I came very close to accepting an offer to Purdue’s Ph.D. program, so it’s heartbreaking to read about the recently announced cuts to the famous and influential writing program. (What English teacher or writing student hasn’t relied on resources from the Purdue OWL?)

[A] university that is only good at STEM education is nothing more than a trade school. I came to Purdue to work in a university, and not in a trade school.

The horror stories coming out of our English department — how else would you describe the stories when the department head feels compelled to use phrases like “in order to keep our graduate program alive” — seem to indicate that our upper administration has lost respect for the non-STEM educators, and that’s a huge tragedy for all of us who work at Purdue. It’s a huge tragedy because you need professors (and graduate student instructors) to teach students what it means to read well, to write well, to think well, to appreciate the human condition and its complexities through exposure to art, literature, poetry and so on. –Avi Kak, Purdue electrical and computer engineering professor

Source: Letter to the editor: Why our English department deserves more respect