Indiana University Department of English

General Information

The Graduate Program in English
History
The first classes in English taught at Indiana University in 1829 served as handmaidens to the two major courses of study: classics and natural science. Gradually, pressure from a state with a large farming population and the dream of a "popular education" pushed the curriculum away from classics and toward "modern languages" and eventually to the departmental system it now maintains. In 1867 the University established its first Chair in English Literature and the Theory and Practice of Education; in 1873 it hired Sarah Parke Morrison, the first woman admitted to the University and its first woman professor of English. Graduate education, though available previously, did not commence in earnest until 1904; the first two Ph.Ds in English were awarded to women. Since that time, Indiana graduates have left to teach in colleges and universities in every state and in many foreign countries. Indiana University has been nationally recognized throughout this century for its vital, innovative department of English, committed to teaching and research. The department has served as home to celebrated educators and scholars, Pulitzer prize-winning writers, as well as several presidents of the MLA.
Indiana University has offered courses in creative writing throughout most of this century. Robert Frost, Marguerite Young, Robert Penn Warren, and John Crowe Ransom, among others, have taught courses in poetry and fiction writing at Indiana University. Our creative writing program is one of the nation's oldest and most distinguished, having been founded in the late 1940s by short-story writer Peter Taylor. Indiana University was among the first two or three universities to grant a creative writing M.A., awarding its first degree to David Wagoner. In 1980 Indiana University began offering the M.F.A. in Creative Writing.
Size and Diversity
In recent years, the English Department's graduate program has enrolled approximately 210 active students each year, 35-40 of them new students; approximately one quarter of the in-coming class is M.F.A. students. While the vast majority of Indiana undergraduates are natives of the state, graduate students come from all over the United States and from abroad. The Department's full-time faculty numbers approximately 65 professors who have diverse interests in various authors, periods, critical methodologies, and disciplines related to the study of language and literature (see the listing at the end of this Introduction). Most members of the faculty spend at least part of their time teaching and supervising graduate students. Under the sponsorship of the English Department, a number of distinguished visitors each year give lectures on campus and participate in courses and seminars.

The University and the Town
Indiana University at Bloomington is located some fifty-five miles south-southwest of Indianapolis amid the rolling hills of southern Indiana; the beauty of the heavily wooded 2,200 acre campus was evident in the movie Breaking Away. The large enrollment at the university -- over 30,000 -- and the distance from any urban center have combined to make Bloomington a cultural center. There are widely varied musical offerings, from the famous operas presented by the I.U. School of Music and the programs of visiting soloists and symphonies, through jazz concerts at the School of Music and in clubs in town, to rock performances downtown and in the 17,000 seat Assembly Hall. Broadway shows and modern dance and ballet companies appear in the Auditorium, complementing the offerings of the Department of Theatre and Drama and the different dance companies on campus and in town. Several campus film series featuring American and foreign classics add variety to the current releases playing on some fifteen commercial screens. The Art Museum, designed by I.M. Pei and completed in 1982, houses one of the best academic collections in the country. Recreational facilities include basketball and racquetball courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, weight rooms, an indoor jogging track, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, soccer fields, and a challenging golf course.
The town and surrounding area likewise afford a wide variety of attractions. In addition to the usual bars, fast-food emporia, and pizza places, there are restaurants featuring vegetarian, Chinese (Cantonese and Hunan-Szechuan), French, Creole, Moroccan, Tibetan, Mexican, Irish, Japanese, Italian, Ethiopian, Greek, and Continental cuisine, and several coffee houses. There are several bookstores (including Borders and Barnes & Nobles) and very good music shops. Within fifteen miles are several small lakes and Lake Monroe, the largest lake in Indiana; Brown County State Park--15,543 acres of wilderness--and the Indiana Wilderness Area ensure that much of the land near Bloomington remains in an undeveloped state.

Housing
The university provides housing for single students in dormitories and for married students in apartments. For information, write Halls of Residence, 801 N. Jordan, Bloomington, IN 47405. A large variety of off-campus housing is also available; listings can be found in the campus paper (Indiana Daily Student) or in the local paper (The Herald Times). Additional information prepared by current graduate students is available from the Director of Graduate Studies. With such a large student population in a relatively small town, attractive arrangements are hard to come by at the last minute, so plan to secure housing as early as possible -- the March before enrollment is not too early to begin inquiries.

Parking
As on any campus, parking at IU is a problem. Except for several metered spots at the main library and a pay lot by the Memorial Union (nearly always full), parking on campus is limited to cars with university parking stickers. Furthermore, parking in the residential area just south of campus (near Ballantine) is restricted to residents only. Students who live on campus may purchase a D" sticker, which will allow them to park near their residence halls or apartment buildings. Graduate students who do not have AIships and who live off campus are, unfortunately, limited to the purchase of an E" sticker, and may park only on the outskirts of campus (i.e. in the stadium lot or the Woodlawn lot). The university provides shuttle buses from these distant sites to the center of campus.
Associate Instructors, however, have the privilege to purchase either a C" or an A" sticker (they're not cheap), giving them a much larger range of parking choices.

Computing Services
While most graduate students will be much happier if they own their own computers (preferably with modems), the university does provide a large number of student computer clusters around campus (including several in Ballantine), and with good timing and a lot of innovation, grad students can survive by using those sites.
New students are strongly encouraged to stop by University Computing Services (UCS), rm. 061 of the IMU, early in their first semester to procure an electronic mail (e-mail) account, since an increasing amount of departmental business in conducted in cyberspace. In addition, UCS offers a variety of free courses designed to familiarize students with the Internet, e-mail, word processing and graphics programs, etc. Course listings can be picked up at UCS.

Libraries
The main library is located in a spacious building on the corner of 10th St. and Jordan Ave and consists of an undergraduate wing and a much larger research collection, both with open stacks. Graduate student carrels, located on each floor of the research collections, are assigned at the beginning of each academic year. If interested in claiming a carrel, you should call the main library Access Services at 855-2304. New graduate students are strongly encouraged to take one of the special graduate student" tours offered by library staff during the first several weeks of each semester. In addition, a number of library workshops have been offered by the English department in the past; watch your mailbox for information on such programs. Angela Courtney (Email), the head librarian for the English language and literatures collection, has an office on the tenth floor of the stacks. She is extremely knowledgeable and eager to help, so introduce yourself to her and take advantage of her expertise in library and computer research.
In addition to the main library, a number of branches" around campus house special collections that are often of interest to English graduate students, including the Black Culture Center library, the law school library, the education library, and the Lilly Library, which houses a large collection of rare books and manuscripts from the Middle Ages to the present. Most holdings of these branches are accessible via the computerized library catalog, also known as IUCAT. Introductory lessons on how to use the library's computer resources are offered throughout the semester. Check the main library for details.

Ballantine Hall
Since almost all graduate English courses and many sections of composition are held in Ballantine Hall, most graduate students spend a great deal of time here. In honor of that fact, here is some information on the building that you might find useful:
Receiving Mail
All graduate student mailboxes are located in Ballantine 408. You will automatically be assigned a box as long as you turn in to the secretaries the card you receive with your registration package. Usually each box is shared by two or three students, although A.I.s have their own boxes. A departmental mailbox is an important way of keeping informed about upcoming lectures, seminars, films -- almost anything that can be printed or advertised. Your e-mail account (see Computing Services, above) is another important site for information.
Sending Mail, Etc.
Next to the fourth floor elevators is an aluminum slot over a glass chute. Although it is not marked as such, this is a U.S. mailbox and is cleared regularly by mail room personnel. If you need to mail something, the mail room people (on the ground floor, to the left of the elevators) are usually willing to do so, but they are not stamp vendors or packagers, nor are the department secretaries. There is a U.S. post office located in the Memorial Union. Campus mail should be deposited in the box in the department office, just to the left of the door as you walk in. Ask one of the secretaries for campus mail envelopes or memos if you need them.
If you need to return a library book but are not going to the library, there is a book return box in the mail room of Ballantine. There is a telephone in 408 that will reach campus and local numbers. A pay phone and free phone are on the ground floor near the elevators.
Storage in Ballantine
One possible place to store items while you are in the building is a locker. There are a number of small but useful lockers located on the ground floor to the right and around the corner of the elevators as you come out of them. Many students in the department use them -- they cost about $5 per year and may be rented through the bursar s office, located at Franklin Hall. A second place to leave belongings is the graduate students' lounge, located around the corner to the right of the elevators as you leave them on the fourth floor. Space there is limited, especially for coats.
Studying in Ballantine
The lounge mentioned above, also called the Work Room, is also a good place to read, to sit around, to meet people, to eat lunch, or just to talk. Another place to go in Ballantine between classes is one of the study rooms such as 328. They are usually quiet and roomy. There is sometimes an available classroom in Ballantine where one can get in an hour of reading, but not usually during peak class hours. Another hangout in Ballantine is 008, the faculty/A.I. lounge on the ground floor. This room is also home to the snack bar, which offers breakfast and lunch items as well as coffee and other beverages. NOTE: the woman who runs the snack bar has two hard and fast rules: no studying at the tables directly in front of the snack bar, and no student conferences. Crossing her is not worth it.
The really choice reading chairs and tables, however, require a walk to the Memorial Union or to second floor of the Art Museum. The Art Museum has the advantage of a good coffee bar and an outdoor sculpture garden.
Computing in Ballantine
Many IBM PCs are available in BH 308, 108, and 118; MACs are located in BH 107, 115, and 117.