Department of English, College of LAS, University of Illinois


Illinois Department of English Blog

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Welcome to the Department of English blog.



My name is Vicki Mahaffey and I took over as
head of the department on July 1, 2016. I'll be using this site to post updates and information of interest to our faculty, students, and alumni,
along with reflections about our discipline(s) in particular and the humanities in general. As anyone who has ever worked or studied here knows, the Department of English is a vibrant place. If you have something you'd like to see posted here, or if you want to contact me about the content of this blog, drop me an email at vmahaffe@illinois.edu.


Monday, March 9, 2015

Excellent Teaching and the English Major: It's Not Just a List

I am certain that one of the reasons I became an English major--and, later, an English graduate student--is because I had such excellent teachers. To be sure, that fortunate experience goes back a long way--at least to junior high, where I first really learned to write by being asked to revise essays again and again by a demanding teacher to whom I remain indebted; and to high school, where I was introduced to the canon of European literature by another demanding public school instructor.

But it was definitely in college that I became an English major and a future English professor. The things that attracted me back then remain central to the way we do things today here at Illinois: small classes, lots of attention to student interests, encouragement of free-wheeling discussion, and an emphasis on the craft of writing and making an argument.

There are a lot of good reasons to major in English, but the two main ones for me continue to be these: you get to spend your time reading and discussing really great books with interesting peers; and you learn to think and express yourself by working closely with teachers who care about your mind and your intellectual development. Of course these experiences will help you later in life when it comes to building a successful and fulfilling career; but they are also experiences worth having in their own right.

Here in English, we know that great teaching cannot be reduced to a number between 1 and 5. Yet, we take student evaluations seriously because they do give us an indication of whether what we're doing in the classroom is coming across. I'm happy to report that, as per usual, faculty and graduate students in the English Department do very well when it comes to those evaluations.

Without further ado, then, I'm pleased to give you the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students for Fall 2014 courses:


Iryce Baron, Rob Barrett, Manisha Basu, Paul Beilstein, Maria Carvajal, Silas Cassinelli, Debojoy Chanda, John Claborn, Megan Condis, Mary Rose Cottingham, Eleanor Courtemanche, Kristin Dean, Esther Dettmar, John Dudek, Dennis Dullea, Meghan Dykema, Stephanie Foote, Philip Graham,  Catherine Gray, Joe Grohens, Evin Groundwater, Andrew Hall, Ceridwin Hall, Jim Hansen, Gail Hapke, Mary Hays, Janice Harrington, Chris Hedlin, Marilyn Holguin, Evan Hrobak,  Michael Hurley, Brandon Jones, Jamie Jones, Maggie Kainulainen, Brigit Kelly, Allison Kranek, Melissa Larabee, Jean Lee,  Mary Lindsey, Trish Loughran, Michael Madonick, Vicki Mahaffey, Calgary Martin, Michelle Martinez, Caitlin McGuire, Tom McNamara, Zach McVicker, Natalie Mesnard, Matthew Minicucci, Feisal Mohamed, Dave Morris, Andrew Moss, John Musser, Hina Nazar, Richard Nardi, Scott Nelson, Katherine Norcross, Valerie O’Brien, Michael Odom, Robert Dale Parker, Tony Pollock, Julie Price, Rebecah Pulsifer, Isabel Quintana-Wulf, Thierry Ramais, Scott Ricketts, Greg Rodgers, John Rubins Steve Runkle, Lindsay Russell, Julia Saville, Alex Shakar, Kaia Simon, Andrea Stevens, Jon Stone, Eric Thomas,  Debora Tienou, Sara Weisweaver, Kelly Williams, Zach Williams, Jess Williard, Greg Wilson, Jessica Wong, Elaine Wood, and Charlie Wright.

You can find the full list for the university here

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