The Department of English received a $50,000 gift from two generous donors (a couple) who are dedicated to improving the college experience for English majors and those students who take English classes.

"These generous donors are quite comfortable remaining anonymous," said Debra Moddelmog, chair and professor of English. "Their wish is simply to provide opportunities for undergraduates in English to grow in fantastic and creative ways. We are deeply grateful for their belief and investment in the work of our department and its students."

The donors targeted two projects, providing each with $25,000:

• Project #1: The advancement of the Writers Exchange (WEx), a peer-review writing platform developed recently by colleagues in rhetoric, composition and literacy. WEx grew out of collaborative work on a second-level writing MOOC that was launched last year. With the donors’ contribution, the colleagues involved will now be able to convert WEx into a system that will help to collect, assess and analyze hundreds of samples of student writing from across the undergraduate curriculum. Project team members include Kay Halasek, Mike Bierschenk, Jonathan Buehl, Kaitlin Clinnin, Susan Delagrange, Scott DeWitt, Trish Houston, Ben McCorkle, Jennifer Michaels, Cindy Selfe and Eddie Singleton.
• Project #2: The production and performance of a Shakespeare play by English undergraduate students. The target date for this performance is spring 2015. The team leading this project includes a group the department's Renaissance faculty: Alan Farmer, Richard Dutton, Jennifer Higginbotham, Hannibal Hamlin, Chris Highley, Luke Wilson and Sarah Neville.

The donors also provided a $25,000 gift to execute a proposal from Ohio State's Center for Folklore Studiesthat will help with digitizing its archives; because English includes a core group of Folklore faculty and students in its department, this project will also have relevance to the work done in English and will benefit scholars and teachers of folklore for years to come.