Literature and Law: New English Major Track Proposal Pat Angley FX Gleyzon Farrah Cato Barry Mauer

The Focus of Our Project The Department of English is developing a Pre-Law track for English majors and needs to develop new courses and integrate them into a revised curriculum in order for this track to meet the requirements for approval by university committees. This past year when the track was originally taken forward to the university curricular level, criticism was raised that the course of study was not sufficiently differentiated from the literature track of the major. At the summer faculty development workshop, members of the department planned to address this criticism through devising new courses and drafting a distinct curricular track. We planned to work on courses that treat the Renaissance, civil rights literature, literary and visual propaganda, and early American letters.

Objectives Each 9-month faculty member of the team planned to work on developing an individual course for this track. These courses, however, will not be limited for enrollment to students in the track but will also serve students in other majors. The team as a whole planned to draft a proposed curriculum for the track, including a requirement for specific minors. The team as a whole planned to revise the paperwork required by the university for curricular revisions.

Implementation of Project Prior to the conference, the members of the team reviewed the tabled curricular proposal for the track with an eye toward revisions. Individual members of the team roughed out their course concept. During the conference, team members drafted an entire syllabus for each course and contributed to discussion of the overall curricular development of the track. After the conference, team members will revise syllabi in response to feedback and will take the draft of the track curriculum to the Department Undergraduate Studies Committee for review and, then, based on their feedback and any requested revisions are made, take the track proposal to the Department. If the Department approves, the track proposal will be sent on to the College curriculum committee.

Assessment Individual Course Assessment: The determination of having met the initial objectives will be demonstrated by university curricular approval of the courses. In terms of student outcomes, success in that area will be measured by student interest in each course, student perceptions of the quality of the course, and students' abilities in integrating a pre-law orientation to the material studied as evidenced by completed research papers. Track Proposal Assessment: The success of the development of the track proposal will be measured by whether or not it receives department, then college, and then university approval for adoption. The measures for the courses will have to be evaluated over a one- to two-year period because they need to be worked into the class schedules of the Department. The measures for the track proposal will be evaluated during the course of the curriculum review cycle.

Benefits These courses will benefit the university because each of them will promote interdisciplinary and contextual approaches to literary, textual, and cultural studies. They will benefit students in other pre-law areas who might want to think about legal issues in terms of cultural representations, perceptions, and stereotypes, which are approaches that may not be offered in their other course work. In these ways they will advance information fluency by demonstrating the need to integrate and synthesis data, information, and interpretations from different academic fields, historical periods, and cultural orientations.

Deliverables Revised Pre-Law Major Track Curriculum Literature and Law Syllabi Language and Law Syllabus