Reading Matters, Vol. 12, Issue 11, February 15, 2007

From (under) the Chair's Desk

In addition to being the month of deadlines, this is also a good month for thinking through various aspects of our graduate program, with graduate admissions in full swing, finances coming to life, and many a comprehensive exam or dissertation meeting on the horizon. Tomorrow’s Departmental Meeting will center on the Ph.D. program, picking up suggestions and ideas floated by our graduate students at a recent meeting organized by Barbara Eckstein as Director of Graduate Studies. This may help inform a strategic assessment of our graduate programs that we need to submit with our hiring requests and that mostly picks over the statistical profile I shared in earlier issues of Reading Matters. Meanwhile, graduate programs are also an interest of our peer group of CIC schools (Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the eleven universities of the Big Ten along with the University of Chicago). Barbara and I attended a meeting of CIC English Department chairs and DGSes where we hashed out ways that the CIC could enhance the graduate experience for Ph.D. students in each of the institutions. The outcome of those discussions follows below as a report that is currently under consideration by the CIC Deans of Liberal Arts. While I can tell you that our own dean was somewhat discouraging when faced with the price tag (“That’s a great set of ideas, but we don’t have money like that just lying around! And if one department does it, why not others?”), definitive word from that group will follow their April meeting. You will notice, though, that while fiscal support is essential for organizing the CIC Summer Institute for English Studies, some of the other proposals can be introduced without any funding, and I hope we will be able to introduce them in a modest way soon. I’ll be meeting again with the CIC English Department chairs in early April, so let me know if you have any feedback on the proposals before then. And, meanwhile, I’ll look forward to seeing you all at the discussion of our own graduate program at tomorrow’s meeting.

CIC Matters

Proposals for Improved CIC English Department Graduate Student Programs and Recruitment,
and for Improved Coordination among CIC Graduate English Departments

CIC Heads of English and their directors of Graduate Studies, at a meeting hosted by the English department at the University of Illinois, Chicago, December 1, 2006, proposed strategies to implement the following aims: to improve the quality and quantity of graduate student recruits to CIC English studies programs; to enrich opportunities of students enrolled in CIC English studies programs; and to heighten the job placement value of CIC doctorates in English studies.

Participants at the Chicago meeting agreed that the proposed strategies promise new attention to the quality and resources of CIC English programs. The proposals are especially timely, given current widespread interest in academic program rankings and “name branding.”

The proposals depend upon an innovative coordination of CIC English graduate programs. The novel coordination will not compromise the unique character of each CIC English department, but it will give all departments opportunity to share in their individual strengths. While the proposals target improved opportunities for students, they include benefits for faculty teaching and research as well.

The proposals, and suggestions for ways to implement them, are as follows:

Proposals to be implemented most immediately:

  1. Creation of an annual CIC Summer Institute for English Studies. A three-week Institute, to be taught each year by two CIC English faculty, and to include two visitors drawn from CIC English faculty, will offer CIC doctoral candidates in English Studies (two from each CIC member department) intensive tuition in a current scholarly interest. The Institute has no equivalent among national graduate programs in English studies, and will be a unique—and uniquely attractive—feature of CIC English studies programs. Participation in the Institute will provide doctoral candidates an occasion for studying with CIC faculty who are not at their home institutions, and for expanding their intellectual and professional networks to include graduate student peers and faculty at other CIC sites. Profiles of “graduates” of the Institute will add value to their potential for job placement. Prospects of participation in the CIC Summer Institute will be a magnet for recruits to CIC graduate programs in English.
  2. Student participation in the CIC Summer Institute will be a result of competition for places. Access to the Institute therefore will be limited. To offset that limitation, general student access to the fruits of the annual Institute will be made possible by an annual CIC graduate student and faculty conference, on the subject of the Summer Institute, in the succeeding academic year. Student participants in the Summer Institute will produce and coordinate the conference. The coordinators will also judge conference papers that are eligible for CIC awards that will be initiated as an adjunct to the conference. The conference will be located at a member site other than the Summer Institute’s site. As with the Institute, the annual conference for CIC graduate students and faculty will increase the attraction of admission to CIC graduate programs in English studies.
  3. Institution of a position of CIC Fellow, at each CIC department of English, to be filled by a post-doctoral graduate of a CIC English studies program from another CIC school. The CIC Fellow designation will be for a one year teaching position for post-docs who have not yet obtained a tenure-track position. Teaching duties for CIC Fellows are to be at reduced loads (and not to exceed a five-course load), and are to include teaching in the field of their dissertation subjects. The immediate benefit for CIC Fellows will be an enhancement of their prospects for placement, given that the Fellows’ teaching resume will include teaching experience at two CIC sites.
  4. Improved utilization of the existing CIC website along three lines: for the sake of up-to-date posting of graduate course offerings in all CIC English studies programs; to enlarge possibilities and prospects of course sharing; and to facilitate exchanges of doctoral candidates whose course work or dissertation research might be improved by temporary study at a CIC English department other than their own.
  5. Regular twice yearly meetings of CIC English and graduate heads for the sake of continuing cooperative pursuit of aims such as the present ones; for the sake of sharing information; and for the sake of discussing the character of CIC graduate programs in relation to the state of the discipline and the profession of English studies.

Modes of implementing the most immediate proposals:

  1. Organization and cost of the CIC Summer Institute for English Studies. We envision a three-year pilot program for the Summer Institute. The Institute will rotate among member campuses; Ann Arbor has been proposed as the initial site, as early as summer, 2008. If the first institute is to be summer, 2008, CIC Heads and graduate directors in late spring, 2007, will issue a call to their faculties for competitive proposals for topics, teachers, and guests of the Institute. A meeting of Heads and graduate directors by the end of fall semester, 2007, will determine which proposal of topic, faculty, etc., shall be the leading one. Applications from students competing for a place in the Institute will be judged by their local directors of Graduate Studies and their local Graduate Studies Committees by the middle of spring semester, 2008. Cost: We estimate the cost of faculty salaries, guest honoraria, and graduate student transportation and housing, over the three-year pilot program, will require a commitment of $10,000-$13,000 per year per institution (a $10,000 commitment would be minimal). Enhancement of the profile of CIC graduate programs in English; and consequent enrichment of graduate student education, of graduate student recruitment, and of degree holders’ placement prospects, is well worth the cost.
  2. CIC Fellows. Given current limited resources for this initiative, we have agreed to initiate the Fellows program immediately, to whatever extent may be possible, for the academic year 2007-2008. Accordingly, no later than April 1, 2007, CIC graduate directors in English will exchange information about degree holders who are available for possible designation and appointment as CIC Fellows. At a follow-up meeting in Chicago in late April, 2007, Heads of English and graduate directors will assess candidates for designation as Fellows, and will decide on the currently practicable sites of Fellows’ placements.
  3. Utilization of the CIC website. Graduate directors of English are urged to make contact with the CIC site, to upload this year’s descriptions of graduate courses in English, and to explore, with their faculty and graduate students, possibilities of CIC English studies course-sharing and exchange of graduate students in the immediate future. For current course-sharing information, see web pages for Committee on Institutional Collaboration under “Academic Collaboration.” To set up a page of links to a CIC English department’s offerings, contact Amber Marks at CIC headquarters. The general email address for CIC is cic@uiuc.edu

Proposals for longer-range implementation:

  1. Recruitment of graduate students. In order to improve recruitment of highest quality graduate students, CIC Heads of English and graduate directors want to target potential applicants from top-rated institutions that hitherto provide relatively few applicants to CIC graduate programs in English; no less importantly, we also want to target for recruitment minority students and financially poor students. As a strategy for realizing those aims, we propose an annual CIC English “road show”: a selected body of faculty recruiters, drawn from our institutions, making a tour of selectively designated sites on behalf of recruitment for the entire group of CIC graduate English departments. We additionally propose that CIC graduate directors of English negotiate for special top-off awards