English majors agree that there must have been a misleading memo to the world about English majors having the sole career goal of being a teacher. Regardless, Dr. Cristanne Miller Ph.D., the chair of the English Department, fell in love with teaching English over 25 years ago and comes from a family line of teachers. She is also a strong supporter of the English major because of the extensive career opportunities and skills it provides.
"An English major provides skills that are transferable to any line of work," Miller said. "It is a perfect major for students who are not sure exactly what they want to do."
Miller wasn't sure she wanted to pursue a major in English. In high school she studied French, Spanish and Latin, and in college she was at first a history major, then a biology major.
"When I thought about the classes I loved, they were all literature," Miller said.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Miller's family moved to Des Moines, Iowa. She has a family of three brothers, two sisters and a cousin who lived with the family.
After Miller graduated from high school in a short three years, she decided to take the extra time to participate in a 14-month exchange program in Germany. There, she attended an intensive language school for a month before she began classes at the German high school.
During her time overseas, Miller said that she only had three or four phone calls back home to her family and recalled the holidays being hard without her family around.
When Miller returned to the US, she decided to do her first year of college at Drake University, where her father was a religion and philosophy professor and where she could be near her family.
After her first year, Miller transferred to the University of Chicago, where she obtained her BA, MA and PhD. Miller also finished her undergraduate degree in only three years, and took her fourth year to travel overseas once again.
"I got a letter from a friend in Berlin," Miller said. "He said if I could get there in two weeks, he would have a job for me."
Miller went to Berlin and served as a social worker for about seven months, working at a preschool in the morning and an after-school program for teenagers in the afternoon.
Not entirely satisfied in Berlin, Miller chose to attend a school of languages in Madrid for a month. There, she discovered her love for teaching English literature. She was paid to stay for three extra months, teaching English classes while learning Spanish for free.
Miller loved teaching literature so much that she decided to return to The States to attend grad school and teach in an English Department for a career.
Since her return, Miller has been teaching college English for almost 30 years. After graduating from the University of Chicago for her third degree, she went to Pomona College in Southern California to be a professor and eventually became the chair of the department.
While in Southern California, Miller met her husband, Jerold Frakes who was a German and comparative literature professor at the University of Southern California and is currently a professor in the English department at UB.
They have a daughter named "Maxi," who is a senior at Nichols high school, and who followed in her mother's footsteps by living in Germany with a German family for a year in high school.
The Miller family moved to Buffalo over a year ago so Cristanne could assume the Chair position at UB's English Department. Miller's family doesn't even mind the drastic Buffalo winters - so different from other areas where she has lived.
"We love the weather," Miller said. "I like the change of seasons. This place has quite wonderful, distinct seasons."
Miller has focused her research on American poetry of the 19th and 20th century and has particularly focused on the works of Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore. She has written about how particular time periods and places affect an author's poems.
She is currently researching how the Civil War affected the genre of poetry.
Miller has over 50 publications under her name, including four books she wrote and eight she edited. She has numerous awards for her achievements and is continuing her research and success here at the University.
Through her classes and through her own work with the English major, Miller shows that it is not an easy major and that the skills necessary for success are as difficult to master as those of any other challenging major. According to Miller, a degree in English sharpens skills of critical reading, writing and analyzing.
