Skip to Main Content

Bachelor’s Degree in English

Request More Info (Undergrad Short Program Form)

Request More Info

Write Your Next Chapter at Saint Rose

People say you have a way with words. You read and reflect on texts all around you, whether on a page or on a screen.

As an English major at Saint Rose, you will join a diverse community of writers and thinkers excited about drawing connections across periods and genres. You’ll study with an accomplished faculty of poets, scholars, novelists, and digital humanists, with a 21st-century approach to the study of writing and literature.

And unlike at many other colleges and universities, our English majors take courses in both literature and creative writing, a combination that allows students to follow creative, scholarly, and practical paths. Our majors gain skills essential to an ever-changing professional landscape and go on to a variety of exciting and fulfilling careers.

Along the way, you will be guided by faculty who are passionate about their work, specializing in topics ranging from women in the Middle Ages to Afrofuturism. No matter what topic is at the center of their scholarship, all of our professors share one primary focus – you and your success.

Get Your Guide

Download our quick guide for info on English minors and concentrations, and check out the latest stats and great career outcomes for English majors at Saint Rose.

Program Highlights

Students work with award-winning scholars and writers in small classes.

You will analyze literature, film, and other texts. You will develop your ability to think critically against the grain of received ideas. And you’ll find your voice as a writer with the power to communicate, move, and persuade. The department offers internships in a variety of media, arts, and nonprofit organizations to give students the opportunity to build experience in a professional setting.

  • Tailor your course of study by selecting one or more of these minors: Literature, Writing, Digital Publishing, or Film and Digital Media Studies.
  • Work with faculty who are award-winning scholars, poets, memoirists, and novelists active and published in their fields as well as inspiring in the classroom.
  • Be part of a thriving culture of scholars and writers. Present research or read original work at our yearly English Symposium. Join the English Club or the chapter of Sigma Tau Delta honor society. Edit and write for the Chronicle newspaper. Get involved with a digital humanities project on early 20th-century Black magazines or join the staff of our literary journal, Pine Hills Review.
  • Be eligible for one of our annual awards for distinguished students, including the Senior Writing Award, the Outstanding Senior in English Award, and the Outstanding Senior in English/Adolescence Education Award.
  • Collaborate with faculty on their research, or complete your own individualized research project, independent study, or writing project with one-on-one faculty direction.
  • Saint Rose English majors gain a competitive edge in the job market through semester-long internships in various media outlets and nonprofits.

Degree Programs for English Education

Teach the next generation of storytellers.

You are interested in language and writing as exploration, as storytelling, and as self-expression. And you want to share your passion for these things with students in a classroom of your own one day. Saint Rose has a longstanding reputation for producing top-notch teachers. We’re the first place superintendents in the Capital Region call when they’re looking for job candidates.

Explore English-Education Degree Programs

Curriculum and Internships

Putting the Major to Work: Senior Seminar and Internship

The major is structured to help you progressively develop your skills, and it culminates in Senior Seminar and a required internship. In Senior Seminar, you will work with a faculty member and other seniors in a small seminar setting, with each student producing a high-quality work of literary criticism grounded in substantive research. In your internship, you will work with faculty to arrange a semester-long placement in fields such as publishing, law, arts and culture, public relations, and government. When you graduate, you will have work experience that will give you a competitive edge in the job market.

View course Requirements

Literary analysis: Students will be able to read literature, literary theory, and literary criticism, moving beyond an understanding of the literal level to interpreting, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating and working into appropriate context while recognizing conventions that define literary genres.

Thesis-writing: Students will be able to present, develop, and defend a clear thesis appropriate to the communication task while demonstrating appropriate format, organization, and overall coherence.

Research: Students will be able to examine and question research from appropriate sources and to integrate this research into the development and defense of the thesis.

Grammar and style: Students will demonstrate correctness in mechanics of grammar, usage, punctuation, and documentation.

Get Ahead When You Graduate

EARN A BACHELOR’S AND MASTER’S IN FOUR YEARS.

In addition to our traditional bachelor’s degree Saint Rose now offers our 2-in-4 program, which allows students to save time, money, and get ahead by earning both their bachelor’s and master’s in four years.

EXPLORE 2-IN-4 PROGRAMS

Meet Our English Faculty

Our faculty are great scholars, but your success is their top priority. Unlike large research institutions, Saint Rose is a place where professors invest in their students and put their energy into teaching, making for compelling classes and great learning outcomes.

May Caroline Chan Associate Professor of English

I received my doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I wrote my dissertation on Victorian British travel narratives about China. I have been working on a series of essays about Isabella Bird Bishop, one of the more well-known travelers of the period, particularly her relationships with religion, men, and illness. I regularly teach courses in Victorian literature, Asian American literature, and Jane Austen adaptations. My Asian American literature class is a way to honor the memory of my mentor, Dr. Amy Ling, for her work in Asian American literature and studies.

Eurie Dahn Professor of English

My expertise is in African American literature and U.S. literature, especially in relation to magazines and newspapers of the 20th century. My courses, such as “Growing up Black in the U.S.” and “Surveillance, Privacy, and Power,” teach students to analyze literature to develop insights about structural inequality, power, and resistance. I am author of “Jim Crow Networks: African American Periodical Cultures” and essays on Black print.

View Full Bio

Kathryn Laity Associate Professor of English

My Ph.D. is interdisciplinary; my interests are, too. I’m currently researching a medieval Scots tale where a collier encounters an Arab knight in France. I’m not stuck in the past though; in 2011 I was a Fulbright Fellow in Digital Humanities at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Everything’s digital now, including publishing: as an author and editor of crime & speculative fiction, I’ve put my practical experience to work in our Digital Media courses.

View Full Bio

Jennifer Marlow Professor of English

My specialization is in writing studies, and I coordinate the College’s First-Year Writing Program. My academic work has been published in Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy and Forum. I co-produced the documentary film, Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Labor, which won the 2014 Michelle Kendrick Outstanding Digital Production/Scholarship Award. My co-authored eBook, “Are We There Yet? Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education — 20 Years Later”, is available from Computers and Composition Digital Press. I have recently returned to my first writing love, creative nonfiction, and am working on a collection of micro-memoirs about motherhood.

View Full Bio

May Caroline ChanAssociate Professor of English

I received my doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I wrote my dissertation on Victorian British travel narratives about China. I have been working on a series of essays about Isabella Bird Bishop, one of the more well-known travelers of the period, particularly her relationships with religion, men, and illness. I regularly teach courses in Victorian literature, Asian American literature, and Jane Austen adaptations. My Asian American literature class is a way to honor the memory of my mentor, Dr. Amy Ling, for her work in Asian American literature and studies.

Eurie DahnProfessor of English

My expertise is in African American literature and U.S. literature, especially in relation to magazines and newspapers of the 20th century. My courses, such as “Growing up Black in the U.S.” and “Surveillance, Privacy, and Power,” teach students to analyze literature to develop insights about structural inequality, power, and resistance. I am author of “Jim Crow Networks: African American Periodical Cultures” and essays on Black print.

View Full Bio

Kathryn LaityAssociate Professor of English

My Ph.D. is interdisciplinary; my interests are, too. I’m currently researching a medieval Scots tale where a collier encounters an Arab knight in France. I’m not stuck in the past though; in 2011 I was a Fulbright Fellow in Digital Humanities at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Everything’s digital now, including publishing: as an author and editor of crime & speculative fiction, I’ve put my practical experience to work in our Digital Media courses.

View Full Bio

Jennifer Marlow Professor of English

My specialization is in writing studies, and I coordinate the College’s First-Year Writing Program. My academic work has been published in Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy and Forum. I co-produced the documentary film, Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Labor, which won the 2014 Michelle Kendrick Outstanding Digital Production/Scholarship Award. My co-authored eBook, “Are We There Yet? Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education — 20 Years Later”, is available from Computers and Composition Digital Press. I have recently returned to my first writing love, creative nonfiction, and am working on a collection of micro-memoirs about motherhood.

View Full Bio

David Morrow Associate Professor of English

I teach classes in early modern English literature and culture, including Shakespeare, as well as environment-themed courses focused on the present day, including “Ecology and Film.”My research combines these two interests. I study the processes through which human relationships to the natural world were changing in 16th- and 17th-century England, and how literary and other texts interpreted these changes. I have an essay on Shakespeare’s play
“Pericles”
 and agrarian capitalism forthcoming in the second edition of Blackwell’s “A Companion to the Global Renaissance.”

View Full Bio

Daniel Nester Professor of English

I teach writing in all shapes and forms, and enjoy helping fellow writers develop their voices. In Poetry in Performance, students perform work onstage. In another, students help edit Pine Hills Review. As a writer, I’ve published essays, poems, journalism, and memoir. I’ve written books about my obsession with the rock band Queen, a coming-of-age memoir, pop culture-soaked poems, and humorous essays. I edited the first-ever anthology of sestinas. Lately, I’ve enjoyed developing online courses that take advantage of the newest tools and technologies.

View Full Bio

David Rice Associate Professor of English

I study and teach 20th-century American literature, Native American literature, and composition. I’m interested in intersections between literary texts and culture, such as music and literature, indigenous oral stories and Native American novels, and digital humanities. I teach online as well as in person, and I’m continually looking for ways to enhance students’ literary study with digital technology.

View Full Bio

Brian Sweeney Professor of English

I teach and research US and African American literature and print culture of the 19th and early-20th centuries. Courses I teach include “Crime and Punishment in Poe’s America”; “US Literature, Magazines, and Mass Print”; “Sympathy and the Early US Novel”; and our literary theory course. I’m co-editor of a forthcoming edition of Pauline Hopkins’s 1903 Afrofuturist novel “Of One Blood”; I co-direct a digital humanities project on the Colored American Magazine, an early-20th century Black periodical; and I’m completing a book on professionalism, affect, and the novel. As a first-gen college graduate, I’m committed to mentoring undergraduate research and working to expand student access to and engagement with digital archives.

View Full Bio

David MorrowAssociate Professor of English

I teach classes in early modern English literature and culture, including Shakespeare, as well as environment-themed courses focused on the present day, including “Ecology and Film.”My research combines these two interests. I study the processes through which human relationships to the natural world were changing in 16th- and 17th-century England, and how literary and other texts interpreted these changes. I have an essay on Shakespeare’s play
“Pericles”
 and agrarian capitalism forthcoming in the second edition of Blackwell’s “A Companion to the Global Renaissance.”

View Full Bio

Daniel NesterProfessor of English

I teach writing in all shapes and forms, and enjoy helping fellow writers develop their voices. In Poetry in Performance, students perform work onstage. In another, students help edit Pine Hills Review. As a writer, I’ve published essays, poems, journalism, and memoir. I’ve written books about my obsession with the rock band Queen, a coming-of-age memoir, pop culture-soaked poems, and humorous essays. I edited the first-ever anthology of sestinas. Lately, I’ve enjoyed developing online courses that take advantage of the newest tools and technologies.

View Full Bio

David RiceAssociate Professor of English

I study and teach 20th-century American literature, Native American literature, and composition. I’m interested in intersections between literary texts and culture, such as music and literature, indigenous oral stories and Native American novels, and digital humanities. I teach online as well as in person, and I’m continually looking for ways to enhance students’ literary study with digital technology.

View Full Bio

Brian SweeneyProfessor of English

I teach and research US and African American literature and print culture of the 19th and early-20th centuries. Courses I teach include “Crime and Punishment in Poe’s America”; “US Literature, Magazines, and Mass Print”; “Sympathy and the Early US Novel”; and our literary theory course. I’m co-editor of a forthcoming edition of Pauline Hopkins’s 1903 Afrofuturist novel “Of One Blood”; I co-direct a digital humanities project on the Colored American Magazine, an early-20th century Black periodical; and I’m completing a book on professionalism, affect, and the novel. As a first-gen college graduate, I’m committed to mentoring undergraduate research and working to expand student access to and engagement with digital archives.

View Full Bio

Barbara Ungar Professor of English

My specialization is in poetry, particularly 19th- through 21st-century poetry. A passionate and devoted teacher, I love to teach literature, from early world literature right up to contemporary American, as well as creative writing. I have published eight books of poetry, several of which have won multiple awards. My most recent is a chapbook, “EDGE” (named for the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered species lists), inspired by my current research and teaching interest: the sixth extinction and global climate crisis.

View Full Bio

Barbara UngarProfessor of English

My specialization is in poetry, particularly 19th- through 21st-century poetry. A passionate and devoted teacher, I love to teach literature, from early world literature right up to contemporary American, as well as creative writing. I have published eight books of poetry, several of which have won multiple awards. My most recent is a chapbook, “EDGE” (named for the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered species lists), inspired by my current research and teaching interest: the sixth extinction and global climate crisis.

View Full Bio

Career Outlook

Did you know that approximately 1 in 10 Saint Rose undergraduates is either a major or concentrator in English?

English majors ages 25 to 29 have had lower unemployment rates than math and computer science majors, according to a recent report by the National Center for Education Statistics.

English Majors Get Jobs and Make a Difference

Saint Rose’s English program prepares students for careers in human resources, nonprofit administration, education, communications, public relations, publishing, and advertising.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that between 2018 and 2028 the job outlook for English-related occupations—in fields such as technical writing, nonprofit administration, public relations, promotions, and marketing—are all projected to grow faster than average.

As our media consumption grows more and more complex, there isn’t a field or industry that doesn’t need people who can analyze material and communicate what it means. As jobs continue to change, these skills will remain critical. Our English alumni work in publishing and government offices; they manage social media for large companies and customer relationships for tech start-ups; they work at ad agencies and consultant firms; they write press releases, teach in classrooms, run libraries, and publish books.

Organizations employing Saint Rose graduates:

  • Sierra Club
  • Leo Burnett Chicago
  • Barnes & Noble’s digital operations
  • New York Library Association
  • TickPick
  • Penguin Random House Audio
  • New York Daily News
  • BitSight Technologies
  • 92nd Street Y’s InsideOut Literary Arts Project
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Simmons University, School of Library & Information Science
  • Albany Medical College
  • Writing Center at Michigan State University
  • New York State Executive Chamber
  • Binghamton University Writing Initiative
  • Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site
  • New York State Office of Children and Family Services
  • Easterseals UCP North Carolina & Virginia
  • NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation

Meet Our English Alums

Become part of a vibrant and growing network of Saint Rose English alums, including graduates with careers as teachers and in education administration, at the Sierra Club, Barnes & Noble’s digital operations, New York Library Association, TickPick, Leo Burnett Chicago advertising agency, Penguin Random House Audio publishing, the New York Daily News, and the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.

The humanities have provided me with the ability to empathize and chronicle the human experience like no other academic area has. Nina Simone said in an interview, ‘the duty of an artist is to reflect the times’ and the humanities have taught me, as a writer, the ways to accomplish just that. How to feel alive and connected to the world around me and furthermore, how to write about ‘the times’ effectively.” 

Daniel Summerhill ’15 went on to earn his MFA in Creative Writing from Pine Manor College, is now assistant professor of poetry/social action and composition studies at California State University. 

Daniel Summerhill '15

When people at work ask about my educational background and are surprised I didn’t study history, I always repeat the same message: English majors can do anything. We end up in such a variety of jobs because the degree makes it possible for us to follow paths we might not think of or even be aware of while completing our studies.”

Jessie Serfilippi ’15, G’18 Historical interpreter at Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site and author of “‘As Odious and Immoral a Thing:’ Alexander Hamilton’s Hidden History as an Enslaver,” made international headlines, including The New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine 

Jessie Serfilippi ’15, G’18

An English degree from Saint Rose will prepare you for the working world. Companies are always looking for writers. My advice: Keep focusing on your technical/creative writing skills and you’ll be able to make an impact anywhere you go.”

Shawn Berman ’16, digital operations department for audiobooks at Barnes & Noble

Shawn Berman ’16

Contact Us Today

Of course, if you have any questions, please reach out. We’re here to help.

Got Questions?

Got Questions? (Undergrad Short Program Form)