Language is a powerful tool. We use it everyday to communicate with each other, to express ourselves, to make sense of the world around us. Northwest University’s English program can help you harness the power of the written and spoken word to develop skills that you will use for the rest of your life, no matter what your career path. You’ll study literature, poetry, and drama from around the world, exploring different perspectives and worldviews while challenging your own.
Why I Teach English - Dr. Clint Bryan
Video Transcript
I’m Clint Bryan, and I’m an Associate Professor of English at Northwest University, primarily teaching writing courses. I also direct the Honors Program.
I think I’m most passionate about teaching rhetoric because, even though it’s a 2,500-year-old discipline that dates all the way back to Aristotle and ancient Greece, it’s as fresh as the morning newspapers and headlines. In that, we as Christ followers ought to be able to organize what it is that we want to say, say it in a cogent and convincing way, and really affect change in our culture.
So whether I’m teaching people how to do that through speeches or through writing, I feel like what I’m doing is really applicable and also helps them to make a difference in the world.
I think one of the things about being a writing teacher is I have more opportunity to engage with students and their thoughts, because I’m constantly reading things that they’re writing. But occasionally I’ll meet a student who is at a particular juncture in his or her life, and often they’ll come to my office hours and say, “Hey, would we be able to talk about some of these things that I’m dealing with?” They’re more life issues, not exactly about where the comma goes in the sentence.
Out of those things, I’ve seen several mentoring relationships that have lasted years, or at least the semester while that student is going through something. And I love that. I feel like that’s one aspect of higher education that we can offer in a Christian context that really meets the need that a faculty member has to make a difference, but also what a student wants.
If someone is interested in coming to Northwest, they really need to realize what they are getting themselves into. They need to understand that we take seriously the integration of your faith into your studies. If you think about your faith over here as something I do on Sunday, or something that I do when I pray in the morning and read the Bible, but then I go to school and that’s totally different, you’re going to realize there’s going to be a time of adjustment.
But what we are hoping you will do—especially through a degree in English—is learn to furnish your mind with beauty, also understanding that you bring your Christian experience in to filter out and understand what things align with or stand opposed to your faith.
And if you can begin to understand that, we’re going to help you really navigate your way forward as an adult in this society.
Why English at NU?
- Gain a well-rounded education in writing, literature, theory, criticism, and culture.
- Benefit from small class sizes, which allow one-on-one time with professors and a personalized learning experience.
- Develop valuable communication skills that are highly sought-after in the workplace.
- Learn professional, critical, and creative writing skills from professors who are published writers.
- Engage your faith through studying texts that have shaped Western culture and texts that challenge that culture.
- Join Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society.
Internship Opportunities
- Dappled Things Literary Journal
- Kirkland Chamber of Commerce
- Pacific Northwest Writers Association
- Northwest University Marketing Department
Common Career Paths
A degree from NU can help launch your career immediately after graduation. Some of the career paths you can take with a degree in English include:
- Writing
- Editing
- Publishing
- Teaching
- Law
- Non-Profit
- Graduate School in Many Fields
- Ministry
- Technical Writing
“[The English faculty] were the first people to believe in me as a writer. They were the first people to believe in this girl from Guam who wanted to explore ideas but felt insecure about her place on this big American continent. They were the place that I felt the most at home. All of my stories and poems that have been published were started in an English class.”
—Siobhon McManus
Siobhon Rumurang Sengebau McManus is a Chamoru-Palauan writer and teacher from Guåhan working to empower Micronesians through indigenous arts and education. Through her work as an NDN Collective fellow, she recently helped open Career Tech High, Guam’s first charter high school for trades education and Chamoru revitalization.
View Course Descriptions
You can explore program details and course descriptions for this program in our academic catalog.
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