Administrative Files, 1939-1990, Undated

This series is made up of administrative documents concerning the day-to-day functions of the Department of English, including departmental memoranda, class enrollment profiles, five-year plans, budgetary printouts, meeting minutes, and correspondence. This series contains a number of files related to curriculum development, including course syllabi, proposals for new classes and class descriptions, as well as revisions to the undergraduate English major, the Doctorate of Arts and the Ph.D. program. This series also includes a number of files documenting winners of the Leah Lovenheim awards, given yearly for the best piece of fiction or poetry by a University at Albany undergraduate. Some of the Lovenheim records date back to 1943. This series also contains materials related to institutes and programs administered by the department, such as the New York Writers’ Institute.

Additionally, this series contains some materials related to Shields McIlwaine, a department chairman whose tenure at the University dates back to the 1939. The McIlwaine materials mostly consist of obituary writeups, several letters of recommendation given to him at the University of Chicago and transcripts of several lectures he delivered during his time in Albany.