Student pushes English department to consider Creative Writing major

By Tiffanie Reynolds | gargoyle@flagler.edu

Tori Warenik’s persistence paid off.

Warenik, a junior, pushed Flagler College’s English department to consider adding a Creative Writing major with the help of Dr. Jim Wilson, Dr. Tamara Wilson and more than 100 students. She said she’s been fighting for the new major for about a year, but other students and faculty, she said, have been trying since 1989.

The potential major got department-wide special attention at a Sept. 5 meeting, the Creative Writing Major Meeting. The meeting outlined the curriculum, extracurricular programs and the overall purpose of the soon-to-be-proposed Creative Writing Major.

The meeting detailed potential curriculum and classes but was only informational. The curriculum needs to be approved by the curriculum committee and the dean before it can become an official major.

Even through the uncertainty, students and faculty showed enthusiasm.

Tamara Wilson said Creative Writing encompasses non-fiction, fiction, poetry, playwriting, screenwriting and professional writing, and that she hopes a new major will help students learn different styles of writing.

Warenik said her only setback through the entire process is waiting. She said she has been “waiting to see if the petition would even matter, waiting to see what the English Department was going to do, waiting now to see what the curriculum committee will do with the proposed major.”

“I can’t express how proud I am of what has been accomplished in the last 12 months,” Warenik said. She hopes her enthusiasm and support will carry the major even closer to reality.