Sharp declines in the English major (as well as in other majors across the humanities) have occasioned a great deal of coverage in recent years; Nathan Heller’s widely read New Yorkeressay, “The End of the English Major,” published in February, read like a monumental epitaph to the discipline. The big picture is undeniably bleak: “During the past decade,” Heller writes, “the study of English and history at the collegiate level has fallen by a full third.” But American higher education is vast, and sectorwide statistics might mask local successes. That was one of the points of Sarah Blackwood’s essay in