Whitman faculty honored for wealth of scholarship and inspirational teaching

Hidden truths in Walker Percy's writings. The story of a French village that saved 5,000 Holocaust refugees. The science of pyroclastic flows. Humor in the Knight's Tale. The rise of religious skepticism in the Enlightenment -

These morsels are part of a feast of knowledge served to generations of Whitman students by five veteran professors honored this year by the College. For their wealth of scholarship and dedicated teaching, Robert Carson, John Desmond, Edward Foster, Patrick Henry, and Walter Wyman have been awarded distinguished professorships. Besides teaching in their academic specialties, these five professors also have regularly taken up The Iliad and other classics to lead first-year students in their core studies.

	Patrick Henry

The new Cushing Eells Professor of Philosophy and Literature, Patrick Henry, teaches French literature with the goal of giving students an understanding of that country's culture through the ages. Along the way he shares his expertise in literary genres of the 16th and 18th centuries and in such writers as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montaigne.

A member of the faculty since 1976, Henry earned his Ph.D. at Rice University. He is the author of two books, Voltaire and Camus and Montaigne in Dialogue, and editor of two others, An Inimitable Example: The Case for the Princesse de Cleves and Approaches to Teaching Montaigne's "Essays" He is working on a new book on Montaigne in addition to continuing to produce articles, chapters, reviews, and papers on subjects ranging from the Holocaust to baseball.

Coeditor of the journal Philosophy and Literature, Henry has taught NEH seminars for high school teachers, and serves on the executive committee of the Division of 16th-Century French Literature of the Modern Language Association. In 1996 he was selected to participate in the Washington Commission for the Humanities Inquiring Mind Series. His lectures told the story of a French village where 5,000 refugees were sheltered from the Holocaust.

Robert Carson

From Robert Carson, named Grace Farnsworth Phillips Professor of Geology, students learn about geomorphology, glacial geology, and volcanology, but they also get hooked into an appreciation for and study of the earth's natural resources and how to preserve them. Carson, who joined the faculty in 1975, teaches both geology and environmental studies and advises the environmental studies program.

Recipient of a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and a fellow of the Geological Society of America, Carson has published many articles, maps, and abstracts, mostly on Quaternary geology in Washington, northeastern Oregon, and northwestern Wyoming. He serves on the Washington State Agricultural Burning Practices and Research Task Force and on other environmental and civic commissions.

Carson has directed foreign study programs in London and in Asturias, Spain, and Keck Geology Consortium projects, which provide summer field experience for students. He gives frequent slide-illustrated lectures and conducts geologic expeditions for students, parents, and alumni.

	John Desmond

Named Mary A. Denny Professor of English, John Desmond is the College's resident Walker Percy scholar who also teaches students about Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and other writers in his modern American and Irish literature courses. In addition, he has taught courses on women writers of the South, ethical themes in literature, and literature of the apocalypse. All of his classes have been enhanced by the visiting educators he brings to campus. This year's notable guest was Irish poet Seamus Heaney, the 1995 Nobel Prize recipient for literature.

Desmond, who came to Whitman in 1975 with a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma, is the author of two books, Risen Sons: Flannery O'Connor's Vision of History and At the Crossroads: Ethical and Religious Themes in the Writings of Walker Percy, and editor of one, A Still Moment: Essays on the Art of Eudora Welty. He also has published short stories and many articles.

He is founder and president of The Walker Percy Society and serves on the editorial board of Literature and Belief.

	Edward Foster

The new Mina Schwabacher Professor of English, Edward Foster, shares with students his love of literature as well as an interest in the history of the English language. As a scholar of Middle English literature, he especially inspires an appreciation of The Canterbury Tales, medieval romances, and other literary works of the age.

Arriving at Whitman in 1979, Foster, whose Ph.D. is from the University of Rochester, served the College as dean of faculty and as acting president before returning to the classroom. He won a Fulbright fellowship in 1986 and in 1994 received an honorary degree from Albertson College of Idaho. He is a member of the Society for Research in Higher Education and has been active in the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Colleges.

He has a forthcoming book on Chaucer, and he is the editor of Three Moral Romances: Amis and Amiloun, Sir Amadace, and Robert Cisyle, published last year by Medieval Institute Publications. He has edited several other books and also has produced many journal articles and book reviews.

Walter Wyman

Walter Wyman, a member of the faculty since 1982 who has been appointed Weyerhaeuser Professor of Biblical Literature, expects his students to become literate about western religions. His classes explore major thinkers such as Luther, Kierkegaard, and Tillich and topics that include the new Catholic catechism.

A scholar with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, Wyman is the author of The Concept of Glaubenslehre: Ernst Troeltsch and the Theological Heritage of Schleiermacher and coeditor of Revisioning the Past: Prospects in Historical Theology. He has published journal articles and reviews on modern religious history, especially the work of 19th-century Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher.

Last fall he presented a paper on Schleiermacher at the national meeting of the American Academy of Religion and is working on a new book which will use Schleiermacher's work as the focal point for a study of the Christian doctrine of sin. He also is exploring contemporary research on the historical Jesus and its theological implications.