Writing skills necessary for future success
Financial crises will force this University to make difficult decisions.
The necessity of budget cuts, however, does not excuse insane decisions, and terminating English instructors is academic insanity.
I majored in English at this University, and I owe so much of my post-graduate success to skills I developed because my amazing professors had time for me.
I would fear to see the result if the University is unable to recruit or retain quality English personnel when professors are unable to pursue their fields of expertise, saddled instead with scores of now-teacherless mandatory freshman and second-year writing classes.
Not an English major?
Don’t worry — the impact of these terminations will extend far beyond the English Department.
The University’s academic future is only as secure as the futures of the students it graduates.
Students with insufficient   research and writing skills will not make it in the job market.
For the majority of the student body, those skills are only really developed in the instructor-driven English 1001 and 2000 classes.
This economic climate is unfriendly, and the job candidates who are effective writers and communicators will win every time over their peers who are not.
I’m not an economist; I’m simply an University graduate whose prospective employers routinely ask for writing samples prior to interview.
English instructors have a difficult and absolutely imperative job.
As an undergraduate, I was a student worker in the English Department.
I spent years copying and filing students’ evaluations, and I’ve seen what this student body has had to say, particularly about instructors like Martha Strohschein.
Sometimes they hated the class and left still hating reading and writing.
But they learned how to do it anyway, and they loved their instructors.
Freshmen, sophomores and all future incoming students will be affected by this decision.
College ends sooner or later. Students, I encourage you to stand up for your education.
You’re going to need it.
 
Laura Springer
English major, class of 2009
LSU Law, class of 2012  
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