Our Mission
The overall mission of the Department of English is to engage in writing, research, teaching, and public service that advance our understanding of the field English through Creative Writing, Literature, Medieval Studies, and Rhetoric and Professional Writing. We do so in New Mexico’s flagship institution, the only Hispanic-Serving Institution in the U.S. that is also classified a Carnegie Research University with Very High Activity. We blend the regional in the form of Southwestern and Native American courses with the national in the form of American literature and the global in the form of traditional British offerings, Anglophone, and World literature. The writing disciplines also align with these approaches.
Department Goals
- Educate students to read critically, write clearly and imaginatively, think logically, and speak articulately about literature and language.
- Promote critical literacy, that is, the capacity to interpret, evaluate, and contextualize literary and social text.
- Acquire and disseminate knowledge of our expanding literary and cultural heritages.
- Teach a historical sense of language and literatures in English in all their diversity to the multicultural student body from the state.
- Lead students to realize how the expressive and analytical skills they acquire and exercise in their study of English prepares them for a wide variety of meaningful professional employment opportunities upon graduation.
Departmental Support Statement
The English Department reaffirms a long tradition of civic engagement —including civil disobedience, dissent, resistance—and supports the academic freedom and civil rights of the faculty, instructors, staff, and students who practice forms of social activism.
