The Remaking of a Small College English Department

In 1998, Stuart McDougal was recruited by Macalester College to create a new English department to replace one that had been decimated by a series of retirements. McDougal accepted the challenge and immediately confronted a series of questions: What should the curriculum of a liberal arts English department look like at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first? Who should be hired and what should they teach? How should one balance teaching and scholarship at a liberal arts college? What lessons could be drawn from experience at a large research university for the very different environment of a small liberal arts college? McDougal addresses these questions (and more) in his essay, “The Remaking of a Small College English Department.”