English Professors: Is Anyone Paying Attention?

The Beatles sang that Eleanor Rigby's funeral was a solitary affair. Other than Father McKenzie, "Nobody came." Father McKenzie then quietly returned to his priestly sinecure, just another of the countless "lonely people."

Today, Father McKenzie might well be teaching English at The University of Georgia. According to Emory's Mark Bauerlein, UGA English professors published 23 research articles in 2004. Of these 23 articles, Bauerlein writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "16 received zero to two citations, four of them three to six, one eight, one 11, and one 16."

UGA English professors are writing and publishing serious work. But is anyone paying attention? And if not, what larger scholarly purpose is being served?

Good research can spring from and inform good teaching. At a major university, however, teaching can be controversial. For decades, a teaching award at a Harvard or MIT was considered the "kiss of death" for tenure. A 2008 article in The Harvard Crimson argued that such awards are "no longer" such a career risk.

MIT, at least, is paying attention to its reputation for teaching while reaching out to students far beyond MIT's Massachusetts campus. The selection of undergraduate literature courses available free online through MIT Open Course Ware includes such offerings as Introduction to Literary Theory and Literary Interpretation: Virginia Woolf's Shakespeare.

Given MIT's international reputation, the likelihood seems strong these courses will reach a larger audience. Father McKenzie, if he teaches at MIT, will not speak only to himself.

Maybe he'll even earn tenure.