02/24/2026
SUNY Cortland students will have a new major they can choose starting next fall: creative and professional writing.
It’s a SUNY-approved change to the former professional writing program that Professor Laura Panning Davies, chair of the English Department, believes will strengthen students’ foundation in writing processes, practices and knowledge.
Students can expect a common thread through all their courses: emphasis on creative writing as an important career skill that can’t be separated from professional and technical writing.
“I think this is especially important in the age of generative AI,” Davies said. “It’s clear that generative AI will affect the workplaces that our graduates will enter.
The goal for students is to develop their own voice that reaches readers in a unique, powerful way that can’t be easily outsourced to the growing AI industry.
“Writing is a human art and practice, and writers solve problems in so many different domains — education, business, law, medicine, tech industry, nonprofit and governmental work.”
The new curriculum has been developed by the department for more than four years, according to Davies.
Requirements include six credits in creative writing named Elements of Craft; a new core course, PWR 305: Fields of Writing, on theories and genres; and ENG 290: Introduction to Literary Studies and ENG 380: Literary and Cultural Theory.
The program keeps an internship as its final experience.
That hands-on work remains a key tool of the curriculum, Davies said, and gives students professional experience in a range of settings before they graduate, including marketing, local news reporting, public relations, and technical and copy editing. Other campus internships are now available through the university’s Entrepreneurship Center, she added.
There’s also a new internship for the new major, PWR 425: Literary Magazine Publishing, Hoxie Gorge Review.
“(It) is a nationally known literary magazine that our students publish,” Davies said. “They solicit pieces from writers across the country, make editorial decisions and create the digital magazine, all under the direction of Assistant Professor Heather Bartlett. It’s a great opportunity for our students who want to pursue careers in creative writing and publishing.”
With its revamped structure, the creative and professional writing major will now have direct connections to the students and faculty of the department’s other two major programs, English and adolescence education: English, through the required ENG 290 and ENG 380 classes.
“Good writers are also careful, critical readers, and these two courses give our students more theories, practices and methods for becoming skilled readers of a variety of texts,” Davies explained.
Three of the curriculum’s electives — PWR 210: Digital Writing with Data, PWR 310: Surveillance, Rhetoric and Technology, and PWR 375: Digital Storytelling — are also part of the new Google microcredential announced last year. Students in the major who complete any of those courses will earn part or all of the Google industry credentials in UX Design or AI Essentials.
“Our classes serve many different audiences,” she added, citing an array of other majors, including childhood/early childhood education, economics, chemistry, exercise science, biological sciences and physics.
“We are hoping that the new name and the new curriculum will attract even more students to our program.”