Welcome to the English Department. If you love to read and discuss great books, if you are interested in the increasingly complex kinds of communication and their cultural implications, and if you want an academic experience where you develop supportive lifelong relationships with your teachers and fellow students, you have come to the right place.

Use the tabs on this page to explore the dynamic life of this department: the variety of curricular and co-curricular opportunities, the teachers who make it all happen, and the alumni whose successes in a wide variety of fields originated on the first floor of Bradley House, where faculty and students thrive in the study of literature, writing and communication.

Reasons to Major in English

  • Skills and Outcomes
    1. You will graduate having read, discussed many of the greatest works of literature in the English language, and having written a comprehensive thesis about one of your favorites.
    2. Critical Skills:
      We will do everything we can to make sure that you learn to think, write and speak with clarity, as well as interpret difficult texts that yield layers of meaning, skills that are essential to any professional field in which you can imagine yourself working.
    3. English majors are the hot new hires
      As many recent articles demonstrate, business leaders from a range of professions are recognizing more than ever the value in the practical communication skills as well as the comprehensive and empathetic knowledge that English majors bring to their organizations. Read the article »
  • Top ten reasons we think you should seriously consider joining us:

    1. You will graduate having read, discussed many of the greatest works of literature in the English language, and having written a comprehensive thesis about one of your favorites.

    2. Critical skills
    We will do everything we can to make sure that you learn to think, write and speak with clarity, as well as interpret difficult texts that yield layers of meaning, skills that are essential to any professional field in which you can imagine yourself working.

    3. English majors are the hot new hires
    As many recent articles demonstrate, business leaders from a range of professions are recognizing more than ever the value in the practical communication skills as well as the comprehensive and empathetic knowledge that English majors bring to their organizations. Read the article »

    4. Live better
    In the classrooms and offices of the teachers here you will deepen your apprehension of and appreciation for the beautiful, the sublime, the comic, and the tragic. Our graduates regularly remind us how these experiences expanded their understanding of humanity and left them with lives permanently enriched.

    5. YES!
    Whenever someone asks you if you've read any good books lately, you can always answer "yes!"

    6. Isn't it ironic?
    When a pop singer like Alanis Morrisette sings "Isn't it ironic?" you will know why it is not.

    7. The world is filled with dangled prepositions, misplaced modifiers, and split infinitives, and you will be able to help. (We love grammarians)

    8. Teachers = mentors, cheerleaders, life-long friends
    It may be hard to imagine now, but trust us, 10, 20 or 30 years from now you will still correspond with one of your Saint Anselm English teachers about something interesting you read, a decision you need to make, or a particular triumph or heartache in your life. Read about a recent alumna visit »

    9. Majoring in English worked out pretty well for:

    • Steven Spielberg
    • Harrison Ford
    • Emma Thompson
    • Matt Damon
    • Joan Rivers
    • Conan O'Brien
    • Don Henley
    • Chris Isaak
    • Diane Sawyer
    • Toni Morrison
    • Bob Woodward
    • Michael Eisner
    • Steven King
    • It likely will for you too

    10. It's true. The English Department really does have the nicest and best-dressed faculty on the Saint Anselm campus.

Message From the Chair

  • Welcome!

    If you have pointed and clicked enough times to reach this page, you are already traveling on a significant journey. My colleagues and I here in the Saint Anselm English Department would be honored to accompany you on your next steps.

    Our Department is comprised of twelve dedicated full-time faculty from around the country as well as two foreign countries, who, together with several talented part-time instructors, share well over 200 years of combined teaching experience. We also share together the enormous joy of guiding students through the most important literary and rhetorical works that have ever been written and helping students to become astute interpreters of texts, proficient writers and exceptional communicators.

    I trust that you have already been encouraged in your journey by some excellent teachers and I suspect that others in your life have asked what you will do with a degree in English or what exactly a Communication major is. You should know that our graduates are working in a wide variety of fields from education to law and politics, from publishing, public relations, and broadcasting to business, management and ministry. There is no limit to the ways in which one can "use" an English or Communication major because rigorous training in critical reading and writing prepares you for any career in which you have to clearly and persuasively express ideas and support those ideas with evidence.

    You should also know that our students not only experience great outcomes, they very much enjoy their time and work with us here in the English Department. So I encourage you on your journey. Learn as much about us as you can about our faculty and alumni on this web page. Check out as well our Department Facebook page or my blog, Back Porch Pages at blogs.anselm.edu/English and please feel free to e-mail me anytime with questions: gbouchard@anselm.edu.

    Most importantly, come visit us. Sit in on our classes and get to know us. We are privileged to teach amid the foothills of the White Mountains where Nathaniel Hawthorne loved to hike, near the banks of the Merrimack River where Henry David Thoreau journeyed, and just up the road from the farm where Robert Frost discovered his New Hampshire voice in its walls and brooks and birches. We would love to welcome you to our beautiful campus and get to know you better.

    I look forward to meeting you soon.

    Professor Gary Bouchard
    Chair, English Department