PDF version - Saint Mary's University of Minnesota

English
English
Carolyn Ayers, Ph.D., Chair
Offering an intellectually stimulating curriculum to a diverse community of learners, the English
department engages those skills at the heart of a liberal arts education and essential to lifelong learning
and success beyond the entry-level job. Consistent with the mission of the university, the department
aims “to challenge and support students in their intellectual, spiritual, personal, and professional
development.” Almost every student at Saint Mary’s takes at least one class offered by the English
department. Courses for majors and non-majors help students develop the capacity to:
• Read literary and nonliterary texts with understanding and insight;
• Write effectively in academic and professional genres;
• Do research efficiently and honestly;
• Understand the significance of writers and works in their social and historical contexts;
• Understand how works reflect and express diverse cultural perspectives; and
• Assess the value of various critical approaches to literary and humanistic questions.
The English department offerings prepare students for a lifetime in which their facility as readers and
writers not only helps them succeed and advance professionally, but also, by allowing them to engage
with the cultural discourse surrounding them, contributes to making their intellectual and personal lives
more pleasurable and meaningful.
General Department Goals
The main goals of the department are to help English majors do the following:
• Read with comprehension and aesthetic appreciation, think critically about and respond to texts from
a variety of genres and periods, and articulate why they respond the way they do to the readings;
• Produce written documents that demonstrate an understanding of the roles that audience, context,
and purpose play in determining rhetorical choices. Further, these documents should demonstrate
the ability to state and develop a thesis; to employ an effective organizational scheme; to write
unified and coherent sentences and paragraphs; and to edit for correctness in grammar, punctuation,
usage, and mechanics; and
• Conduct, assess, and make use of research done through a variety of media.
Department Honors at Graduation
The English department awards departmental distinction at faculty discretion to graduating seniors. These
honors are to inspire and reward students who have completed outstanding work within the department.
Students must have a minimum 3.700 department and major field GPA and a 3.300 cumulative GPA.
Students must complete a superior senior thesis with a grade of A, present some piece of their work in a
public forum, and demonstrate truly distinctive ability and performance in the English major.
Majors Offered:
English Education
Literature
Literature with Writing Emphasis
Minor Offered:
English
The English department also supports and staffs the Medieval and Renaissance studies minor.
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