From the Chair

The brick wall of the new Science and Technology Building looming outside my office window is a visible manifestation of the changes that have taken place since I first came to East Carolina University in August 1989.  When I came to ECU, the university had a student enrollment of about 13,000 students; within the next three years the enrollment is expected to have almost doubled since that time.

While it seems that campus-wide construction designed to handle the increased student enrollment has been continuous during the past 14 years, I believe that the Science and Technology Building is the only new construction in the "core" campus associated with classroom activities.  Since 1989, the football stadium has been enlarged, the coliseum remodeled, a strength and conditioning center added, the library remodeled and expanded, the student recreation center built, a new dining hall added, and numerous dorms remodeled.  Only the sports medicine building has been added for academic purposes.  Soon though, in the "core" campus, the Rivers Building will be expanded and Flanagan remodeled, while on the "west" campus a new building will be constructed for classroom activities associated with Allied Health Sciences.

These physical changes are now accompanied by administrative changes being brought about because of the leadership of Chancellor Muse and of Provost Swart, in particular.  It seems very clear that within the year the College of Arts and Sciences will no longer be the only "college" in the university, for it will be joined by colleges that replace the former  "schools" of education, business, and so on.  Curricular changes are also occurring throughout the university, as ECU has moved from its 1989 classification as a regional university to its current status as a research university.  Indeed, the 2003 U.S. News and World Report college rankings place ECU as a "Tier 3" National University, a ranking that includes such schools as Arizona State, Ball State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and the Universities of Arkansas, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mississippi, and New Mexico, as well as other institutions having national and international prominence.

During spring break I was discussing with a colleague in another department the changes occurring at ECU; my colleague commented that while any change is somewhat unsettling, the changes are needed, for he felt that ECU was trying to operate under procedures and structures created when it was a regional institution of 10,000 students, rather than a national institution of over 20,000 students.

The Department of English has thus far clearly been in the vanguard of academic changes within the university.  For example, we offer far more Distance Education courses than any other department in the College of Arts and Sciences and are the only department within A&S authorized to offer an M.A. degree entirely on-line.  On-line certificate programs in Multicultural Literature and Teaching English as a Second Language are well into development and may soon lead to other on-line M.A. concentrations that have the possibility of attracting students not only from anywhere in the United States, but anywhere in the world.  Moreover, our "Request to Establish" a doctoral program in Technical and Professional Discourse is nearing completion and will be submitted to the Office of the President this coming May.  Should it be approved in October 2003, we'll admit our first doctoral students in August 2004.

When the new doctoral students join us, additional changes will necessarily occur.  These changes will range from alterations in teaching loads to re-considerations of how we structure our curriculum and choose to teach our courses.  As we contemplate those changes, we must keep in mind that policies and procedures developed for a small regional institution may not be appropriate for a large national institution.  I suspect that some faculty will decry the changes that ECU has and will be undergoing, but I also suspect that it will be impossible to turn back the clock and return ECU to what it once was.

From my office window, I once had a view of trees, grass, and an occasionally flooded former lakebed; I now stare at a red brick wall.  I don't think it will go away.