English Overview
The English Department believes in the importance of critical thinking, reading, and writing as a means of understanding the past and present and thinking wisely about the future.
We believe that it is possible that when human beings write they will reflect and that if they reflect they can change, and that such change—transformation of the self for the good—is a primary goal of liberal arts education.
We believe that writing is a way of seeing the world. We further believe that reading and writing is a way of being in the world.
We believe that reading literature makes it possible to imagine being someone else and that this imaginative exercise is in keeping with the Franciscan belief that Creation is whole and that created things are connected.
We believe that the imaginative exercise of reading and writing is a way to connect ourselves to the rest of creation and is a way to connect with the Transcendent.
We believe literature is an art form so delightful and vital that it is worth sharing with our students for its own sake, not just as a means to further marketability or to practice skills.
We believe it is important to teach language not only because students need to be empowered by the use of Standard Edited English but because critical thinking and the whole grounding of the liberal arts education depends on an understanding of noble and ignoble rhetoric; the public and private uses and abuses of language; and the connection between language and the way we individually and collectively construct reality.
English Department faculty attend conferences, discuss their teaching with colleagues inside and outside the Department, read voraciously, and write when they can. In so doing, the English Department believes that we not only become better teachers but also model genuine lifelong learning for each other and for our students.