Literary studies today suffers from a crisis of purpose, a crisis that often resolves itself into the common plaint: what ís the point of an English major anyhow? The Literacy Lab at the University of Minnesota proposes to shift the paradigm for literary studies in the academy by bringing together facets of our discipline that have traditionally been separated: not only theory and practice, but literature and basic literacy, the stories of famous authors and the stories of ordinary citizens. By connecting a variety of literacy practices in diverse public settings, students can develop their academic skills within a "real world" of community service and understand the relevance of these skills in different cultural and social contexts. The Literacy Lab has four major goals:

• " To make civic engagement and service learning integral to the curriculum of literary studies
• " To create new opportunities for independent study and literacy research for undergraduates and graduates in the larger Minneapolis/St. Paul community and beyond
• " To foster an exchange of skills, knowledge, and experience between students and learning partners in the community
• " To develop a new institutional model for collaborative research and teaching in the humanities

We believe that the study and teaching of the humanities at the University level must take new forms that no longer depend on distinctions between campus and community, professional scholars and students, and between "practical" skills of living in the world and classroom skills of reading, writing, and speaking.

Funds for this project are provided by a grant form the Minnesota omnibus Higher education bill of 2001 and administered by the Minnesota Higher Education Services Office and Minnesota Campus Compact. The Literacy Lab is also supported by the Department of English, the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Writing, and the Humanities Institute at the University of Minnesota. Development of this web site was supported by a Graduate Research Partnership Fellowship from the College of Liberal Arts, a Bush Grant for Diversity in Teaching, and a Technology Enhanced Instructional Improvement Grant.

Despite its vast research capacities and its knowledge, the contemporary research university exists in strange detachment from crucial human realities...
- Bruce Wilshire

Surely it is an obligation of education in a democratic society to empower the young to become members of the public, to participate, to play articulate roles in the public space.
- Maxine Greene