UNH Archive: Trip 2 (1/13/12)

Boxes Reviewed/Completed:

UNH Archives: College of Liberal Arts (Series UA 9/1/3) Box 1

ENGL B.1 Office Files, 1956-1966

Boxes to Continue Working On:

ENGL B.2 Office Files

Don Murray

CLA, Annual Report, 1965-66

After two decades as head of the English Department, the largest in the University, Pro. Sylvester Bingham reached the retirement age for administrators and turned over direction of the department to the new chairman, Prof. John Richardson. (happened during 66/67 school year)

Several departments are working on plans for new Ph.D. programs. In addition to Sociology and German, already mentioned, these include History, Political Science, English and Geology. Of these, the preliminary work is most advanced for English and History, stressing colonial America.

CLA, Annual Report, 1966-67

MAT program started

Office of the department, which had been in Murkland Hall since its construction in 1927, were moved to the reconstructed Hamilton Smith Hall in mid-year. The (English) department secured Senate permission to waive the University requirement of English 401-402 for exceptionally competent students. It is planning to broaden its major program by allowing the counting of writing courses toward the major. Plans for a Ph.D. program, which had made slight progress for about five years, began to move ahead. Two members of the department, Mark Smith and John A Yount, published novels during the year. Yount, with a Rockefeller Foundation grant, and Theodore W. Weesner, with an advance from a publisher, both will be on leave in 1967-68 to devote full time to writing.

Catalogue Copy: Freshmen English

• 1946-47: 1-2. Freshmen English. The training of students to write correctly and with force and to read with appreciation and discernment the chief types of literature. The entire staff of the Department. 3 rec. 3 cr. (This is the first time this description appears.)
• 1947-48. Same.
• 1948-49: 1-2. Freshmen English The training of students to write correctly and with force and to read with appreciation and discernment the chief types of literature. The staff of the Department under the Chairmanship of Mr. Webster. 3 rec. 3 cr.
• 1949-50: Same.
• 1950-1959. Basically same with different chairs.
• 1959-60: English 1-2, Freshmen English. Training to write more correctly and with more force and to read with more appreciation and discernment the chief types of literature. The staff of the department under the chairmanship of Mr. Miller. 3 rec; 3 cr.
• 1960-61: Same.
• 1961/62: Same.
• 1962/63: Same.
• 1963/64: Same. The staff of the department under the chairmanship of Mr. Baier. 3 cr. No credit toward major.
• 1964/65: ENGL 401-402.
• 1965/66: Same.
• 1966/67: Same
• 1967/68: Same. The staff of the department under the chairmanship of Mr. Sullivan. 3 cr. No credit toward major.
• 1968/69: Same.
• 1969-70: Training to write more correctly and with more force and to read with more appreciation and discernment. (MM: note that "the chief types of literature" has been removed). The staff of the department under the chairmanship of Mrs. Deane. 4cr.
• 1970-71: Same. The staff of the department under the chairmanship of Mrs. Deane. 4 cr.
• 1971-72: Same.
• 1972-73: Same. The staff of the department under the chairmanship of Mr. Murray. 4 cr.
• 1973-74: Same.
• 1974-75: Same. The staff of the department under the chairmanship of Mr. Carnicelli. 4 cr.
• 1975-76: Training to write more skillfully, and to read with more appreciation and discernment. 4 cr.
• 1976-77: Training to write more skillfully, and to read with more appreciation and discernment. Frequent individual conferences for every student. 4 cr. English 401, or exemption from it, is a prerequisite for all other English courses.
• 1977-2010. Same.

Up until 1968-69, Freshmen English was always presented in this way:

ENGL 401-402: Freshmen English Training to write more correctly and with more force and to read with more appreciation and discernment the chief types of literature. 3 cr.

Starting in 1969-70, the following began to appear:

ENGL 401: Freshmen English Training to write more correctly and with more force and to read with more appreciation and discernment the chief types of literature. 4 cr.

and

ENGL 402: Freshmen Seminars: Approaches to Literature Intensive study fo a specific literary topic, a theme, a genre, a major figure, or a specific period of English or American literature. 4 cr.

As of 1967: "In addition to the particular requirements for specific degrees established by the Colleges, the University requires that every candidate for a bachelor's degree must successfully complete English 401-402 and History 401, 402..." (Catalogue, 167-69)

As of 1969: "Six courses, one of which must be freshmen English unless specifically exempted by the English Department..."

Thus, it would appear that they went down to one class around 1968/69.

Directors of Freshmen English:

1956-63: Edmund G. Miller

1963-67: Lee S. Baier

1967-69 James T. Sullivan

1969-72: Nancy Deane

1972-74: Donald Murray

1974-: Tom Carnicelli

English Department Chairs

1946-66: Sylvester H. Bingham

1966-1973: John C. Richardson

1973-1975: Robert Hapgood

1975-78: Donald Murray

1978-1981: Jean E. Kennard

1981-1988: Carl Dawson

1988: Mike DePorte

Other Notable

• ENGL 501 appears 1966-67: ENGL 501: Expository Writing The discipline of non-fiction writing. Weekly papers and frequent conferences required. Prereq: ENGL. 401-402. 3 cr. Written permission of instructor required for registration. No credit toward a literature major.
• ENGL 301 first appears: 1964-65: ENGL 301: Improvement in Writing Required of all students whose attainments in the fundamentals of English are found to be unsatisfactory. 3 rec; no cr. NLG.
• Nancy H. Deane, instructor: Appears as faculty member of English starting 1967.
• S. Anthony Caldwell is listed as an instructor as of 1967.
• A new course is added (1968/69): ENGL 801: Advanced Composition for High School English Teachers A course designed to improve the teacher's skill in composition and to guide in methods of transmitting such skill to his high school students. 3 credits.

Early Writing Courses:

1953-54:

• ENGL 22: Writing for the Newspaper
• 23: Writing of Technical Reports
• 25-26: Advanced Composition: Practice with compositions of varying lengths. Class discussions with illustrative readings. Weekly conferences. Mr. Towle.
• 27: English Grammar
• 53-54: Writing as Art: The study and practice of forms of writing, together with an examination of the history of literary philosophy. Practice in mutual criticism through class workshop discussions and written comment. Freedom in selection and pursuance of writing interests. Individual conferences. Mr. Towle.
• As early as 1940, Towle was tacking 65-66: Writing as an Art: The study and practice of forms of writing through an examination of the history of literary criticism. Reading of famous critical essays and of many contemporary opinions, correlated with practice writing of various types. Each students is allowed to spend much of his time with the type he finds most congenial. Collateral readings with frequent class discussions and conferences. Mr. Towle (1940-41)
• 96. The Writing Workshop. Not limited to any special type of writing, the student's main contribution to the course, writing, shall be in a mode and length of his own choice. Two days a week are devoted to mutual "workshop" criticism of class work. Two days are utilized to make clear the virtues of all good writing, with illustrations used constantly. On the fifth day, a special topic. Individual conferences are arranged to run parallel to class meetings as an integral part of the course. Members of the course may become members of the Writers' Conference at reduced rates. Open to all interested in writing who have had a first year of college or its equivalent and who have not previously taken Writing Workshop. Mr. Towle. For Juniors, Seniors, and Graduate students. (Given only in the Summer Session.)

Carroll Towle:

25-26: Advanced Composition (from 45-46-)

65-66 (early version) & 53-54 (later): Writing as An Art (from at least 1940-

(these two were his bread and butter and he taught them pretty much every year--interesting to note the similarities with the way Murray basically set up his schedule)

96: The Writing Workshop, (ran, at least, from 1950-55)

But also,

English Literature in the Seventeenth Century

American Literature of the Twentieth Century

Modern American Poetry (1940-41)

Carroll Towle's Teaching Schedule during years Murray was an undergrad at UNH:

1946-47:

25, 26 Advanced Composition

53, 54 Writing as an Art

65, 66 English Literature in the Seventeenth Century

79, 80 American Literature of the Twentieth Century

1947-48:

25, 26 Advanced Composition

53, 54 Writing as an Art

65, 66 English Literature in the Seventeenth Century

79, 80 American Literature of the Twentieth Century

1948-49:

25, 26 Advanced Composition

53, 54 Writing as an Art

65, 66 English Literature in the Seventeenth Century

79, 80 American Literature of the Twentieth Century

Teaching Assignments from folder called English 1-2, 1960-61 reveals:

Fall:

English 1

MWF 10 MK 26

MWF 2 MK 208

(10 and 2 are, I think, times)

Spring:

English 2

MWF 10 MK 26

MWF 2 MK 208

----

Notes for Next Time:

1. There are a number of other possible projects here, or the start of them:

Technical Writing at UNH (course in 1940s/50s/60s)

ENGL 301

ENGL A/B

2. This was a terrific trip to the archive. I set out to just do two things:

a. Read through and organize the items in the little brown box of Murray stuff that they have.

b. Assemble some representative samples from Murray's teaching evaluations.

Instead, I accomplished the following