Literature major with an additional option of two writing emphases.
Extraordinary range of courses in literature and creative and expository writing.
Inclusion of critical writing in every English course.
Accessible, accomplished faculty.
Student faculty ratio: 6-to-1 for declared majors
Average class size: 19
Two levels of fiction, nonfiction and poetry writing classes.
Single Voice Reading Series—an opportunity to hear and meet nationally known writers. Readers have included John Updike, Carolyn Forché, Tobias Wolff, W.D. Snodgrass, Robert Olen Butler, Tim O’Brien, and Mark Doty.
Senior Projects that prove to employers and graduate schools the ability to complete a major original assignment.
The Allegheny Review, a national journal of undergraduate literature (edited by Allegheny students).
Most classes meet in Oddfellows Hall on North Main Street, on the north end of campus.
English courses that encourage students to explore connections between literature and other disciplines.
Key Benefits
Exposure to many interpretive methods and perspectives.
An ability to access and refine creative expression.
Critical thinking and writing skills needed for professional success in many fields, including law, education, communications and media, advertising, and public relations.
An understanding and appreciation of language.
A firm grounding in classic, contemporary, and nontraditional literature.
An understanding of modern approaches and fields, including feminist theory and criticism, post-colonial literature, news writing, film, and literary theory.
Endorsements
90 percent acceptance rate of Allegheny English majors applying to graduate and professional school.
“The small class size at Allegheny and the corresponding individual attention from professors are a real benefit; my academic advisor and my Senior Project advisor didn’t just help me academically, they helped me plan my future.” – Susan Lipsitz ’88, Boston attorney
“This professor teaches her classes in a way that excites students not only to understand the material, but to challenge themselves to truly learn.”
– Recent student
Twice recently, Allegheny was one of 20 institutions nationwide chosen to receive a Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fellow.
Allegheny Review won so many Columbia Scholastic Press Association awards that the editors stopped entering the journal in the contests.
The department ranks in the top 5 percent among private undergraduate institutions in production of eventual Ph.D.s since 1920.
“I am very impressed [with Allegheny], particularly with the creative writing teachers here, and also with the English department. I find the faculty uncommonly dedicated and serious and rigorous.” — Carolyn Forché, author of The Angel of History