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Jennifer-- Hi! I knew that you had migrated to Sask but had not gotten around to checking in to see how you are doing, so it's good to see you on the list. At CCCCs this year the Canadian group was lamenting, privately and publically, the sad state of Rhetoric in most English departments, so you're not alone. It doesn't seem to have to be that way, but it so often is. Here, Engineers are required to take one of three communication courses. Even when the Englsh dept did offer composition, none of their courses was on the list. I think you'll be much more at home in a professional faculty--maybe it's that they treat people and their disciplines professionally. The Lethbridge plan is quite vague at the moment. For the benefit of the people on the list who haven't heard about this: the U of C is trying to establish more of a presence in rural Alberta and considered offering a Bachelor of General Studies with a minor in Communications at Lethbridge. It would be a full-featured University program; we would only rent space from Lethbridge Community College. However, I insisted that it be done right, with full time faculty, access to research, etc, since the university has been trying to define itself as a research institution to distinguish itself from colleges. The result is that the tuition we would have to charge would be astronomical. The plan is still under investigation but we are going to have to think very carefully about whether it's worth it, and what the point would be of establishing a U of C program in a community that already has a university. Jennifer MacLennan wrote: > > Anyway, my years at Lethbridge were a very exciting time, but sadly the > U of L won't be offering any more rhetoric now that I've gone, and the > offerings in the department of English have shrunk back to the one > course, which will be taught by people with no background at all in > rhetoric. Rumour has it that U of C is hoping to take up the slack with > some comm offerings through the Lethbridge Community College (Doug, is > this correct?) > -- Doug Brent Co-ordinator, Undergraduate Program in Communications Studies Associate Dean, Academic Programs and Faculty Affairs Faculty of General Studies, University of Calgary (403) 220-5458 Fax: (403) 282-6716 http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dabrent