The Languages and Literature department will begin undergoing changes July 1 as a new acting head plans to update the English curriculum and make it more relevant to the professional world.
“We want to make the curriculum more exciting, more up-to-date and more competitive with other schools,” Ellen Barker, rhetoric and composition professor and acting chair of the English department, said. “We’re going to get this started, and I think we’re going to be able to implement it before the year is up.”
Barker has many plans for the department. She wants to improve the English concentrations offered by adding new media, screen writing and play writing courses, as well as begin a cultural studies concentration that will include gender studies, women studies, folklore and more, Barker said.
“New Orleans is the Hollywood of the South,” Barker said, “so hopefully that will provide more job opportunities.”
Barker also plans to use her background in rhetoric and composition to help find and include more career-oriented fields within the English department.
“We’re looking at trying to find jobs for people, and technical writing is where the jobs are for English majors,” Barker said. “With the oil spill in the area, it’s a good time for documentation about what’s happening to the people and the culture.”
Barker is also looking into bringing in a master’s program for English majors.
“It’s written,” Barker said. “We just need to move it forward.”
To do all of this, Barker is pulling on her past experiences in education, writing, teaching and administration.
Barker has a bachelor’s in English education from Ball State University in Indiana, a master’s in modern American literature from the University of Missouri at Columbia and a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Georgia State University. She also holds Nicholls’ Belle and Leonard Toups Endowed Chair of Writing.
“I applied specifically for the Belle and Toups Endowed Chair position when I came to Nicholls,” Barker said. “It’s a big deal in my field.”
Originally from Mississippi, Barker claims Atlanta, Ga. as her hometown because she lived there for 17 years and began her teaching career in Washington County of south Georgia, she said. After much travel in the southern states, she settled in New Orleans because of the culture, the opportunities of the Endowed Chair position at Nicholls, and to be closer to her friends, Barker said.
However, Barker’s college-level career began in 1980 at her alma mater.
“I taught at Ball State University and University of Tennessee, as well as East Oregon State University and West Georgia College, which I think is called something else now,” Barker said. “I also taught for 12 years at a two-year school in Atlanta. I meant to get my Ph.D. and leave, but I really liked it there. Then I moved to a job at Texas A&M because I wanted to switch focus for a while.”
While teaching at Texas A&M, Barker also gained an administrative background. She was hired by the school to design a structured writing program, was a writing administrator, and was the director for a writing project, she said.
“She is imminently qualified in teaching the theory in composing essays and advanced writing,” David Middleton, former department head of five years, said, “and a lot of what we do at Nicholls is that.”
Barker was appointed in May as acting chair for department head and has been working privately with Middleton to learn her new responsibilities, Middleton said.
“For at least the first year,” Middleton said, “I’d like to be a resource to my successor.”
However, as acting chair, Barker is only appointed for one academic year. At the end of her term, she will have to be reappointed, Barker said.
“It also depends on if I want to stay as acting chair,” Barker said. “But I’m very excited to take on this challenge. I like the faculty here and the students. We are in a crisis right now, and I think there are a lot of opportunities and challenges here.
