Episode 52: Showcasing Saint Leo’s BA in English Degree Program

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Speaker 1:

Saint Leo 360, a 360 degree overview of the Saint Leo University community.



Greg Lindberg:

Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Saint Leo 360 podcast. This is your host as usual here, Greg Lindberg. Here on this episode of the podcast, we are speaking about our undergraduate English program here at Saint Leo University, and we have a great guest joining us here on the podcast. Her name is Dr. Chantelle MacPhee and she is the chair of the Department of Language Studies and the Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences here at Saint Leo University. She is also an associate professor of English. Dr. MacPhee, welcome.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I'm excited to be here.



Greg Lindberg:

Awesome. All righty, we'll go ahead and dive right on in. So first off, Dr. MacPhee, why don't you just introduce yourself as far as your background in terms of education, your professional experience and any personal background you'd like to mention?



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

So, I have a bit of a long [inaudible 00:01:16] to English, not that long, but a little bit longer than normal. I have a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada, very similar to Saint Leo. The home of Anne of Green Gables, if anyone's familiar with the Anne of Green Gables books by Lucy Maud Montgomery. And then I have a master's degree again in English from the University of Western Ontario, which is now known as Western University. I also have a PhD in English literature focusing specifically on the long 18th century, William Blake and Shakespeare from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Prior to going to Glasgow, I was what they called a special student because I had two degrees at McGill University in Montreal where I studied art history, German literature and Asian literature and translation.



Greg Lindberg:

Oh, wow. That's quite a diverse background in areas of study.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

Just couldn't decide.



Greg Lindberg:

I know you do come from Canada originally. What brought you to the states?



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

Well, originally, I had finished my, or was finishing my PhD. I was all but dissertation at that point and I was broke. So I started applying for jobs in Canada, in the US. I hadn't been home in Canada more than a week and I received an email that I was given a full-time instructor position at Clemson University. My first reaction was a bit of a surprise. I was like, "Clemson, I don't remember applying there." Again, you're a grad student and you're subsumed with your dissertation, you forget where you've applied. So I called them and sure enough, it was a legitimate job offer. So I was like, "I'll be there in two weeks." So I never even unpacked.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I went to South Carolina, and that's my foray into US education, which was brand new for me. I was there as a full-time instructor for three years and then was offered a tenure track position as assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico in Cayey and I took it. So I moved to Puerto Rico and learned Spanish on the fly and was there five years. That's where my son was born as well. So we had a great time in Puerto Rico. Then I moved to, I was offered an opportunity to move to the North Carolina.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I was an associate professor of English and department chair at Elizabeth City State University for about six and a half years. And then my husband at the time, we were moving to Miami. So I got a job at Miami Dade College. I was the only chair at Miami Dade College West Campus. That was about three and a half years. Then I got the chance to move up here. I just found I had become a single mom and it was just too crazy being a single mom and not having any family in the US. I just said, "Nah, I can't stay here." It's too crazy and it's too busy and you spend enormous amounts of time in traffic. I was looking for a place that was very similar to my undergraduate and Saint Leo had a position open. I applied and was grateful enough to receive the appointment of chair and associate professor here in August 2018.



Greg Lindberg:

I see. And wow, once again, what a journey and quite a few stops even along the way? Very, very interesting background. So let's dive into the Bachelor's in English program here at Saint Leo. And if you just want to briefly speak about the history of this program, I know it's been around for quite a while, I understand.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

Yes. Our program at the moment is strictly on campus with a few English courses and the major offered online. What's interesting is that it was completely renovated. The year I arrived, it was just finishing up the renovation of the program and going through the changes and was implemented in 2019. Part of that renovation was because it was very traditional prior, nothing wrong with it. I come from a traditional background, but we needed to open it up a little bit more and have more courses that were... We have core courses and we have a lot of options and we wanted to make it more diverse to represent our student body, but also to represent the changes that have been happening in literature for some time. It was long overdue. So we came up with this newer program, which has three specializations within it, but they're all English major students, but they just have more choices to specialize in three areas. Four areas, really.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I think it's made it a lot easier for students to see the diversity of courses and take more that fits what they want. If they want an elective in global literature or they want to take something in creative writing or professional writing, they now have options. It allows them a little bit more opportunity to choose, I want a little bit of a different elective than just pure lit track or just certain things. And it allows more diversity for our faculty as well, who are quite diverse in background.



Greg Lindberg:

Got you. Very interesting. In terms of perspective students, let's talk about, how would you describe a prospective student who would be a good fit for this English program?



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I always tell students, because I deal as a chair with a lot of undeclared students, and the first question I always ask them is, do you like to read and what kind of things do you read? Do you read fantasy fiction? Do you read cultural studies? What are you reading these days that catches your eye? And if they really like to read, then the English major is a great option for them. If they like digital media, social media, if they like to write themselves, poetry, short stories, fiction, then the English major is a great opportunity. It's also the number one major that is being pulled for law students because of what we teach them in the major. Anyone who studies English is going to learn about people. I think our new motto that we designed a couple of years ago when I got here was, "Not just any major, it's life. Come and live it with us."



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I think that if you read it all and you can focus on a character that you really like, you're getting the point of an English major. You're learning about people, how to navigate situations. I mean, a lot of my friends are not academics, but they started in graduate school, got their master's degrees and are doing everything possible. They're in finance, they're in banking. And a lot of it was based on their English background. So we're looking for students who really want a diverse degree that's very flexible, but they can write. And if you can write, you're a supervisor, a manager or a hire, and whether it's education, we're not just teachers. Yes, there are a lot of us that are teachers, but there are so many that are not. I think our graduates are a wonderful example of the diversity of backgrounds that come from us, public policy, finance.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I think that the English degree is something that we teach you about purpose and context, an audience. I've done a lot of marketing myself as one of my jobs growing up because of my English degree. I've worked in the medical field because I can write and they would often give me brochures to write for a specific audience. So I think that it all depends. We're not just teachers, we're so much more than that. And there's nothing wrong with being a teacher. I am one and I love it, but I think there's that misnomer misunderstanding that it's just for teachers when you can be a lawyer, you can be a public policy, you can be a speech writer for politicians. I've done that as consultant. There are so many things that you can do. The sky's the limit with it.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I've seen jobs and the first number one skill is oral communication. Hello, we learn that in English. Written skills is one of the major power skills that people are looking for. Again, that's English. We teach our students in 121 and 122 right now, the importance of understanding ethos, pathos and logos. How do you write? How do you support what you say? Why do you use emotion in your writing? When's it appropriate? How would you use it? Even doing podcasts and things. I don't know if your background's in English, but that would certainly be something that English people can do as well. Owning your own business, because English also pairs so well with so many minors. I always tell students, you can major in English and minor in business or minor in marketing or minor in computer science. There's lots of ways that you can really diversify yourself in a market that's requiring more people to work from home.



Greg Lindberg:

Absolutely. Yeah. And that's so well stated about the diversity of career tracks out there. Like you were saying, the longstanding stereotypes about the English major when in fact can prepare a graduate for just so many wonderful and high-paying, rewarding opportunities in such a variety of fields.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

Definitely. Yeah. And I think even our faculty can prove that because a lot of them have done very different things in their lives prior to becoming the academic with the PhD. So it's really quite interesting.



Greg Lindberg:

I know you did mention the three specializations tracks, so to speak, as well that we offer within this program. Let's dive into those a little further.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

The first one, because it's mine, I'm going to start with literary and cultural studies. We have Catherine Duncan, everyone knows Catherine in the department, the students follow her. She's the Harry Potter teacher. She's the Pirates teacher and they love her for it, and bibliotherapy last semester. I think that literature is that and she brings that to the table. Her background is very much that. Looking at traditional 18th century or Shakespeare and British literature and showcasing that it's so much more than that. Specifically Austin, but they're well published in their fields. Another one is Lee Hobbs. He was a tattoo artist for many years in Poland. People don't realize that he has a very interesting background. He has a master's in liberal studies, which again, is very interesting. Teaches humanities courses, he's teaching a film class.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

We have Patrick Crerand who is both a master's of fine arts and creative writing and a lit person. So he works double duty in the department doing both sides, which is wonderful. Anne Barngrover, another faculty member with both sides. Gianna Russo, we all know Gianna as well, who does some really cool... She had her students baking bread in the cafe in one of her creative writing classes to understand the importance of feeling and using the five senses as a writer. So we do a lot of very innovative courses, professional writing. Valerie Kasper, she's been a journalist. She's got a digital humanities background. She does the social media courses and the digital media and journalism courses and worked in industry for quite a long time.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

Allyson Marino, who's part-time with us and part-time in another department. She worked in editing. Liz Aiken, who also works in two different departments, she's working, I believe in social work now doing some social work courses. There's lots of interesting backgrounds that often get overlooked were not just necessarily pure English. I was not. So the lit program really is focused on... I'm currently looking at trying to offer Canadian literature course with my Canadian background because I think students would really find Margaret Atwood, Canadian, went to the University of Toronto. So looking at all of these authors in different ways, looking at global literature, which is a very eye opening experience. Having studied Asian literature and German literature and translation and French literature, I think it's important that students see that literature is not just written in English.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

It's Spanish literature as well in translation for, in our case, in the English department. But looking at these authors and realizing that there's a whole wide world of great works out there that can be done in a class and compared with the traditional literature we're normally associated with. The other specialization's creative writing, has some really great classes that are very unique to the genres. So one is studies in place and looking at the idea of place in creative writing. Nature is another one, which I think is a very important topic because it's not just the environment. We have an environment course in literature as well. There's a lot of overlap between the three specializations, but creative writing is really doing your own authentic writing and learning how to engage with your audience in a very different way. You're not just reading, you're writing what people are going to read, which I think is really cool.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

For students who say, oh, I write poetry on this side, well, you can minor in creative writing and have that on a transcript. Even for a bio major who's interested in the medical profession, that's gold. That is really something they look for. They're looking for diverse backgrounds. I think our professional writing major, or sorry, specialization is another one that's got a lot of really key technological courses. Technical writing has been added and will be offered in the fall for the first time because that's important. Everything we have has a manual. We may not read it, but it has a manual. And understanding also the important [crosstalk 00:16:40]. Yes. And understanding, what does a reporter do? It's not just they show up in front of the TV. It's so much more, it's a lot behind the scenes. Also, Valerie does teach digital media, which is a great class. She works with the student newspaper, which students still need to understand how to write for that particular audience, their own peers and relevant to what their peers want to read about these days.



Greg Lindberg:

Right. Wow. I'm just blown away by, again, the diversity of courses and the diversity of our faculty. I really like your example of making bread, like you mentioned, one of the classes. It's just really so neat to see how our faculty tie in these unexpected ideas and whatnot into our English and our lit classes and how it really opens students minds in so many ways.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

Yeah. For me, I think one of the things that I really loved about Catherine's, you did a little piece on her about it, which was phenomenal, was her interest in bibliotherapy, which I thought was phenomenal because a lot of our students have been really struggling during COVID. She had warned me that she was going to do it. I was like, "Perfect. This is absolutely perfect." I said, "I think it's perfect timing." And the fact that it even made me think about, yeah, there are characters that we read about that struggle with mental health. What would we recommend? What kind of books would we recommend as an English major if they were a real person? Because it's based on reality, it's based on real people. I thought that was a really interesting perspective to add to English literature as a whole and to English major as a whole.



Greg Lindberg:

As far as clubs organizations, I know you did briefly reference the Lions' Pride, the student newspaper. Let's talk about opportunities that our students have perhaps outside the classroom to gain experience.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

That's the other thing. I mean, an English major can get federal internships that are paid for. They just have to reach out to their faculty and our English faculty, all of my faculty since this is on English. The English faculty really work hands on with you at Saint Leo. So if the students wanted an internship and they've spoken with our faculty, we will find you. We will find you opportunities and help you also learn to navigate on your own, how to do it. Where do you find them? How do you apply? Make sure you get the deadlines and start early. We also have our own internships within the department. If you're an English major, you don't have to be in creative writing. You can work with the Sandhill Writers Retreat and the Sandhill Writers Review.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

You can also work with the Lightning Key Review. You can work on campus for the newspaper, the student newspaper, the Lions' Pride. We have Nicole Sanchez who recently graduated and she's just been op. She's been working with the Laker Lutz newspaper and now has an opportunity to work full time with them. So I think that there's lots of ways that we can make them strong. English majors have the writing skills. So a lot of it is sitting down and going, what kind of internship do you want? Do you want to work for Coca-Cola? If they need a piece of writing to showcase you can write, that's an English major's dream.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

If you want to work for the federal government, they're looking for people they don't have to correct their grammar. They don't have to correct spelling. They can write. That's an English major's dream. So I think that it just depends on what the student wants and we can help that happen. We have students that are doing all kinds of things. I think that the internship, while we have some on campus, we're always looking for new ways for our students to find internships that interest them. If they don't live in Florida, that doesn't mean they can't find an internship. A lot of it is talking with their faculty and saying, I'm really interested. I'm from... New York has, oh my God, the opportunity's there. Yes, it's competitive. But our students have done very well in being competitive. For example, Disney, we have several students who have held Disney internships. I think we've got three there now. So there's lots of opportunities for them, not only within the area, but outside.



Greg Lindberg:

I know we've talked quite a bit already about career opportunities that a graduate could pursue with an English degree. Let's get into, as far as graduate programs out there, what kind of opportunities are there for English degree graduates who may be interested in grad school?



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

This is where I had to ask some of my faculty, because I've only been at Saint Leo about three and a half years, where have our graduates prior to my arrival gone? Excuse me. I was really happy to see that it's pick a major. I'll give you an example. We have a student last year, Christian [inaudible 00:21:48], I think time escape to me. It was either last year or the year before. Last year, I believe. He is now doing a graduate program at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, very proud of him. Someone who came to us and he was recommended to Saint Leo from another Saint Leo graduate who's now a dean at a community college, and had taught him and Catherine Duncan had taught him.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I think that that's the connection we have with our graduates, but we also have graduates who have finished a master's in public policy, master's in social work, master's in fine arts, master's in English, master's in... Let me check my list. I had to get the list. I was like, oh my goodness. There's so many of them. Well, I can tell you right now that one of my friends went into medicine with a master's in English, decided to shift gears and go into medicine. My brother's a doctor in Canada. I invited him to talk to my students in 122 a year ago and he told them, he's like, "As a doctor, I write 18 to 20 pages a day. I'm writing about my patients in their files." He said, "I have to be very careful what I write."



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

It's his English courses that taught him how to be successful in that way and keep it unbiased. We have copywriters, students who want to do copywriting. We have students who have opened their own businesses. I think that's really cool. We have people working at Trinity Enterprises, Oshkosh executives, Juvenile Justice Department, MA in higher education, medical writers, reporters, admissions recruiters, law school, hospitality at Universal. Financial advisors working at Medicare, business analysts, national publishing houses, instructional designers. I think that one of the joys of, if you can go to grad school, of course, but some people want to take a little bit of a break and get out into the world and try their hand in the workforce for a little bit and get some practice. That's all wonderful.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

An English degree is very, very flexible. I always tell my students, the sky's the limit, what do you want? And then I sit with them and make sure that if they have electives, which they all do, elective times, I say, "Well, maybe you should take a business class if you are thinking of opening your own business. Take an accounting class." I work with business to make sure that maybe some get a double minor. Catherine Duncan has a journalism undergrad with, I believe, a minor in business. These are things that we can easily navigate with the students while they're here.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

If they want to go to law school, take some history classes as electives. But also understand that the LSAT, you're going to be writing. Well, that's your strength if you're an English major. But also too, I think that graduates from the program have easily... I've seen students go from, they come to Saint Leo as freshmen and they struggle with their writing, but they just have something. You're reading their stuff and you're like, the ideas are great. If they're interested, we approach them and we talk to them and say, "Have you considered English? You're undeclared. You're not sure, but maybe you want to take another English class and see if it's for you and we can work with you."



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

Often we find that they're very happy when they realize that there's so much more to it. So I think English is one of those degrees... I've had people say, "Well, my parents think I'll be unemployed." And I'm like, "No, I've never been unemployed in 29 years." So I think a lot of it is looking at it and saying, well, what can I apply for? Well, if the top skill, the power skill is written communication, then get experience writing and get a portfolio together, which is the new program that we have.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

We have three portfolio classes that Valerie Kasper teaches them how to develop their webpages and to get their portfolio ready so that when they graduate, they have pieces. Anne Barngrover and Allyson Marino worked with Christian [inaudible 00:26:30] on developing his essay for submission to graduate school. And he got, I think, five offers from his essay. So a lot of it that you get at Saint Leo is really that one-on-one that in a very large institution, you're not going to get.



Greg Lindberg:

Absolutely. Yeah. And that leads me into my next question about what separates Saint Leo from other institutions out there and specifically this English program?



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I think that Saint Leo, when I first came and saw the campus and got to know the students, realized it was my undergrad. Different country, but very, very similar. Smaller classrooms where faculty take a genuine concern for their students. They don't want to grant them enough. They want to help them improve their writing. They want to help them understand their strengths because writing is a lifelong process. Even though I did very well as an undergrad, I look back at my first freshman [inaudible 00:27:29], "I wrote that?" And then I look now and go, "I'm still learning." I learn from my faculty when I sit in and observe them, I learn from stuff that I'm writing about. So you never stop learning as a writer. But it also, I think the small classrooms really give you a chance, I know their names, I know my major's names.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

You get to understand if they're having a difficult semester, if they've got challenges, whether it's personal or professional challenges, financial challenges, you get to know them. They will reveal a lot to you. I think that's very important at Saint Leo because we take a genuine interest in them. I don't think you'd find a major that has said that we don't know who they are. We really try to respect their privacy, but if they want to talk to us, we always have a door open. There's always someone here who can talk to them. Or I've Zoomed with students at 10 o'clock at night, who can't meet me any other time. And it's like, okay, well, let's do 10 o'clock at night. And have a conversation with them because they're struggling in my class. It's just because they've got so many things going on, but I think that they also show the fortitude to be great leaders as well. I think Saint Leo does a wonderful job of that.



Greg Lindberg:

Absolutely. Very well said. So I did want to wrap up here with one final topic in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously it's impacted the world in so many different ways over the last few years and has affected many industries, pretty much every industry in some way, shape or form. I was just curious your perspective in terms of fields that we've discussed here today, that English grads maybe pursuing after graduation and what can they expect out there in this new world that we live in?



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I'm a little biased because I'm also an English professor, but I will say that an English graduate has a bit of an advantage in my view, because unlike the sciences, we don't have labs. We do a lot of our stuff sitting in a chair reading. I remember when I did, I mean, we do a lot of reading and that makes you a perfect... We're at home, we can do reading anywhere. In the car, an audio book, we can do it at home, we can do it at the library. We can do it anywhere we want. I think that COVID-19 for our graduates, won't be as difficult because we know what it's like to be at home. We can do remote, that drop of a hat, because we're used to it. We're used to being in many different locations even though we're probably in a room in a library by ourselves.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I think that that makes an English major really good for remote work. But I also think that it's the perfect time for English majors to really think about, I think the one question I always ask my students is what do you want from a position? What is it that you're looking for? What do you want to do now that you're getting ready to graduate? And we start from the moment they enter the major onwards. We're always having conversations with them about, what is it that you want to do? A lot of our creative writing students are published authors before they even graduate. And they do that in the online world now. It's much more online than it ever was when I went as an undergrad. So I think that's a huge market that's opened up for them.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

The same goes for literature and professional writing. There's a huge online market to work from home, especially in professional writing as well. Companies like Microsoft need English people to write brochures. Hospitals need people to write reports and documents. If you've ever been in a hospital and you've seen brochures, they're probably written by somebody most likely within an English background of some sort. Health communication is big. That's a great area that's really developed over the last 10 years. So I would say to English graduates, COVID-19 just doesn't seem to want to go away, but it doesn't mean that you let it take you down. You sit down and you really make a list of the kinds of things you're looking for in a job. And if you can do remote and you're the kind of person that's not a people person, you might be both.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

I'm both. I like people, I love people, talking to people and I love my moments where I'm just at home and it's quieter and I can get other things done that I probably couldn't otherwise. So I think that there's a nice balance and finding the job that corresponds to that. It's why I love being a chair because I get the option of both. I think most faculty do. We get the option of, we have our down times at home, but we're still working at home. The workplace, I think is really changing a lot. I think the English majors have a really, this is their time to flourish and fly because we do that already. We're in class and we're at home and we work. So we're usually doing all three all the time and we don't have to worry about scheduling labs into our schedule because we don't have them.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

So I would say to any English graduate or any English major, start thinking about what you really want from your major and it will see you through it. It's certainly seen me through. I've been in law, public relations, medical field and I was a writer. I've done speeches for politicians, I've done it all. In business, I've done purchasing, alumni development, public relations, and I enjoyed every bit of it because I was using my writing skills. I think that that's something that if they just think about that and look for where they want to be, that they'll be good. And with COVID-19, you often don't even need to leave where you love to live. That wasn't the case.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

When I came to the US, opportunities to work from remotely did not exist. So you did have to pretty much... I went, I didn't care where the job was in the world. I was like, "I'm willing to look anywhere." I'm a travel person, I'm like, "Ah, another country to add to my belt." And there are some like that as well. So I would say, despite COVID-19, figure out where you want to be, know ahead of time and do your research. And if you do that, you'll never be unemployed. I can honestly say right now, all of our graduates are employed.



Greg Lindberg:

Oh, wow. That's huge. That definitely speaks volumes, as they say, just to the quality and caliber of our program.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

Yeah. I think our faculty really, they do an enormous amount. I'm very proud of them. They do an enormous amount with the students hands on that a lot of people don't see, but I see it because the students are talking about it all the time. That's great because without them and their contacts, which range, oh my goodness, in all kinds of areas, I think that we wouldn't have such a success will program if it weren't for their dedication and using their context and helping students navigate a lot of the challenges of living away from home, finding that job or graduate program that fits you. And not just running to a program because they accept you, but really thinking about. Is it the right one for you? So I can't thank them enough for that.



Greg Lindberg:

Absolutely. Great way to wrap it up here. All right again. So we've been chatting with Dr. Chantelle MacPhee here on this episode of Saint Leo 360. And I did want to mention that we will include a link to the English degree program in the show notes for this episode. So anyone interested can certainly check that out to learn a lot more about the program as well. So, Dr. MacPhee, really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed the conversation and your insight and thanks again for being a guest here on Saint Leo 360.



Dr. Chantelle MacPhee:

Thank you, Greg. Have a wonderful day.



Greg Lindberg:

Thanks so much.



Speaker 1:

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