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• 1989: McGee Professorship of Creative Writing Established
  In 1989, the McGee Professorship of Creative Writing is established by John ’43 and Ruth McGee. This program brings a creative writer to campus one semester each year to teach both an introductory and advanced course in their genre of expertise and guide senior thesis writers. Since 1989, the McGee has featured poets, novelists, essayists, screenwriters, and playwrights, exposing students to experienced and diverse writers with a passion for teaching.
• 1988: Multiple Creative Writing Courses Offered By Genre
  The 1988 college catalog signifies the first year multiple creative writing courses are offered with specific genre focuses. Introduction to Creative Writing taught by Tony Abbott is introduced at the 200-level. Meanwhile, new additions to the 300-level English courses include Writing Prose: Nonfiction, Writing Poetry, Writing Fiction, and Writing Plays. The catalog specifies that each of these courses will be taught during semesters “when a professor in residence or a visiting professor of writing focuses on” that genre (Davidson College Catalog 1988).
• 1987: Charles E. Lloyd Award for Nonfiction Established
  This award, for both scholarly and creative nonfiction writing, is established in 1987 in memory of English professor Charles E. Lloyd. It’s given each year to a sophomore, junior, or senior nonfiction writer. Submissions initially include more formal scholarly essays in addition to personal essays until the creation of the Gibson Prize for Scholarly Writing.
• 1980: Dr. Cynthia Lewis Arrives at Davidson
  In 1980, Dr. Cynthia Lewis joins the English faculty, offering courses in Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and taking on the course Advanced Composition, which had moved away from its original 1914 version and become more focused on analytical writing. However, under the direction of Dr. Lewis and eventually Dr. Shireen Campbell, this course moves back into the creative realm, incorporating new forms of creative nonfiction including memoir and literary journalism in the 1990s. Dr. Lewis has published many articles on Shakespeare and his contemporaries and a book entitled Particular Saints: Shakespeare’s Four Antonios, Their Contexts, and Their Plays. She has also written and published researched and reported nonfiction on topics ranging from female bodybuilders to local murder mysteries.