Celebrating 50 Years of Service
The latest issue of Arkansas English is, by any standard, unique. Never has our newsletter devoted itself entirely to the accomplishments of a single person; but never has there been a person in our department quite like Leo Van Scyoc. This year marks Leo’s fiftieth in the department as teacher, mentor, advisor, and factotum. As remarkable as it may be, for virtually every person to whom this newsletter is addressed the department is unimaginable without him. Professor Lyna Lee Montgomery’s retrospective, printed directly below, was written in 1994 to commemorate Leo’s “retirement”—a term less denotatively secure than any found in the most resolute post-modern narrative. Leo has spent the last thirteen years in his office doing what he has always done, scheduling classes, advising students, and shielding his colleagues uncomplainingly from a whole range of administrative problems—all for the sheer love of doing it.
Lyna Lee’s encomium traces in broad outlines the career of a man whose temper, spirit, and character are admirably spelled out in the remembrances of students and colleagues who knew him at first hand. What strikes one about the short remembrances included here, written by people often separated by wide gaps in time, cultural attitude, and literary values, is how uniform they are in affirming Leo’s assiduousness, charity, humor, and tact. A lot of things have changed in and out of the profession in the last fifty years. One of them isn’t Leo Van Scyoc. The Department of English is proud to dedicate this issue of Arkansas English to him.
Joseph Candido
Professor & Chair