History of the Department

9/11/39	Dr. Clet Girard began teaching all the English and Miss Dolive Benoit, all the French, 140 students, total enrolled.
1940	La Jeunesse, first club at McNeese.  It was the French Club and it held its first social, a costume ball in February, 1940.
1947	Spanish added to curriculum
1947-1948	McNeese Review first published - now state's oldest academic journal and most frequently edited by Languages.
1950	McNeese became a four-year college.
1952-1953	McNeese had its first electronic lab for teaching Foreign Languages--only other one was at LSU.
1954-1955	McNeese became nationally accredited.
1954	Department of Languages was created; Dr. Clet Girard named first Head, and was first faculty to hold the PhD.
1954	Andre Dubus, first McNeese alumnus to ear national standing as a novelist.
1961	The Arena, for creative writing, first published.
1963	Dr. Girard became first Dean of the Graduate School; Dr. John Norris became the 2nd Department Head.
1970	The school became McNeese State University.
1972	Dr. Cliff Byrne became the 3rd Department Head.
1972-1975	First surge of department publications:  Curtis Whittington, Halibert Reeves, Lisa Pederson, Joe Cash, and Robert Cooper.  Several had multiple publications.
1976-present	Presentations and publications including full-length books, too numerous to list hereafter.
1979	Graduate program saved by devoted Faculty and new Vice President for Academic Affairs, Robert Hebert and University President Jack Doland.
1980	Dr. Curtis Whittington became the 4th Department Head.
1980	Joe Cash became the first Director of Graduate Studies in English.
1981	Miss Dolive Benoit retired, last of original 1939 faculty.
1982	The MFA Degree in Creative Writing was approved.
1982-1986	Dr. Joe Cash became the first person to serve as Asst. Dept. Head; then Acting Dept. Head briefly; and Aug. 1986, he was named the 5th Dept. Head and remains Head to the present time.
Fall, 1982	Dr. John Wood became the 2nd Director of Graduate Studies including the new Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.
1985	Robert Olen Butler joined the faculty, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1993.
1988	Dr. Sigrid Scholtz Novak, department's first Fulbright.
1993,1996	Dr. John Wood, only poet ever to twice win the coveted Iowa Poetry Prize.
1996	Dr. Cheryl Ware became first Senior Fulbright recipient.
1997	Morri Creech won the $15,000 Ruth Lily Poetry Fellowship.  This was the first time the award had ever been given.  Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.
1999	Kevin Meaux was the second McNeese MFA student to in the Lily.
2000	Dr. Cecilia Ryan department's 2nd Senior Fulbright
2003	Dafydd Wood, 4.0 GPA in English - youngest student (18) ever to graduate from McNeese.  Currently, he holds a full graduate scholarship at University of Texas.
2005-2006	Department's name changed to DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES in order to portray more accurately the scope of the department.