HOW TO MAKE THE

ENGLISH MAJOR COOL

AGAIN

Hannah Grip
University of Oklahoma Department of English

1
Table of Contents
2. Executive Summary

3. The Big Problem

3. Departmental Branding Statement

5. Problem 1: Lack of Visibility

7. User Personas

8. Solution 1.a: Reading Buddies

9. Competitor Analysis 1.a

11. Design Research Method & Plan of Action

12. Solution 1.b: Video Interview Campaign

13. Competitor Analysis 1.b

14. Design Research Method & Plan of Action

16. Problem 2: We Need Jobs

16. User Personas

17. Solution 2.a: Resume Workshop

18. Competitor Analysis 2.a

20. Design Research Method & Plan of Action

21. Solution 2.b: Student Publication

22. Competitor Analysis 2.b

24. Design Research Method & Plan of Action

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Executive Summary
English departments across the country, and humanities departments more
generally, are struggling to recruit students and secure funding. Despite this
problem, employers want to hire people with the skills that humanities
graduates have.
The Department of English at the University of Oklahoma is uniquely poised
to attract new students and more funding. The intersection of interesting
courses, knowledgeable professors, and bright students in this department
indicates a bright future.
To tap into this potential, I propose four solutions to two problems within the
department. I address the problem of a lack of visibility with a program that
has OU English majors reading to elementary students and a video campaign
of interviews with professors within the department.
I also address the problem that OU English majors are unsure of their ability to
get jobs after graduation. I propose two solutions to this problem: to hold a
resume workshop with alumni and to develop a student publication that gives
students an opportunity to publish their own work or edit other students work.
User personas and design research inform all four of these solutions. Ive paid
special attention to the goals of OU English majors, as well as their needs and
challenges.

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The Big Problem
Our field is in danger. In just two years between 2012 and 2014, the number of
students gaining bachelors degrees in the core humanities fields declined by
8.7%.1 The number of English majors at universities including the University of
Maryland and George Mason University is declining quickly, due to changes in
the structure of core curricula programs that
take away opportunities for young students to
experience the humanities.2
Although the number of English majors, and
humanities majors in general, are on the
decline across the country, the job prospects
for English majors are not bleak. Compared
to other major fields, including the social
sciences and architecture, humanities
graduates have low levels of unemployment:
just 9% of recent graduates and 3% of graduate degree holders in the
humanities are unemployed.3 American Express credits English majors skills in
empathy as a reason that they are high-demand hires.4

1
The Shrinking Humanities Major. Inside Higher Ed.
2
Major Exodus. Inside Higher Ed.
3
The Best Reason to Study English? The Atlantic
4
Why English Majors are the Hot New Hires. American Express Open Forum.

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Departmental Branding Statement
The Department of English at the University of
Oklahoma is dedicated to a thorough examination of
ideas, culture, and communication through the study of
literature and writing. We offer an unmatched variety of
courses, ranging from classes on environmental writing
to Shakespearean comedies, John Steinbeck to the
graphic novel, social media to Toni Morrison.

We prepare students not for narrow

career paths, but to be assets to the
community of ideas in many fields,
including medicine, marketing, law,
publishing, and education. Students with
degrees in English from OU possess
skills in critical thinking, written and
verbal communication, empathetic
interpersonal interactions, and primary
and secondary research.
Join us as we build a community of
thinkers and creators.

Problem 1: Lack of Visibility

The English department at OU lacks in its presence outside of Cate 2; both in
the university community and in the greater Norman community, the English
department is sadly quiet or not present.
On the public affairs page of the University of Oklahomas website, there are
facts about myriad programs at and honors of OU. The page praises the Health
and Sciences Center, the debate team, study abroad, the College of Law, the
School of Drama, and many other programs, clubs, and departments. The list
of facts never mentions the Department of English.

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The English department is also largely not visible in the Norman community at
large. A search of University of Oklahoma on The Norman Transcripts website
brings up articles about OUs art museum, an OU math graduate, the OU
School of Music, Joe Mixon, an entrepreneurship class, Baker Mayfield, and
spring break in the first 25 results. The Department of English at OU is not
mentioned in any of these articles, which demonstrates its lack of visibility in
the community.
Increasing our visibility on campus
is important because it will likely
help in the recruitment of English
majors. With more students, the
department will likely receive more
funding. Community visibility is
important for a variety of reasons.
Research demonstrates that
community-university research
partnerships are more successful
than academics working in solitude.5
Finally, community engagement has the two-fold effect of bettering the
communities that surround universities and of making students more
empathetic, engaged, and employable. At the University of TexasAustin,
there is a community engagement center, whose website boasts that Over
75% of Longhorns volunteered nearly 1 million hours last year, which averages
to approximately $22 million in economic impact for the communities we
serve. Not only is
increasing the visibility of
the English department
important for improving
funding opportunities and
recruitment strategies, but it will also improve our communities.

5
University + Community Research Partnerships: A New Approach. Pew Partnership for Civic Change.

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User Personas
Kaitlyn is a junior English-
writing major at the University
of Oklahoma. She has a minor
in anthropology, but she is not
sure what she wants to do after
she graduates.
She has thought about teaching
English. She would most like to
work as a staff writer for a
womens magazine. She works
a part-time job and is a member of two clubs: one environmental one,
and one dedicated to womens rights.
Motivations:
She is very busy, but she cares about helping her community.
Kaitlyn knows that whatever career path she pursues after graduation,
her resume will be bolstered if it includes a volunteer experience that
relates to her education and her personal mission of bettering her
community.
Kaitlyn also feels like she is very connected on OUs campus, but she
does not do anything with the English department, which she loves, or
anything in the Norman community at large.
Because Kaitlyn is busy, anything that she will get involved with must be
a small time commitment and have a flexible window of completion.
She also only has a bike, so anything that she does must be close to
OUs campus.

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Tyler is a sophomore business major.
He liked his English classes in high
school, but his high school counselor
and parents encouraged him to pursue
a degree in business because of the
practical interpersonal skills they
believed he would gain.
Tyler is also involved on campus, but
not in any leadership positions. He has a flourishing social life, and he is known
to make some obscure references to books hes read. This behavior makes his
friends think he is a little off, but he needs someone to talk about these things
with.
Motivations:
He doesnt know much about the English department at OU.
His business professors praise his writing skills, but Tyler wants to
continue growing as a skilled communicator.
Tyler reads the OU Daily a couple times a month to find out what is
going on around campus.
He has large amount of free time and an open course schedule, so he has
time for extracurricular activities and classes outside of his major.

Solution 1.a: Reading Buddies

To improve the visibility of the English department in the Norman
community, we will develop a program for English majors to read to
elementary schools students. There are many stakeholders in this program,
including English students who want volunteer experience, English students
who want to feel more connected to their community, elementary school
students who need help reading, elementary school students who need
individual attention, elementary school
teachers who need help teaching reading to
their students, parents of elementary school
students who want their children to love
reading, and professors in the OU English
department who want to improve the
visibility of the department.

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Competitor Analysis 1.a
OU Womens Rowing Team:
My roommate is on this team and
is also participating in their
program that matches rowers with
elementary school classes.
Time commitment: The rowers
spend one hour a week with the
students, playing with students at
recess, reading to them, and helping in group activities during classroom
instruction time.
Pros of this program include boosting the resumes of the college
students, helping the elementary school teachers, and offering the
elementary school students to opportunity to interact with a
demographic they are usually not exposed to.
Cons of this program is that after only one hour of service a week, my
roommate cannot remember the kids names; it is challenging to
coordinate the schedules of college students and elementary school
classrooms; and the rowing team does not use publicity to increase
awareness of this program.
OU Big Event:
This campus-wide day of service occurs once each spring.
Mission statement: The Big Event strives to unify campus and
community through one big
day of service and gratitude.
Pro: Over 6,000 OU students,
staff, and faculty participate.
These individuals help at nearly
160 jobsites. Their budget is
over $40,000.
Pro: The Norman Transcript,
newsok.com, and The Red Dirt
Report have all covered the day
of service in the last two years.

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 The cons of this competitor example is that it is only one day of service,
and the goal of our program is to be ongoing. Furthermore, they have an
exceptionally large budget, while we will have nearly no money to start
our program.

North Central College, Reading Buddies Program:

College students and elementary students are paired up and assigned a
book to read together.
Program design: For three weeks, the pair reads the book and
communicates online about the book; the college student is encouraged
to ask questions that promote literacy and understanding. After three
weeks, the college students meet the elementary school students, and
together they complete a final project to be shared with the entire class.
The pros of this program is
that it provides elementary
school students with
mentors, improves the
literacy of the students,
encourages college students
to think critically about
literacy, and provides the
students with an opportunity to do something meaningful.6 The program
also led to the honoring of these students by a service organization in
their community.7
The cons of this program is that there is minimal face-to-face
interaction and it is challenging to get the two sets of students to
communicate digitally.

6
Reading Buddies. Education World.
7
RSVP Honors Students. NIACC Blog.

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Design Research Method & Plan of
Action
Design Research Method
To assess how this program should be designed and executed, I will use a
cultural probe. The cultural probe will be sent to both parties: the elementary
school students and the English students. The cultural probe will be composed
of two main activities for each group.
First, elementary students will draw a picture of their favorite reading
experience. Next, students in the elementary school class will have their teacher
photograph them in one of their favorite learning experiences.
For the English majors, there will also be two
activities. One will be a post card on which they
can draw or write about their favorite experience
when they were learning to read. The other main
probe I will use for the college-aged students is a
book-writing activity. Students will be given a
short, picture-book length empty bound book.
They will be asked to write and illustrate a story of
someone outside of their family who they saw as a
role model or an encouraging person in their
journeys to become English majors.

Plan of Action
First, a student from the English department will sit down with Brett and ask
him whether a program like this one has ever been attempted in our
department, and how that program went. Next, the student will do outreach to
elementary school principals in Norman. After the student has secured
partnerships with elementary school teachers, she will talk with the teachers of
the classrooms in which the program will be executed. The student will gather
information about the best times of day for English majors to come in and read
with the elementary school students, as well as whether the teacher thinks that
one-on-one interactions will be best or group activities.

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Once the English major coordinating this program has all of this information,
she will organize a marketing effort to recruit her fellow English majors to
participate in the program. The campaign will involve class visits, posters
around Cate 2, a social media campaign, and a table in Cate 2 with cookies and
more information. There will be an informational meeting in the early evening
on a school night, where English majors who are interested in participating can
come and eat pizza, ask questions, and sign up for a time slot. After the
meeting, there will be an online sign-up available for students who could not
attend the meeting.
Students will then meet one-on-one with the teachers they are paired with.
Then they will begin visiting the class once a week for an hour, or more if the
teacher and student agree to such an arrangement. The key performance
indicators are that each elementary school classroom that is a part of the
program has an OU English major visit at least ten times, there is at least one
article in a local newspaper about this program, there is one article in the OU
Daily about this program, and the English majors who participated indicate that
the experience was a worthwhile one in a survey after the completion of the
program.

Solution 1.b: Video Interviews

Students will produce video interviews with professors, in which professors are
asked about their favorite books, what drew them to the field of English, and
other interesting questions. These videos will be shared on the OU English
Department Facebook page, and students will be encouraged to share them, to
increase awareness of the department.
There are many stakeholders in this solution, including students in the
department who want to validate their major choice to parents and peers,
students who want multimedia experiences to add to their resume, students in
other departments who do not understand what the English department and
faculty are all about, and English department faculty who would like to increase
the visibility of the English department on campus in order to attract more
students and more funds.

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Competitor Analysis 1.b
Interview with Professor Miller (University of Buffalo)8:
This is a typed interview, and I suspect that it was conducted over email,
rather than in person, because Professor Miller gives answers with
complex sentence structures that do not sound like natural speaking.
The complicated nature of the answers is one of the major downsides to
this interview.
However, towards the end, Professor Miller relaxes and answers with
humor and stories.
This example suggests
that video or audio
interviews are more
authentic and
accessible and that to
get the best answers,
the interviewer must
be prepared to sit
through some less
interesting answers first.

Interview with Professor Janet Todd9:

This interview is a video interview, with typed questions that precede
Professor Todds answers of the question.

8
Interview with Professor Miller. Buffalo.edu.
9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx4Ouc-Aqj4

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 The effect is somewhat awkward, since her answers
sometimes start in a place that is not obviously
connected to the questions.
There is also static noise in the background.
The physical setting on the interview complements
the content, since there were books and a
grandfather clock.
For our videos, we will use a similar approach to
setting up the room, but we will eliminate the
background noise and ask more interesting personal questions.

Interview with MIT Professor Walter Lewin10:

This example, although old, provides the best model for our interviews.
There is interesting b-roll of the
professor doing in-class
demonstrations.
The questions are broad enough
the Lewin can answer with
whatever information he finds
most interesting.
However, the sound quality is not
great and the camera work is shaky.

Design Research Method & Plan of

Action
Design Research Method

10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K2DsPMVGXg

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To create the best and most engaging video interviews, we will use error
analysis. We will watch a number of interviews of professors and other more
professional interviews of public
figures, like Barack Obama. We will list
everything that the interviews could
have done better. The qualities that we
will assess the videos for are interesting
questions, quality camera and audio
work, and engaging shots. We will list
everything that can possibly go wrong
with our interview and plan solutions
to these possible problems.

Plan of Action
The student in charge of this project will gather teams of three or four students
to work on the videos. They will hold a workshop to determine the best
questions to ask professors, and at this workshop, they will complete the error
analysis and list the steps for creating an engaging video interview. Students will
also learn how to use the video and audio equipment. Then each of the groups
of three or four students will pick which professors they would like to
interview and do small group brainstorming sessions for the script and b-roll.
They will contact the professors and set up a time for the interview. After the
interview, students will send thank-you notes to the professors and edit the
footage that theyve gathered.
Once the videos have been completed, they will be
posted on the OU English Department Facebook
page and the departments website. We will notify
the OU Daily that there has been an interesting and
successful video interview campaign. The key
performance indicators are as follows:
The production of 4 video interviews
Each video has at least 4 shares and 10 likes
The OU Daily writes an article about our
project

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Problem 2: We Need Jobs
Students in the OU Department of English are underprepared to enter the
workforce. Not only are many of the classes focused primarily on writing for an
academic audience, but students also struggle to communicate how the skills
that theyve gained make them good
candidates for jobs. Another result of this
issue is that students outside of the English
Department assume that the department has
nothing to offer them in this job-driven world.
An engineering student told me that he would
never take an English class because he
couldnt see how he would ever need those
kinds of skills.
We need to reimagine the English major as a
legitimate degree that will lead to eventual job success for several reasons. First,
if alumni of the department are able to get jobs, students in many departments
at OU will recognize the value of the English degree, thus helping our
recruitment effort. Second, having a network of successful alumni will increase
donations to the department and will make it easier for new graduates to find
jobs through that network.

User Personas
Jeffrey is a senior English major on the
literature track. Throughout his college
career he has focused mainly on theory-
driven courses and has written many
literary analysis papers. He has also
worked at Cate Restaurants on campus.
Jeffrey is involved in a few
extracurricular activities, but they are primarily social organizations. He has
some experience planning events and using social media to promote these
events.

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Motivations:
Jeffrey has no idea what to do after graduation.
He needs to work for a few years to save money before he can apply to a
graduate program to continue learning about literary theory. His resume
still includes his job at the car wash the summer before college started,
and his most recent work experience listed is his job at Cate Restaurants.
Jeffrey needs help understanding how his major has made him an
employable person and the opportunities that exist for people with his
skillset.
Sarah is a freshman biology major, but shes considered an
English degree. Her parents want her to be a medical
doctor, but Sarah has always dreamed of writing for a
science magazine. Her parents have warned her about
English departments, painting them as groups of people
dressed weird who mutter Shakespeare in the halls.
Motivations:
Sarah has a lot of time on her hands and checks her
email every day to find what interesting
opportunities and activities exist.
She is looking to get very involved on OUs campus to build the best
resume, whether that will help her get into a good medical school or land
a job at Scientific American.
Sarah is also a creative writer, and she has always dreamed of starting her
own publication.
Most importantly, Sarah is open to options and has big dreams and
goals.

Solution 2.a: Resume Workshop

A resume workshop would benefit both students in the English department
and those in other departments across campus. Holding a resume workshop
that is open to students in other departments will show these students the value
of the English department and will be a good recruitment event. Sarah, for

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example, will likely attend this workshop. Jeffrey, with his fears about getting a
job after graduation, will also likely attend the workshop.
This resume workshop will consist of several OU English alumni sharing their
job search, resume, and interview advice. The workshop will last about an hour
and a half and will be held twice: once on a Monday evening and once on a
Friday afternoon to ensure that students with a variety of schedules will be able
to attend.
The first fifteen minutes of the workshop will consist of alumni sharing their
overall advice. Then for the next forty-five minutes each of the alumni will
work with a group of students on their existing resumes. The final half hour
will involve a round of mock group interviews.
There are many stakeholders in this proposed solution: English majors who
have anxieties about their job prospects, alumni, students outside of the
English department, and professors who want their students to get jobs after
graduation.

Competitor Analysis 2.a

HON 3970 (Tracking Legislation):
I took this class in the spring 2015 semester.
Professor Thompson invited his friend, Samuel Than, Director of
Human Resources at Lockheed Martin, to give the class resume and
interview advice.
Than took us through each section of his resume and gave us a number
of interview tips.
The cons of this example are that we were not encouraged to bring in
existing copies of our resumes for critique and that the process was
more like a lecture than an interactive learning experience.
OU Career Services:
OU Career Services offers a
number of resume and
interview help services.

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 They have open office hours in which students can come and have their
resumes critiqued, as well as mock interviews by appointment.
One con of the model OU Career Services provides are that they do not
give advice specific to English majors. In fact, they offer no sample
resumes for English majors.
Another con of this model is that the individuals working in the career
services office do not have jobs in the industries in which we are seeking
jobs, so they are unable to give advice regarding industry standard
practices.
One of the pros of this example is that the interview critique process and
the mock interview are done in an interactive and one-on-one manner.
California State, L.A. Resume Workshop11:
This slide deck is from a resume workshop. It provides a comprehensive
overview of resume and cover letter best practices.
The presentation covers the content,
tone, and formatting that students
should use for their resumes and
cover letters.
One con of this example is that there
are no indications that the
presentation included interactive
activities that allowed students to
practice the skills that they were
learning.
The pros of this example is that they do provide an option at the end of
the workshop for students to make an appointment for a resume critique
with their career services office and that the slides include images that
make the presentation more engaging.

11
https://www.calstatela.edu/sites/default/files/univ/cdc/docs/resumewritingppt.pdf

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Design Research Method & Plan of
Action
Design Research Method
To ensure that the resume workshop is helpful to our audience, I will use the
scenarios to conduct design research. I will develop and illustrate stories of
how I expect different users to experience the resume workshop. I will make a
scenario for both of the user personas I have developed, Jeffrey and Sarah, the
alumni who come for the workshop, and professors who attend the workshop
as well.
For the scenarios, I will take them through each phase of the event, from the
tips section to the workshop to the mock interview and consider the how they
will view the usefulness of each section and any possible discomforts. I will ask
myself questions like how will this section of the workshop be taken by people
who are within the English department and those without and will this process
seem rushed for any of the users.

Plan of Action
The first step in this process is to determine what comparable events and
resources exist on campus. The student organizing this workshop will conduct
research on and analyze existing resume workshops and interview preparation
services.
Then the student will get in touch with recent alumni who have jobs that relate
to the English major. She will invite them to participate in the workshop and
offer dinner to each of them as an incentive. After confirming that there are
enough alumni interested in helping, the student will reserve a room in the
Oklahoma Memorial Union. She will also buy food from Union Catering for
the event.

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Once the room is reserved, the
student will organize a marketing
campaign to promote the event to
students in the English department
and to students in other
departments across campus. The
campaign will include emails to
individuals in charge of
communications in different
departments, flyers in Cate Two
and other buildings, and social
media posts. Each of these will include a call to action for students to RSVP, so
we have a good estimate of the attendance.
There are several key performance indicators for the resume workshop:
At least 20 students attend each workshop and at least 7 will be from
departments other than English
On the anonymous exit surveys, at least 80% of attendees mark that they
were satisfied or very satisfied with the workshop
Each student who attends has an opportunity to participate in a mock
interview

Solution 2.b: Student Publication

Students in ENGL 3143 at OU have remarked on many occasions that they
have no idea where or how to publish things theyve written over the course of
their education. Publication credits improve an applicants chance of being
accepted into a graduate program and of being hired.12

12
The Importance of Publications. University of Notre Dame website.

21
To solve the problem of students in the Department of English at OU being
unsure of their abilities to get jobs after graduation, I propose to start a
publication for student work run by student editors.
The publication will include works of short fiction, creative nonfiction,
interviews, research writing, literary analysis, and poetry. There will be an
edition in both the spring and fall semesters. Students will be encouraged to
submit work theyve written both inside and outside of OU courses. Not only
will students want to publish their work for the resume boost, but they will also
be motivated by the possibility to win $50 if their submission is chosen to be
the featured piece.

Competitor Analysis 2.b

The Aster, Student Advisory Board, World Literature Today:
The Aster took submissions of
short fiction, creative nonfiction,
poetry, interviews, reviews, and
visual art/photography.
This publication has a limited
budget so it will likely be released
online, with a small batch print
release.
This group is entirely student-run, and the publication will be composed
of only student work.
One of the cons of this example is that the groups publication timeline
was delayed several times, as was the submissions deadline.
Another con is that the magazines website is poorly designed and its
social media promotion campaign was not organized well.
One of the pros of this model is that many people who heard about the
publication said that they had been looking for something like it at OU
for a long time; it filled a need.
Another of the pros of this example is that the OU Daily published an
interview with 3 members of the editorial board.

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Gargoyle: The Official Humor Magazine of the University of Michigan13:
This publication has been in existence
since the early 1900s and is well-
established on Michigans campus.
It is a student publication that includes
long-form humor essays as well as
comics.
One pro of this example is that the
magazine is financed entirely by ad
revenue.
Another pro of the Gargoyle is that they
have a well-followed and liked Twitter
account.
They also distribute the publication
across the University of Michigan campus and the city of Ann Arbor.
Many people who have written for the publication have gone on to be
successful writers, including Arthur Miller and Janet Malcolm.
One con of this example is that their issues are very short (10-15 pages).
However, issues do come out four times a year. It also does not publish
a variety of different genres.

13
http://www.gargmag.com/

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 Studio, Virginia Commonwealth
University14:
This publication provides news-style coverage
of arts events at Virginia Commonwealth
University.
One con of this example is that its content is
not all student created.
Another con is that the magazine is more
news coverage than an anthology.
One pro of this publication is that it has
beautiful design and is a good length. It is also
distributed twice a year.

Design Research Method & Plan of

Action
Design Research Method
I will use surveys and questionnaires to conduct design research, so I can create
a student publication that fits the needs of the students it is serving. I will send
two sets of surveys: one to students within the OU Department of English and
one to the editors-in-chief of select student publications across the country.
The survey for OU English majors will focus on their interest in a student
publication, the types of work they would like to have published, their
willingness to serve on the editorial board, and what they see as the qualities of
a successful publication.
The survey for editors-in-chief of other student publications will focus on their
organizational structure for the editorial board, their methods of promotion,
their editorial process, and general advice for a new student publication.

14
http://arts.vcu.edu/publications/2016-spring-studio/

24
Plan of Action
The first step of this process is to send out the two surveys to their respective
groups. Their answers will inform the scope of this project. After the survey
data has been analyzed, the student in charge will gather an editorial board. She
will cite the importance of publication experience on resumes to attract
students to join.
The editorial board will begin meeting and set a timeline for the publication.
They will set submission and page length goals, as well. Then, they will follow
their timeline as they call for submissions, select what pieces will be accepted
for publication, and create a mock-up that will be sent for a printing estimate.
Finally, they will fundraise and print and distribute the publication.
The key performance indicators for this project are as follows:
The publication meets its internally set submission and page length
goals.
There is an article in a local newspaper about the project.
Students involved with the editorial board say that the process was
enjoyable and informative at the wrap-up meeting.

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