September 8, 2023: Fall Semester Previews: Departmental Program Review

[This weekmarks the start of the Fall 2023 semester and my 19th year atFitchburg State. So as ever, I’ll kick off the semester with preview posts, thistime focused on ongoing challenges and leading up to an update on my currentbook project!]

Semestersand academic years are about more than just teaching, of course, and this yearmy English Studies Department will be embarking on a particularly significantproject: our departmental Program Review. We create that review for outsideaccreditors every five years, which can feel pretty quick but is enough time toreally have to rethink where we are, where we want to go, and how we might getthere. A key layer to all those questions are the challenges we’re facing, andfor this Program Review the unavoidable and quite frankly overwhelmingchallenge is that of enrollments: the student of Majors in our department hascontracted quite significantly in the five years since the last Program Review,and represents a clear crisis point here in 2023-24. That trend is far biggerthan one department, and there are many elements to it that we can neithercontrol nor change. But obviously that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t engage it, northink about the ways we can respond and recruit and reimagine and so on. At thevery least, I believe all of us in the Humanities need to do a far moreconsistent job talking about all the amazing and vital things we do, and allthe ways students and communities can and will benefit from them. Lookingforward to being part of those conversations during this Program Reviewprocess!

Updatepost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Fall previews you’d share?