A female student sits on a lawn chair on campus while holding a book and smiling at the camera.

English Department

Overview

The English Department equips students with the ability to read and think critically and creatively, and to express themselves in lucid speech, writing, and design. We offer a variety of majors and minors to encourage nuanced, interdisciplinary interests and prepare students for meaningful and successful careers after McDaniel.

English Major: Equips student to read both widely and closely, to see many points of view, to make connections, to formulate concise summaries and thoughtful opinions, and to write with clarity and style.
Writing and Publishing Major: Explores what it takes to become a professional writer who’s built for success in this content-hungry era, preparing students to become strong writers who can create, edit, and manage a publication pipeline.
English Major with Education Minor: Prepares students for teaching certification at the secondary level (grades 7 - 12), and careers as creative, thoughtful educators.
English Minor: Provides a background in literary methods a variety of writing styles including humor, poetry, fiction and memoir.
Journalism and New Media Minor: Explores the ethical dimensions of the new media landscape and how the evolving tools of the trade can help tell important stories with creativity, quality, integrity.
Popular Literature Minor: A rich study of varied themes in popular literature including horror, romance, and the work of Jane Austen among others.
Writing Minor: A focused study of many genres of creative and professional writing including fiction, news reporting, writing for digital media, and law and policy writing.

Meet English Faculty

English professors’ book examines early detective fiction

Professors LeRoy Panek and Mary Bendel-Simso authored a new book exploring early detective fiction. “Essentials Elements of the Detective Story, 1820-1891” examines detective fiction during its formative years, while focusing on such crucial elements of the stories as setting, lawyers and the law, physicians and forensics, women as victims and heroes, crime and criminals, and police and detectives.

Robert Kachur

"I love teaching, and for over two decades I've had the amazing opportunity to teach a wide variety of courses related to my research interests: horror fiction (British and American, with particular interest in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe), British Romantic poetry (with particular interest in Wordsworth, Coleridge and Blake), the early British novel, Apocalyptic texts, and Postmodern fiction, film and pop culture."

Alexander Champoux-Crowley

"I work with writers across the curriculum, not just in the English major, to do meaningful, thoughtful, critical communication and to analyze the world around them. I hope that from the first day, they learn that they are an active and empowered participant in the production of knowledge. That they can discover new things, make new arguments, and push the bounds. Critical thinking is not something I give them; it’s something that they’re already doing — I just help them articulate it."

English major Jackie White, class of 2019

Alumni Spotlight Class of 2019: Jackie White Get to Know a Green Terror

English major Jackie White discovered a new passion for Cinema to go with her lifelong love of the English language and literature. TV Production class is her best class ever — she learned how to run almost every position in a television news station as well as teamwork and adaptability.

Read "Class of 2019: Jackie White"

Meet Graduates of the English Department

We're proud to call these recent graduates alumni, and prouder still to share a selection of their stories here – told as only they can tell them, in their own words.