The University of Toledo lost two prominent members of its English Department during the summer.
Rane Arroyo, distinguished professor of creative writing, passed away on May 7th and Wallace Martin, a retired emeritus professor, passed away on July 26. Although both deaths occurred during the summer months, they have not gone unnoticed.
Martin was a member of the English Department for 40 years. He retired officially in 1981 but remained a superannuate professor. This allowed him to devote more of his energy into his scholarly work while still teaching part time, according to his colleagues.
Joel Lipman, professor of art and English, said Martin’s presence in the English Department was unique because of the magnitude of his scholarly work.
“I marvel at the quality of the scholarship that defined his career,” Lipman said, “He was the kind of scholar that I think probably is passing as our colleagues of his age move on.”
Martin was a critic of modern poetry and contemporary writing. His work was on complicated and important people and topics in literature.
Lipman said that the majority of what Martin did was underrated because it did not have the same authorship that defines other professor’s work.
Some of Martin’s work included defining critical literary terms such as metaphor and synecdoche, a figure of speech that uses part of a word for a whole meaning, for the Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms and the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Both of these handbooks are widely used by writers, according to Lipman.
Martin wrote for the top journals in his field such as The Bucknell Review and the Journal of Comparative Literature, for which he was also a board member.
He was also on the jury for the James Russell Loyal Prize, which is the most prestigious award that the Modern Language Association gives out for scholarship.
“He was widely respected as a scholar, all across the US and nationally, far more than most people at UT realize,” said John Boening, a retired English Professor and former English Department Chair.
The last course Martin taught was Literary Theory for graduate students in spring 2010.
“Theory is a very difficult class and [Martin] made everything really lucid and understandable,” said Christopher Kell, a second year graduate student in English.
“He went above and beyond to explain things very thoroughly so everyone could get a grasp on it.”
Brenna Burghardt, a recent graduate with her masters in English from UT, also took Literary Theory with Martin as well as a literature course with him. She describes Martin as being an intelligent, interesting lecturer who had high standards for his students.
“I feel really lucky that I got to know him as a professor,” Burghardt said.
Kell regrets that he will not be able to take another course with Martin.
“Going to talk with him about books, he reinforced my belief that the humanities are important and there is a purpose for books and people who read them and critique them,” he said.
According to Boening, Martin was not only one of the brightest people he’s ever met, but also particularly modest for his knowledge capacity.
“He knew a great deal about so many things that he would be the last person to brag about it,” he said.
Lipman does not believe that Martin will ever be replaced, even by an extraordinary new hire.
“He was educated in a manner that probably no longer exists,” he said, “He knew books as opposed to simply reading things online. He was a library guy. He knew research collections that he immersed himself in very well.”
Arroyo’s death was caused by a massive brain hemorrhage that developed two weeks after Arroyo took a fall on a roadside curb.
Arroyo is a nationally recognized Puerto Rican poet who has authored 10 books, published a book of short stories and produced seven plays among other achievements.
He has won numerous awards for his works such as the Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize, Pushcart Prize and the John Ciardi Poetry Prize for literary achievement.
His loss has been received as a huge shock and tragedy by those closest to him. Students enrolled in his Spring 2010 Contemporary Drama seminar were vaguely aware of Arroyo’s health condition during the two weeks after he was released from the hospital.
Isabelle Von Sturm-Day, a graduate student in English, admits that although it was evident at times that Arroyo was in pain, he never discussed it.
Arroyo was clearly passionate about his students and was a dear friend to them, according to Kathleen Heil, a recent UT graduate in English.
“He was a good friend, someone you could feel comfortable with writing about whatever you felt like writing about,” she said.
Dusty Miller, a part-time Creative Writing instructor at UT, has taken seven courses taught by Arroyo, beginning with an Introduction to Creative Writing course in 2002. She continued taking courses with Arroyo because of his unique teaching style.
“What was unique was that he cared about you and your work on a personal level,” she said. “You came to realize that he had a general concern for you and your writing that really encouraged success.”
Miller was deeply affected by Arroyo’s death, having known him for eight years not only as a professor but as a friend and a mentor.
“I can’t forget him because of how much he’s saved my life,” she said. “He turned me into an adult when I was a kid in college.”
Arroyo’s life partner of 28 years, Glenn Sheldon, a UT Honors professor, is currently compiling Arroyo’s entire literary collection to be donated to the University of Michigan’s Latino Collection.
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