Wednesday, June 22, 2005

A Writing Teacher

Like so many others, I'm saddened to learn that John Lovas died yesterday.  John was a dedicated teacher and faculty member at Deanza Community College; he is well-known in the field as a champion of the teaching of writing in two-year colleges, as a recent chair of the CCCC in Denver in 2000, as a reasoned, thoughtful, and patient colleague.  Far more personal for me: John's frequent comments and encouragement here in this weblog.  In fact, as I just looked back at some of my early entries to find when I first came to know John, I found that he was my second commenter--the first who I didn't know (and I'd been blogging just one week).  A spark! From him, in that exchange on seating arrangements, I learned the "to each, one move" rule and stopped putting desks back into ordered rows once and for all.  He was steady with similar insights, and in time, I came to regard him as a friend and a mentor even though I hadn't ever met him in person.  I finally did meet John in San Francisco during the CCCC in March. I'll miss his being t/here.

Since early May, his own weblog had grown unusually quiet; his entries clued us to some change, but I had no idea he'd been diagnosed with cancer. 
Clearly this entry isn't half the panegyric I think his memory is due.
Other's are posting at the festschrift site and at their blogs.

Posted by Derek Mueller at June 22, 2005 12:32 PM to