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.
