{"id":1333,"date":"2018-01-02T12:29:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T17:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=1333"},"modified":"2018-01-02T12:29:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T17:29:06","slug":"monday-missive-january-1-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2018\/01\/02\/monday-missive-january-1-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Missive – January 1, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Family Losses<\/b>\u00a0— I often think of our English Department as a large, extended family–a family that includes not only official members of the department but also many people who are affiliated with the department through their connections with the department’s faculty, staff, and students.\u00a0 In recent days, our extended departmental family has experienced two losses.\u00a0 Alan Rauch’s wife, Amy Dykeman, died on December 23, and Boyd Davis’s husband, Richard Davis, died on December 25.\u00a0 Such losses have a way of bringing up memories.\u00a0 Here are some of my memories related to Amy and Richard.<\/p>\n

I met Amy\u00a0when she came to UNC Charlotte to interview for the position of Dean of the J. Murray Atkins Library.\u00a0 Within a few minutes of talking with her, I could tell that she cared deeply about the humanities.\u00a0 During her years as the Dean of our library, she cultivated a special relationship with the English Department.\u00a0 She promoted the development of the library’s holdings in literature and other areas related to the mission of the English Department.\u00a0 As the Dean of the library, she presided over the acquisition of the library’s one millionth volume–a rare first edition of T. S. Eliot’s\u00a0The Waste Land. \u00a0<\/i>Amy helped arrange for Julian and Elsie Mason to donate this volume to the library.\u00a0 Because Julian taught in our department for many years and served as Chair during the late 1970s and early ’80s, the acquisition of this volume underscored for me Amy’s standing as a friend of our department.\u00a0 Even after Amy stepped down as Dean because of her illness, I often saw her and Alan at Visarts, a video rental business then located near Amy and Alan’s home.\u00a0 Amy loved films.<\/p>\n

The last time I talked with Amy was at Visarts.\u00a0 I was there with our son, Gavin.\u00a0 She chatted with us and recommended a British comedy that she thought Gavin would enjoy watching.\u00a0 I don’t remember the title of the film, but I remember renting it on her recommendation.\u00a0 Amy was right.\u00a0 Gavin enjoyed the film.\u00a0 This memory sticks with me, for it captures Amy’s love of culture and her impulse to share her knowledge.\u00a0 I think that Amy was born to be a librarian, and we were fortunate that she played such an important role in leading our library.<\/p>\n

I first got to know Richard, who was generally known as Dick, at a gathering at Boyd and Dick’s home.\u00a0 The gathering was tied to the hiring of Blair Rudes, a linguist who taught in our department for a number of years.\u00a0 At one point during this event, the conversation turned to linguistics, and I had only a vague idea what everybody else was talking about.\u00a0 Fortunately, Dick came to my rescue.\u00a0 We ended up talking at length, during which I found out that he had taught American history at Queens College for many years before pursuing a career with the MecklenburgCounty government. \u00a0 Dick and I discovered that we shared a concern about censorship, and we talked about this topic while everybody else was talking about linguistics.<\/p>\n

The last time I talked with Dick was at one of the department parties that my wife and I host twice a year.\u00a0 Dick was already in declining health, but he came to the party anyway.\u00a0 He took up station on our back patio and watched the children play on the slide that is still located in our backyard.\u00a0 At the time, we had an old golden retriever named Maggie.\u00a0 Maggie found a friend in Dick, and she sat down next to him.\u00a0 I remember seeing him pat Maggie as they both kept an eye on the children swooping down the slide.\u00a0 They both seemed content in a quiet way.\u00a0 From what Boyd tells me, Dick always cared about children and enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren. \u00a0\u00a0Two of his grandchildren read their new books to him on the day that he died.\u00a0 As I see it, this is a fitting conclusion to a story about a man who cared deeply about the members of the younger generation and their future.<\/p>\n

I know that I speak for everyone in our departmental family in expressing our condolences to Alan and Boyd over the loss of their loved ones.<\/p>\n

Kudos<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0\u2014\u00a0As you know, I like to use my\u00a0Monday<\/span>\u00a0Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department.\u00a0 Here is the latest news:<\/p>\n

Sarah Minslow<\/b>\u00a0published a chapter titled “Developing Morality by Exploring Social Justice in the Works of Walter Dean Myers” in\u00a0Critical Insights: \u00a0Social Justice and American Literature\u00a0<\/i>edited by Jeff Birkenstein and Robert C. Hauhart.<\/p>\n

Upcoming Events and Deadlines<\/b>\u00a0\u2014 Here is information about upcoming events and deadlines:<\/p>\n

January 8<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 The first day of classes for the Spring 2018 semester is\u00a0January 8.<\/p>\n

January 12<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\u00a0The English\u00a0Department meeting will take place on\u00a0January 12 from 11:00\u00a0to\u00a012:15\u00a0in the English\u00a0Department\u00a0Conference\u00a0Room.<\/p>\n

Quirky Quiz Question<\/b>\u00a0\u2014 The university libraries figured prominently in the relationship between Amy Dykeman and Alan Rauch, but a library also played\u00a0a key role in the relationship between Dick Davis and Boyd Davis. \u00a0\u00a0Dick and Boyd first met in the\u00a0library at the university where they both\u00a0earned their doctoral degrees.\u00a0 Can you name this university?<\/div>\n

Last week’s answer: Oh, The Places You Will Go<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Dr. Seuss is the author of one of the most popular books given to recent graduates.\u00a0 What is the title of this book?<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Family Losses\u00a0— I often think of our English Department as a large, extended family–a family that includes not only official members of the department but also many people who are affiliated with the department through their connections with the department’s faculty, staff, and students.\u00a0 In recent days, our extended departmental family has experienced two losses.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-missive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1338,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions\/1338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}