Description: Panelists who direct interdisciplinary research clusters and chair departments of English, media studies, and women, gender, and sexuality studies engage a question urged by the proliferation of degree programs across departments, the role of soft money in research, and the administrative prominence of student services: What does (and doesn’t) and should (or shouldn’t) the academic department do?

Presider

John Marx, U of California, Davis

Speakers

Peggy McCracken, U of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Mark Garrett Cooper, U of South Carolina, Columbia

Veronica Paredes, U of Illinois, Urbana

Roderick A. Ferguson, U of Illinois, Chicago