our "sister schools" in the SUNY system: Brockport, Buffalo, Oneonta, Oswego, Potsdam, Plattsburgh, Purchase, New Paltz, Fredonia, and Geneseo.

So here’s the thing. On average, nationally, English BA’s make up just less than 5% of all degrees conferred. According to the statistics available on the NSF site, 8 of our sister schools are at or above the national average (the most recent year available is 2001, so things could have changed). We are well below and it looks like we have been well below for at least the last 15 years. This isn’t really news in my department. The professional writing program in which I teach was created largely to attract new majors into the department, which it is beginning to do. However, we’re restricted in size by the fact that there are only three faculty and obviously all of our courses are of the small, writing intensive variety.

Our largest program is in Secondary Education, which reflects Cortland’s overall strength as an education school. However, examining our sister school programs, I’ve noticed that there are not many that are larger than we are. Departments that have 3-5 times the number of regular English majors have roughly the same number of secondary education majors. This led me to a hypothesis.

There are two structural limitations placed upon the growth of an English secondary education major:

1. The availablity of high schools in which students can do their student teaching.
2. The job market for English high school teachers.

I’m guessing that while some growth might be possible in this
program, I don’t think it could be dramatic. Cortland is in a rural
area; there are only so many high schools. Yes Syracuse and Binghamton
are 30 miles or so away in opposite directions, but there are major
universities in both of those cities, each with their own Secondary
Education programs. Of course my hypothesis might be wrong and I’d love
to know if it is.

So that leaves professional writing and our very traditional English major. Here are a couple things the article from Profession suggests (and I quote):

• strengthening
  curricular cohesiveness; adding attractive topics courses, including
  courses that enhance students’ vocational preparedness; and developing
  popular concentrations, such as creative writing…
• enhancing department visibility through publications, Web sites, active recruitment…
• integrating computer technology

Now there
are some other suggestions related to assessment, advisement, and
having faculty recruit students from intro and gen ed courses. In a way
the department is already doing these things; that is, we are doing
them in professional writing. And professional writing can and will
continue to grow, but I don’t think it will ever be larger than 50
majors, even if we hire more faculty. The reason I say this is that it
takes a special kind of student to actually major in writing. I
mean, it’s a lot of writing. Also, the idea of a writing degree is
still relatively foreign, especially compared to an English degree.

On the other hand, an English degree that included some
writing, even just as electives,might be popular. Right now our PWR
degree is 36 credits of PWR and 9 credits in literature. If we made our
degree 12 required PWR credits and 24 elective credits, including
taking up to 9 credits in literature, and English revised its
literature degree to allow students to elect to take up to 9 credits in
professional writing.

Would that work to make both degrees more desirable?

The tension around here stems from the shell shock of working in a
program that has never been successful, that has always struggled to
find students. We partly have strict requirements because we have some
faculty with traditional values. However, it is equally the case, if
not more so, that we have these requirements as a way of ensuring that
students show up for certain classes.

That is, the scarcity of students has shaped the curriculum. However
it is quite possible that the strict traditional curriculum reproduces
the scarcity problem by keeping students away. At least that is what
one might hypothesize based on the MLA report. It is also what one
might guess by examining our sister schools, where five of the six most
successful programs have quite open curricula, and three of the four at
the bottom, including us, do not.

IF we had plenty of students and we scheduled the appropriate number
of classes, everyone’s course would fly. It’s true that students might
eat up creative writing or a course in contemporary literature in film
or the narrative of video games or whatever you could come up with.
However English majors also tend to value the classics, and I
personally believe they would enter Chaucer or Milton or what have you
with more verve if they could also take some non-traditional courses. A
course in Web Design isn’t going to overturn the department. After all,
I’m the only one who can teach it and I’m only available to teach it
once a year.

No doubt it would be a gamble. If we created substantial electives,
we would need to shape our program through careful course offerings and
thorough advisement, especially in the first few years as we fine-tuned
the curricula.

But here’s the kicker…it still will not really work until
the campus culture shifts. Of course, this is a big part of what the
MlA committee suggests (and which I elided above): "programs that
involve collaboration with alumni, student clubs, admissions offices,

secondary schools, local businesses, and career planning and placement
offices." And I would also add, at least in our case, collaboration
with other departments like Art, Philosophy, History, Communications,
and so on.

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