Waldorf English Department once again begins hiring search

The English Department once again must hire a new instructor. Photo by Jaci Olson

By Jaci Olson

The Waldorf University English Department is beginning the hiring process for a new instructor. English Creative Writing Department professor, Rebecca McKanna, is leaving Waldorf.

McKanna says she is leaving Waldorf because she is getting married and moving to Indianapolis.

“My fiancé lives in Indianapolis and I’ll miss everybody, I really enjoyed it here,” she said. “I’m happy to start a new life with him, but I’m sad to leave Waldorf.”

Student representative of the English Department hiring committee, Kate Workman said, “So far we’ve interviewed a few people by phone. We are all given a question to ask them. Then at the end of the interview they would ask us questions about the position, the student body, the community, those sorts of things. From there we filtered out recipients.” Workman added that they are still in the process of interviewing.

Tim Bascom, director of Waldorf University’s creative writing program, said approval is needed before the process starts.

“The budget has to get approved and it’s a pragmatic process once you have approval,” said Bascom. “There’s a job ad for the kind of position we’re filling. We’re fortunate because they’re allowing us two instructors, partly because of a solid load of composition and creative writing. There are four courses a semester and a solid load of composition and English courses. The position gets advertised in the Chronicle of Higher Education as we start fielding applications. We received over 60 and boiled them down to six. It is a lengthy process and a lot of time and energy goes into it.”

The Creative Writing program at Waldorf is small, and Bascom hopes for continued growth.

“We’re thankful for the Chantell Cooley Leadership Scholarship for bringing many new students in one year, and we offer a major and a minor in creative writing, so it’s reasonable to have an instructor for creative writing. We hope to have an instructor with a tenure track and have someone stay at least five years working along with me so the creative writing program has a stable base,” said Bascom. “The deep problem is whoever new comes in has to get oriented and that means understanding not just a set of courses but the Waldorf Literary Review, the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series, Cooley scholars, The Warriors Writing Club, our annual visit to a writing conference, the high school writing contest and field trips we go on. There’s this whole culture and community we’re trying to build. We’re trying to create balance. It makes sense to get a poet and a creative writer.”