Who Are We? UGA Department of English. CID status: Allied department. Contact person: N. Hilton Park Hall Univ. of Georgia Athens, GA 30602 [email protected] 706-542-1261 CID committee: Prof. Kris Boudreau, Prof. Christy Desmet, Prof. Mike Moran (graduate co-ordinator), Prof. Steve Ramsay, Prof. Jed Rasula (chair), Monica Smith, Prof. Fran Teague. Department Home Page

Timeline The departmental CID committee finished its deliberations last year, and the Graduate Committee is now in the final stages of reviewing them. The idea of the public lecture went before the Graduate Faculty last spring and led to considerable discussion. That and the electronic portfolio will be considered again this fall and implemented starting next 2006-2007.

What do we want to accomplish in the CID? Our department wanted to review our Ph.D. program and find ways to strengthen its mentoring program. The department's CID committee met early on with our graduate students, who said in various ways that they wanted more involvement with the faculty and a stronger mentoring program to help with their professional development. In response to this, we developed two strategies. The first is the electronic portfolio of student work from their first course and seminar papers through to their published essays. The second innovation was to add a public lecture connected to a early part of the students' dissertations. Both of these elements will allow faculty members to become more involved early on with the students's work and intellectual development.

More About Our Department Our mission statement, formulated by the faculty last year, declares our commitment "to use our strengths and varied backgrounds in interdisciplinary humanities research and teaching to provide exemplary undergraduate and graduate education in English language, literature, and composition. Our graduates will be able to read, to write, to think with rigor and passion." This statement addresses a broad spectrum of concerns that includes first-year composition, creative writing, humanities computing, English language studies, linguistics, multi-cultural American literature, and the numerous traditional, historically-demarcated eras of British and American literature. In all of these areas we hope "to inspire, model, and teach critical thinking, attentive reading, clear and persuasive writing, and intellectual curiosity."

Committee Recommendations In place of the current special topic written exam, we propose a public lecture to which the department as a whole is invited. The lecture will be based on a reading list commensurate with the present special topic lists, drawn up under the supervision of the examining committee. At the time of the lecture, the student will submit to the committee an annotated bibliography based on the reading list. The lecture itself should not be a general survey of the topic, but should as far as possible resemble what the student might eventually present as a job talk: precisely addressing a particular topic, but in sufficiently non-specialist terms that it will be stimulating to a general audience. The lecture will be followed by questions from those attending, including members of an examining committee convened for the occasion. The committee will consist of a supervisor (presumably from the committee for the written historical period exams), a professor who has taught the student in a class (but who need not be on the written exam committee), and a professor who has had no prior contact with the student. The lecture is not graded, although the committee will subsequently meet with the student to offer critique and advice. Portfolio In addition to the presently required teaching portfolio, we recommend a portfolio of materials pertinent to the entire process of professional development. With refinement over time the portfolio will eventually serve the student as a handy dossier for the job search. The portfolio should include documentation of teaching, university service (such as committee work and participation in organizations, conference planning, etc.), work experience related to a scholarly career (employment as researcher, apprenticeships, etc.) and, most significantly, writings. At the outset of the student’s career at UGA the portfolio will almost inevitably consist of seminar papers. A key function of the portfolio will be as a tracking document: over a period of time, seminar papers may be replaced by, or transformed into, conference papers and publications. The portfolio should be managed in consultation with the student’s examining committee, which will need to be convened earlier than is presently the case (and membership may of course change by the time the exams themselves are being planned). The role of the committee is to advise rather than evaluate, suggesting publishing opportunities and also making students aware of faculty in the department or in other departments who might offer useful advice on finalizing papers for publication. Finally, we suggest that the portfolio be made available in electronic format, via <emma>. Mentoring The proposed portfolio will substantiate many of the mentoring activities currently in place, necessitating earlier and more sustained contact between the student and the supervisory committee. We also recommend an enhanced role for peer mentoring. A final area of concern—loosely convened under the heading of "mentoring," to be sure—is involvement in the public life of the department. The proposed public lecture format for the special topics area of the comprehensive exam should encourage participation by fellow students, not only by attending the lectures but also by raising questions afterwards. We would also like to suggest that students be encouraged to attend other public events hosted by the department, possibly by a formal quota system, but certainly as a standing recommendation—especially if facilitated by more consistent contact between students and supervisory committees.