School of Writing, Literature, and Film

Message from Anita Helle, Director

It’s official: the English Department at Oregon State University is now officially recognized as the School of Writing, Literature, and Film. This name change reflects our constituent programs, our current and historic strengths in scholarship and creative activity, and our pride in innovation for the future.  All degrees and programs that we have offered previously remain part of the academic unit.

The response to our proposals to revamp our four program areas of creative writing, literary studies, rhetoric and writing, and film studies have been remarkable.

A few highlights of the past year:

• OSU’s MFA Program in Creative Writing was ranked 22nd nationally in the 2013 MFA Index, the industry standard of the field (Poets and Writers Magazine September/October 2012). Factors such as faculty reputation, desirable location, and Northwest lifestyle, full funding of graduate students figured highly in the ranking.

• We are delighted in the fall of 2012 to be welcoming new faculty in creative non-fiction (Elena Passarello, MFA University of Iowa), professional/technical writing (Ehren Pflugfelder, Ph.D. Purdue University), modernist and African-American studies (Lily Sheehan, Ph.D. University of Virginia), and global non-western film studies (Jinying-Li, Ph.D. New York University).    

• New initiatives in undergraduate research for English majors and writing minors underscore our commitment to high impact learning experiences. As one example, OSU has been selected by the American Film Institute as one of several universities nationally to engage professors and students in writing cinematic history for the first online Catalog of American Films.

• OSU is proud to be among sponsors of the 18^th Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society (with PSU and U of O) in Portland.

If you haven’t been in Moreland for a while, I urge you to come visit us. The pride we take in our students and their accomplishments remains in the foreground of faculty engagement, focus, inspiration, and commitment at this moment of growth and change. 

--Anita Helle