I think we should ask the "conversion narrative" question of all groups (faculty, grads, undergrads), because I imagine that the faculty member who wants to study Medieval iterations of sacred texts, for instance, might have a very different answer from the undergrad writing a thesis on comic books. In any case, we could frame the question in terms of a tipping point: no matter how much you "loved literature" or loved to read, what made you decide to pursue it as a major/advanced degree/career? (And selfishly, I'd like to poll the rhet/comp folks about this--I imagine the goals might be different.) Here are a few other thoughts:

Faculty Questions:
1.) How do you respond to undergraduates who say that you can't do anything with a BA in English (except teach)?
2.) What does "relevance" mean to you in terms of English Studies? Does it matter, for instance, whether literary criticism is "relevant" and if so, to whom?
3.) How has the profession changed (in terms of goals, priorities, etc.) since you entered it? And as follow-up: what are the advantages and disadvantages of these changes?

Graduate Students:
1.) What factor(s) most influenced your choice of major field? Minor?
2.) Not to put it too bluntly...but what makes us all submit to 6+ years of apprenticeship with low pay, minimal benefits, loooong hours, etc.? (I guess I'm wondering here if we can get answers OTHER than "I just love this stuff" or something like that. Forgive me if I'm a cynic.)
3.) How do you think the profession will change in the next 10, 20 years?
Undergraduate Students:
1.) How do you see yourself using what you learned as an English major in future jobs (assuming you don't want to become an academic)?
2.) What are the most useful things you do/learn in English classes? The least useful? (Maybe we'd have to get them to define "useful", or maybe their answer to #1 would do that for us.)

We might ask everybody how new media have informed their teaching/scholarship (if at all.) A lot of people might just say "Blackboard," but we could press them about their use of technology in research, for example.

I'm also curious (and maybe this is voyeuristic of me) about how the choice of English as a career or even major affects people's relationships with those outside the field. I know I find it increasingly difficult to explain what I'm doing to my non-academic family. I'm surely not alone in my suspicion that the increasing specialization and the increasingly esoteric nature of a lot of current research is one of the reasons we might need to save English Studies.