Sharon Harris: Scholar, Mentor, Friend

Abstract

As I contemplate the state of higher education these days, I frequently find myself thinking that a news item I read or an event I attend somehow marks the end of an era. On my campus, books are being relocated to make way for a coffee bar at the library. A parking garage replaces an old building. A longtime colleague moves on to another job. Change happens, of course. But I confess: when I learned that Sharon Harris would retire from her position as professor of English and director of the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut this year, it was quite clear to me that it is indeed the end of an era. Sherry earned her BA and MA degrees in English from Portland State University and her PhD from the University of Washington in 1988. In the twenty-six years since she earned her degree and took her first faculty position at Temple University, she has become a distinguished scholar in nineteenth-century American literature and culture, women's studies, and literature and medicine. Sherry is one of those academics who has truly made a difference in her field and in the lives of countless colleagues and students. For years, I have regarded her as among the most talented scholars in American literature today. Her wide-ranging work in early and nineteenth-century American women writers has been highly significant and broadly influential. Her recent work in literature and medicine has been groundbreaking. She is well known as an outstanding teacher and mentor to young faculty members and graduate students; I can think of dozens of scholars who have benefited from her personal involvement in their work. At conferences, I have watched her introduce herself to young scholars, put them at ease, and inquire about their work--all with her characteristic genuine interest in people and in scholarship. Sherry has also generously undertaken significant administrative service experience at the national and international levels. She was the founder and first president of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers and president and founding executive coordinator of the Society of Early Americanists. She has served on a number of MLA committees and on the editorial boards of American Literature, Early American Literature, and the University of Nebraska Press. She also has a long record of institutional service at the four universities where she has served as a faculty member: Temple University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Texas Christian University, and the University of Connecticut. I first met Sherry in 1992, when we were both participants from different universities at the MLA/FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education) Curriculum Review Conference in Dallas, Texas. Attended by departmental representatives from about two dozen institutions, this conference was designed to assist departments in undertaking curriculum reviews in primarily undergraduate education. At the time, I was on the faculty at California State University, Los Angeles, and my colleagues and I were asked to work with the group from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where Sherry was then a faculty member. I was struck by her sensible and intelligent comments about undergraduate curricula in English departments and the humanities in general. I knew that she was a person I wanted to know. Later, I introduced myself to her after a session in order to ask her some questions about her department and the structure of their English major. Absorbed by the immediate concerns of the conference, I suddenly realized that I had known and admired her work on Rebecca Harding Davis and early American women writers. I was more than a little taken aback to realize that I had just introduced myself to one of my scholarly role models. From that initial meeting in Dallas, we have enjoyed a warm association and a strong friendship--our relationship has been among the most important of my professional career. Over the years, Sherry has steadily amassed a considerable record of research and publication. …