Elva McAllaster
Criticism
Elva McAllaster served as chair of the English department at Seattle Pacific College, where, in 1950, she mailed “A Newsletter for Christian Teachers of College English” to colleagues at institutions across the United States. She invited her readers to send their comments and items of news, along with names to be added to the mailing list. For the next five years, Professor McAllaster continued to edit, publish, and distribute these informal and personal newsletters, which were meant to open channels of communication among Christian teachers and scholars who worked at colleges across North America but who rarely were able to gather together at conferences or professional meetings.
The network established through that newsletter led to the formal organization of the Conference on Christianity and Literature in 1956.
