The Unit for Contemporary Literature is at crucial juncture in its history within the Department of English at Illinois State University. The following report provides an overview of the UCL's mission, facts about its organization and accomplishments, observations about its current status, and recommendations for its future. The Unit functions as an umbrella organization to coordinate, integrate, and expand existing Department of English activities involving teaching, research, public service, and curriculum development, especially in creative writing, editing, publishing, and the history, theory, and criticism of contemporary literature. One goal of forming the UCL was to provide a grant-seeking entity. Many grants cannot go to departments or individuals.
Many grants require the seeking entity to have a budget and resources of a certain size.
Combining the budgets of several projects allowed the UCL to reach that critical size. The UCL was designed to serve the needs of many small presses. See Fact 2. 5. All salaries and operating budgets would have been paid by those organizations. When ISU at the last moment withdrew its offer to provide staff benefits, both organizations went elsewhere.