RMMLA Past Presidents, IV: Thomas Bond Burnam, 1953-1954

Abstract

RMMLA PAST PRESIDENTS, IV: THOMAS BOND BURNAM, 1953-1954 Versatility and a keen intellectual curiosity are the outstanding characteristics of Professor Thomas Bond Burnam who was president of the RMMLA in 1953-54. Indeed, these are probably the outstanding characteristics of most fine scholars, creative writers, and teachers. Dr. Burnam was born in Swan Lake, Montana, and was reared in the Northwest , taking his A.B. and M.A. degrees from the University of Idaho, and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1950. During his last year of graduate work at the University in Seattle, he advanced from part-time acting associate instructor to instructor, teaching composition and elementary creative writing, and later teaching courses in advanced creative writing, the structure of fiction, and introduction to literature. He also served as secretary of the Advanced Writing Staff under Porter Perrin at the University of Washington in 1949-50. His major fields were American literature and creative writing; his special interests, Shakespeare, linguistics, and the drama since Ibsen. He came to Colorado State College in 1950 as assistant professor of English, was advanced to associate professor in 1953, and to professor of English in 1956. In 1963 he returned to the Northwest, where he has remained as professor of English at Portland State College. Professor Burnam had an especially fruitful year in 1961 when, on leave from Colorado State College, he served as Fulbright Professor of American literature at the University of Helsinki. While in Scandinavia he also lectured at the American Studies Seminar for Teachers of English and at the American Scandinavian Seminar at Leangkollen, Norway. During the same year, at the invitation of the U.S. Educational Commission for France and the Faculté des Lettres at the University of Caen, he lectured on the American short story. The first scholarly appearance of Dr. Burnam in the Rocky Mountain region was his presentation, in May of 1951, of a paper entitled "Hemingway 's 'Primitive Men' " before the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Letters, the forerunner of the RMMLA. His first published short story, appropriately entitled "First Sale," appeared in the Empire Magazine of The Denver Post in November, 1951. Since this first appearance in print, Professor Burnam 120 RMMLA Past Presidents121 has published more than seventy articles, short stories, and poems in leading magazines and journals. Reflecting his scholarly interests, his critical articles have dealt with Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Shakespeare, and linguistics . Perhaps his most successful story has been "The Decision," which appeared first in Harper's Magazine in 1957 and has since been reprinted in Literary Cavalcade, Argosy (London), Hjemmet (Copenhagen), and in All Story Braille Magazine. This story has also been anthologized in three collections of short stories, and is soon to appear in a fourth. At least two of Burnam's short stories have been listed in the Roll of Honor of Distinctive Short Stories in American Magazines and in annual volumes of The Best American Short Stories. Burnam has published in the following magazines and journals: Harper's, Saturday Review, Colorado Quarterly, Georgia Review , Argosy, The Reporter, College English, Empire, New Mexico Quarterly , American Quarterly, CEA (College English Association), Critic, Western Humanities Review, Esquire, Word Study, English Journal, Arizona Quarterly , Modern Fiction Studies, Pacific Spectator, The Writer, Texas Quarterly, and others. He is currently finishing a book left incomplete by Porter Perrin which will be published by Scott, Foresman and Company. Professor Burnam will appear as co-author of the volume. Professor Burnam has had many honors in addition to the presidency of the RMMLA. He was one of the founding members and first president of the Rocky Mountain American Studies Association in 1954-55. He is now a member of the Modern Language Association, the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast, the American Studies Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English. He is well known in the Rocky Mountain region for his fine sense of humor, his marvelously inconsistent golf game, and his hobbies which are amateur (but skilled) carpentry and photography. His present home address at Portland State College is 2765 S. W. Park Road, Lake Oswego, Oregon. — From Neajl Cross Colorado State College ...