As I register my classes for the Spring 2025 semester, I find myself losing hope at the prospect of the English Literature major returning to Saint Xavier University, and losing sight of my place as a student at this university.
When I first arrived at SXU last fall, I had so much hope about my academic future. For me, college was a gold-plated dreamland, where I would become the intelligent and hardworking writer I always wanted to be. I imagined my classrooms would be full of like-minded people who were well-read, and who would supplement my education with the conversations we had.
In truth, what I found as I began my studies, is that as an English major, I might not have a future at this university.
English Literature, along with Philosophy, Math, Religious Studies, and multiple other majors, were cut by the university during the Spring 2023 semester. I had to learn this news the hard way, through conversations with the seniors on The Xavierite staff, and by looking at old newspapers.
Never did I receive any official communication from Saint Xavier telling me that the English department had been cut, and when I did reach out to the Center Of Success for help, I was told to my face that my major hadn’t gone anywhere.
I spent my first year here trying to find a place where I could belong academically, but the few people I share a major with either kept to themselves or graduated last May. Even still, I decided to stick with the major, and remain dedicated to the study of literature.
Even with a strong passion for writing, I started to lose hope in my academic future when Mary Beth Tegan, Ph.D. left the university. Tegan was an incredible English professor with whom I felt I had a unique connection with her, regardless of its brevity.
She was my academic advisor as well, and since her departure from the university last May, I haven’t been assigned a new advisor. I don’t blame her for leaving. Sometimes I feel I can empathize with Tegan; a passionate and articulate person who inhabits a community where the subject they love is undervalued. I also sometimes wonder whether it would be wise to transfer to a university that still has an English program.
As language arts become a memory at SXU, I can’t help but feel like I am a part of a dying breed. In my coming here, I’ve inherited all the bad blood from the decision to cut majors, which casts a shadow of doom over all of my course work.
Everyday I wake up on this campus and feel that I have to save it. I always think to myself, “If I can prove that literature has power and relevance, then maybe that will mean something to the right person and bring the English department back.” My every act feels all-important, like the fate of this college rests with me alone.
I look back at the phantoms left in the wake of the major cut. Senior Seminar projects show me the education I could have had, where students supported one another in the thorough analysis of literary texts and films, as well as the creation of original works. Likewise, I’ve found old copies of the student-run literary magazine Opus, which prove that SXU did have a thriving community of intelligent authors. But those glory days are over, and that era only exists itself as a story.
I believe that English is fundamental to any person’s education, regardless of one’s major. Verbal language is a gift unique to humanity, and to disregard its importance as an educational institution is outrageous.
And while I would love to unite the student body under the banner of artistic expression, and fight for the importance of English, I’m only one man. Between my academics, work, and personal creative projects, I don’t have time to put in the work it would take to make my dream a reality. I want to be the martyr in this situation, and I’ll always love literature, but the truth is administration doesn’t care, and in the end, it would be a waste of my talents and time to try and make them.
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