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College English Departments and Teacher Preparation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Jeremiah S. Finch*
Affiliation:
Princeton University

Extract

The scene, a coffee table in the faculty lounge. Seated casually in postures perfected through years in academia are three obviously very full professors of English. The topic is A—the departmental meeting on promotions. One of the group is speaking earnestly. “But we've got to have another medievalist, Quincy. You admit that.” “Of course I admit it, Arthur,” replies a second, “but unless we promote Muddleton, we'll lose him, and where will we be in contemporary literature?” “Couldn't care less,” reflects the medieval scholar, but nods his head as if agreeing. “I hate to bring this up again, gentlemen,” interrupts the third, who by his well-thumbed appointment book and downcast expression is manifestly the chairman, “but we keep passing by Clerkson.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1965

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Footnotes

*

An address given at the General Meeting on English in New York, 29 December 1964.

References

1 James B. Conant, The Education of American Teachers (New York, 1963), pp. 1–14.

2 Conant, pp. 74, 229; The National Interest and the Teaching of English (Champaign, Ill.: NCTE, 1961), pp. 34–35.

3 College English, xxiv (April 1963), 547.

4 “College English Departments and Professional Efforts to Improve English Teaching,” PMLA, lxxviii (September 1963, Part Two), 36–37.

5 Conant, pp. 143–145.