The English Department is home to three distinct undergraduate degrees: the Bachelor's Degree in Literature (B.A.); the Bachelor's Degree in English Education (B.S.); the Bachelor's Degree in Writing (B.A.) Our department prides itself on small courses with strong pedagogical foundations. We are a department of teacher/scholars, who are actively engaged in our fields of specialization.
Specifically, in our undergraduate courses students will experience the following:
- Small Class sizes. Our undergraduate courses cap at 35 students, though our upper level courses cap at 25, and our writing courses cap at 22. Our senior seminar courses cap at 15. Students in English courses will not find themselves in large lecture halls, but rather can expect a small class experience, including personalized inter-actions with their faculty/
- Engaged class-room experiences: English department faculty are engaged scholars and teachers. Our classrooms are interactive spaces that welcome debate, conversation, and discussion. Our courses, and our course work emphasize critical thinking, close analysis of texts, evidence-based arguments, textual construction and revisions. Our faculty engage in both applied learning and clinically rich instructional practices. Our English Education program is book-ended by clinically rich experiences (through observation and tutoring in ENG 200, and student teaching in ENG 464/465). Our Writing Major provides hands on applied-learning through our literary publishing course and work on ELJ, our literary journal. Our English Major offers a variety of hands-on learning experiences, that embrace both critical and creative engagement with texts.
- Extra-curricular enrichments: Our department is a community of scholars, creators and thinkers. To that end, we offer a variety of experiences and programs that highlight the creative and intellectual talents of our students, faculty, and staff. Reading series like The Drop Hammer series, lecture series like The Conversations In and Out of the Disciplines, Film Series like those sponsored by the BSC Cinephiles, student groups like Sigma Tau Delta the English Honor Society, and professional organizations like Western New York Network of Teachers provide a variety of creative, scholarly, and intellectual opportunities for students within our majors and minors.
- Scholarly opportunities beyond the classroom: The English Department is proud to consistently participate in the college’s Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship, which allows students to work full time with a faculty member on a funded summer research project.
