English Department Mission Statement

The English Department at Saint Vincent College provides an atmosphere and a setting for professors and students to continue the 2500-year-old conversation about language, creativity, imagination, and text.  With literature at the center of the conversation, class discussions and lectures pursue focused intra-textual reading and apply wider insights that cross national, historical, critical, and disciplinary boundaries.  As a result, students think and write more fluently about the canon as well as popular culture, the perennial investigation of beauty and truth, the elasticity and fixity of language, the moral valences of scriptural and non-scriptural books, the complexities of gender, and the quest for self through the ideas of others.  Giving direction and resonance to these departmental endeavors are the Benedictine values of community, hospitality, stewardship, and care and concern for the individual.  Ultimately, the person graduating with a degree in English will comprehend language both as a tool and an art, having explored the felicitous tension between creative impulse and traditional form.

• Concentrations in secondary school teaching certification, Creative Writing, Professional Writing, and Literary Studies.
• Broad curriculum offers courses in classics, modern European and American Literature, and popular culture.
• Major requirements include courses in Literary Theory, a Senior seminar, and cumulative portfolio of writing samples and personal assessments.
• Unique Benedictine influence takes learning to a higher level. (Visit and see for yourself!)

• Strengthens your ability to read critically, so you can think critically, develop new perspectives and even discover things you didn't know about yourself.
• Sharpens your writing skills, which are critical for success in every profession.
• Broadens your understanding of literature and how it relates to everyday life.
• Enables you, through the cumulative portfolio, to chart your development as a writer and thinker.
• Provides creative stimulation through extracurricular programs, such as the annual Ragan Poetry Competition and the Alpha Theta Lambda chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honor society.
• Offers first-hand journalistic experience through The Review, the college newspaper.

• Prepares you to immediately enter the workforce or attend graduate, law or medical school. Acceptance rates of Saint Vincent College graduates are high!
• Provides practical work experience in the field of your choice through internships that we help you secure.
• Gets you ready for a full life, personally and professionally, by nurturing your spirit as well your intellect.