M.A. and Ph.D. Student Resources
Our M.A. and Ph.D. students are a close-knit community of emerging scholars from across the country and around the globe. Many are teaching, researching, and publishing in the areas of early modern literature, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature, American studies, and film and screen studies. But they also have ties with other interdisciplinary departments and programs around the university, including African-American Studies, Judaic Studies, LGBT Studies, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, South Asian Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies. The Future Professoriate Project is a university-wide program that seeks to help advanced Ph.D. students successfully make the transition to becoming assistant professors by integrating additional preparation for teaching into the graduate experience. As a participant in the project, The English Department offers faculty mentorship, professional development seminars, and new teaching opportunities. For more on FPP in the English Department, Click Here.
There is a very active graduate student organization, called the English Graduate Organization (EGO). EGO meets regularly to discuss and act upon graduate student interests, concerns, and department policy-making. Additionally, EGO manages and operates a monthly graduate reading series, which helps students transform their work from seminar papers to publishable or presentable scholarship.
Teaching Assistants in the M.A. Program largely teach in Syracuse University’s Writing Program, while Ph.D. students’ assistantships are within the English Department. As a Teaching Assistant in the English Department at Syracuse, Ph.D. students have the opportunity to serve in a variety of ways under an experienced professor who can guide them, both pedagogically and professionally. Typically, in the first two years of a Teaching Assistantship, students run two 20-person discussion sections each semester of a larger lecture course taught by a professor. After students’ tenure as Teaching Assistants, they become Teaching Associates, at which point they are eligible to lead their own section of an entry-level (100-level) course in the department’s English and Textual Studies (ETS) curriculum, supervised by a Faculty Teaching Mentor as well as the department's Future Professoriate Project (FPP) assembly. Entry-level ETS courses are capped at 25 students, and are open to freshmen, sophomores, and juniors.
Programming and Resources
The TA Archive
The transition from assisting a lecture course as a “Teaching Assistant” to teaching one’s own course as a “Teaching Associate” entails a very real shift in responsibilities and labor. The resources in the TA Archive are meant to help students with this transition, covering all phases of teaching in the English and Textual Studies curriculum. It is designed to provide easily accessible practical advice, a clear delineation of regulations and policy, and sundry sample materials for the topics most relevant to TA’s. The archive is comprised of three major sections: Teaching, Professionalization, and Research. Each section is further subdivided, with both general information, and items specific to a TA’s precise teaching assignment. The archive has been designed, generated and maintained entirely by our graduate students, with the support of the English Department, the Future Professoriate Project, and the Graduate School. To enter the TA Archive, Click Here.
Future Professoriate Project (FPP)
Professional Development
The department offers an annual series of professional development workshops. These workshops assist students in preparing for Ph.D. examinations, giving conference papers, getting essays published, and preparing to write dissertations. For Ph.D. students going on the job market, we also offer mock interviews.
English Graduate Colloquium
The department organizes an annual interdisciplinary lecture and workshop series around a general topic or theme. Each colloquium includes at least one distinguished presenter from outside Syracuse University, a member of the SU faculty from outside the English Department, a member of the SU English Department faculty, and a current Ph.D. student in English.
Reading Groups
Graduate students and faculty whose interests overlap often form Reading Groups, at which they discuss primary or secondary texts together. In recent years, some of these reading groups have also discussed graduate students’ works-in-progress and organized conference panels. For descriptions of, and contact information for, currently active reading groups, Click Here.
Handbooks
The Handbook for Graduate Student Employees provided by the Graduate School is available for university policies governing appointments, information on TA responsibilities and protections, as well as requirements for degree completion. For policies specifically governing the English Graduate Program, please refer to the English Graduate Student Handbook.