Mission
The Department of English is home to a community of scholars, creative writers, teachers, and students who seek to understand and engage the world through exploring and activating the connections among literature, cultural studies, writing, and interdisciplinary inquiry. As part of a Jesuit University with a strong social justice mission, we are committed to collaborative and experiential learning, civic engagement, and sustainability. To that end, we teach and study not only English and American but also global and multi-ethnic literatures and other cultural productions in ways that are attentive to gender, race, ethnicity, and globalization.
We offer courses in literature, culture, film, theory, composition and rhetoric, and writing, including professional writing and creative writing. In addition, we are expanding our Departmental offerings in new technologies and media to address the rapidly evolving issues and multiple literacies of the 21st century. Our faculty play a central roles in the University’s core curriculum, through which all students develop crucial academic, civic, and life skills. Our undergraduate English majors learn to read, write, and think critically and creatively, enabling them to thrive in diverse careers, including marketing, law, publishing, public relations, teaching, and medicine. Students learn not only to appreciate language and literature, but also to write effectively and persuasively, to read complex materials with comprehension and critical awareness, to appreciate ambiguity and uncertainty, and to use the skills and knowledge gained in their academic careers to make informed and thoughtful choices regarding citizenship, vocation, and life paths.
Student Learning Goals and Objectives
Goal 1: Students demonstrate an ability to read a variety of kinds of texts critically, precisely, and with rhetorical awareness
Objective 1: Analyze texts on the basis of literary history, conventions, and genres.
Objective 2: Analyze texts as social and material products and processes, informed by theories of rhetoric, literacy, and/or composing.
Goal 2: Students demonstrate an ability to produce various kinds of texts precisely, effectively, and creatively.
Objective 3: Produce texts as social and material products and processes, informed by theories of rhetoric, literacy, and/or composing.
Objective 4: Create rhetorically effective texts through an intentional, reflective composing process that engage a defined audience; aim at a defined purpose; and use context-appropriate language, media, and genre.