Prior to the establishment of the IUPUI Department of English, English programs were taught at the Indiana University Extension Campus established in 1916 and the Purdue Extension Campus established in 1946. In 1968, the Indiana University Extension English program was organized into an official department that mirrored the academic requirements of the Bloomington Campus.

The English Department of IUPUI was formed from departments of both Indiana University-Indianapolis Downtown Campus and the Purdue University-Indianapolis Extension. The merger brought together 11 IU English faculty and 10 Purdue English faculty. The first chair of the new English department was Warren French, an Americanist from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. The department became a unit in the School of Liberal Arts on its formation in 1972. Ron Strahl and Barbara Cambridge founded the Indiana Teachers of Writing in 1980. The first master's degree of English was approved by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education in 1994.