Former Faculty
A chronicle of the happenings of former faculty.
Walter H. Evert who taught from 1963 - 1990 is busy at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in activities such as ushering, working in the annual bazaar, teaching and adult education Bible course, serving on church council, and establishing an "outreach" program of lectures and exhibits for the community. He is currently updating the church's written historical record. He writes program notes for Open Stage Theater, an independent theater company that produces plays in the upper Strip District. Over the past two years, he has written over fifty theater reviews for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He and his wife vacation in Niagara Falls every year. Recently, he has been writing an autobiography for his grandchildren.
Bob Gale who began teaching at Pitt in 1959 and retired in 1987 has been traveling extensively with his wife, Maureen to London, the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands, Costa Rica, the Midwest US, and Florida. Between 1987 and 2003, he published 12 books including James Encyclopedia, F.S. Fitzgerald Encyclopedia, and rev. ed. Louis L'Amour, 227 sketches in American National Biography, 39 other essays, 21 reviews, and one contract for the Roaring Twenties Companion. His son John is a mathematics tutor in Chicago. His son Jim is a statistics consultant in Pittsburgh. His daughter Christine is an attorney in Pittsburgh.
Valerie Krips Associate Professor Emeritus | PhD Deakin University. Interests: Children’s literature, literary theory, cultural studies, memory and narrative. Valerie's Publications.
Ed Ochester started teaching at the English Department in 1970. Since leaving the Department in 1999, Ed Ochester has published three books of poems—most recently: Snow White Horses: Selected Poems (Autumn House Press) and The Land of Cockaigne (Story Line Press)—and has published in numerous magazines and anthologies. He's currently working on an anthology of contemporary American Poetry which is under contract to the University Press, and continues there as poetry editor and general editor of the Drue Heinz fiction prize. Shortly after leaving the Department, he became a member of the core faculty at the Bennington College MFA program. He has been awarded residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell, and during the past few years has done several dozen readings and residencies at other universities, most recently spring 2003 at Wichita State University, where he was "distinguished visiting poet" during March and April. He edits the poetry magazine 5 AM with Judith Vollmer: Box 205, Spring Church, PA 15686 ($15/4 issues/2 years). Has published many of the most prominent American poets—e.g., Rita Dove, Billy Collins, William Stafford, Alicia Ostiker—as well as many of the most promising younger poets.
William Searle Associate Professor Emeritus | PhD University of California at Berkeley. Interests: 19th- and 20th- century fiction, Shakespeare.
Patsy Sims who taught at the Department from 1989 through 2002 is living in Washington D.C. and directing Goucher College's limited-residency MFA in Creative Nonfiction program. She commutes from her home to the college one or two days a week on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. She has made progress in writing her upcoming prison book.
Judith Vollmer is director of the writing program at Pitt--Greensburg, and has published two books since Level Green: The Door Open to the Fire (Cleveland State Univ. Press) and Reactor (Univ. of Wisconsin Press, forthcoming 2004).