Dr. Eric F. Heyne, Head
Department of English
University of Alaska Fairbanks
P.O. Box 755720
Fairbanks, Alaska

Dear Eric,

This letter is for you, for all faculty of the English Department, and for all students majoring in English through the Department.

I greatly regret that illness kept me from being present at the dedication of the English Majors' Study to the memory of the late Minnie E. Wells and to me. You honor us both in a very special way: with a room of books where the reading and studying of literature can take place in a pleasant and comfortable setting. For Dr. Wells and me, as for all of you, the reading of imaginative literature has always been one of the great loves of our lives and has always offered us one of life's richest rewards; and the teaching of written composition and literature has been not only our profession but a challenge to lead our students to the enjoyment, understanding, and appreciation of great literature. The new English Majors' Study symbolizes all of this. For me, you add to the honor by linking me with a stalwart but gracious lady whom I regard as one of the pillars of the University of Alaska and as the academic ancestor of all who have followed her in the Department of English at Fairbanks.

Professor Wells passed from this life two and one-half years ago. During her lifetime anyone presuming to speak on her behalf would have had little assurance that he would express her views accurately or her feelings properly. She was quite capable of speaking for herself, in a firm but polite, often witty but always pertinent, and frequently unusual and unexpected manner. But in extending to you her gratitude, I am certain that she would feel it deeply and would be genuinely moved by the recognition you bestow. When she retired in 1971, she was disillusioned with the Department of English and with the University. She had never courted popularity, and she had fallen from favor with many who have long since departed from this institution. But hope was one of her virtues, and I believe that she would be pleased with the way in which the Department of English has evolved since her time. In memorializing her through the English Majors' Study, you vindicate her integrity. Her appreciation would be profound.

In trying to express my own gratitude, I can't help but recall my arrival in Fairbanks on the day before Labor Day exactly forty years ago. That week-end was very much like the glorious sun-filled autumn we have enjoyed for most of this month. But the bright, clear days, azure skies, radiant sunshine, and golden leaves did not last as long that year as they did this. The mornings were soon frosted and brisk, the birches and aspens bare, the nights cold with early displays of aurora borealis. What a bracing atmosphere it was for starting new work!

I was one of six new faculty hired to teach English. For whatever reason, there had been an exodus of most of the staff at the end of the preceding academic year. The only holdovers were Minnie Wells and William Magee, chairman of the Department (of Languages and Literature, as it was then called) and of the Division of Arts and Letters (at that time there were no colleges with deans). Three of the newcomers held doctorates. Three of us had master's degrees. One of the M.A.'s was a visiting Carnegie professor from Bennington College charged with remodeling and rejuvenating the freshman English program. Another of the M.A.'s was qualified to teach beginning German and basic speech courses, as well as English, and his versatility was needed by the Department and the Division. Throughout that first year I felt sure that I was the least necessary, most dispensable member of the Department. But I enjoyed my work, which consisted of four composition courses, two of them remedial. I would never have dreamed or believed, however, that forty years into the future I would be the one to have lasted, to be remembered, and, with Minnie Wells, to be so honored.

After I learned that the English Majors' Study would be dedicated to us, I had to wonder whether we were being accorded this recognition because she had died so recently and I had lived on in Fairbanks after I retired, keeping in touch with the Department occasionally, and speaking to the English faculty about Dr. Wells at the time of her death. But I have to trust that you had other, better reasons. Yet I think of other members of the Department, dating back to that group of newcomers forty years ago and coming right up to the present, who have contributed greatly to the growth and health of the Department and without whose cooperation and good will I would never have been able to make whatever contributions you believe I have made. I would name some of these colleagues and friends except that in doing so I might neglect others who are equally deserving of being remembered. So it is with humility that I accept the honor you do me, knowing that others in the history of this Department deserve to share it with me.

I would like to give special thanks to certain of you who worked on the project of the English Majors' Study and brought it to completion: Susan Blalock, Madara Mason Hill, other .members of Sigma Tau Delta, and, taking over for Susan when she left on sabbatical leave, Joe Dupras. I thank all others of whose efforts I am unaware but who nevertheless may have helped to bring about the English Majors' Study.

I am deeply grateful to all, and to English majors in particular I wish many hours of pleasure and of learning as you read and converse about literature in your new and very special den.

In appreciation,
Jack Bernet