Bread Loaf heads south

Author: Zach Hecht-Leavitt

This summer the Bread Loaf School of English will open a fifth campus in North Carolina, President Ronald D. Liebowitz announced last Wednesday. The campus will be located at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNCA) and will be the sixth to open since Bread Loaf's beginnings in 1920. The new campus will add to existing programs in Alaska, Santa Fe, Oxford and Vermont. "Truly a national institution, with the opening of its fifth campus in North Carolina the Bread Loaf School of English will have sites in all four quadrants of the country. The curricula of all the non-Vermont Bread Loaf campuses reflect the uniqueness of the campuses' locations," wrote Liebowitz.

James Maddox, director of the Bread Loaf School of English, said he had long wanted to open a campus in the Southeast. When William Spellman, UNCA's associate vice chancellor for humanities, called Maddox asking for advice on developing the school's summer graduate programs, Maddox offered him a better deal - hosting the next Bread Loaf program. A few site visits and conversations later, the Asheville campus was born.

According to Maddox, the new location excites him for a number of reasons. For one, he says, the heat and humidity associated with southern summers are less of a problem in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Asheville has also been named one of the "Top 10 Best Places to Live in the U.S.A" by Money, the "Top 25 Arts Destinations in the U.S" by American Style and ranked as the third most livable city in America by Outside. But beyond the university's natural and cultural attractions is its status as a window on the world of Southern literature, including African American and Appalachian literature. Maddox hopes that its location will increase the number of southern teachers and black students applying to the Bread Loaf program.

The University of North Carolina at Asheville is the only designated liberal arts university in the North Carolina system, and one of only six public universities in the country classified as national liberal arts universities. It has garnered national recognition for its integrative approach to the liberal arts, specifically its undergraduate research and humanities programs. With about 3,200 students, the compact, scenic and academically rigorous university offers one of the best values in a liberal arts education in the country. Spellman notes, "During the summer months we offer a wide range of undergraduate classes, and we are hoping that there will be opportunities for Bread Loaf faculty and students to visit some of these classes. All UNCA summer events - lectures, concerts and cultural events - will be open to Bread Loaf participants."

Most of Bread Loaf's 550 students complete their Master of Arts or Master of Letters in English in four or five summers, so many will spend at least one of those summers at the new campus. Each campus offers a core curriculum involving courses in literature, literary theory, creative writing and the teaching of writing. Additionally, each campus offers unique content, such as the literature of the Pacific Northwest and indigenous cultures in Alaska, American Indian and American Hispanic literature in Santa Fe, English literature in Oxford, Theater Arts in Vermont, and, beginning next summer, Southern and African American Literature in North Carolina.