The late professor John Reiss taught English at Saint Michael’s for 34 years, introducing generations of students to a vast range of imaginative writing. An accomplished scholar, welcoming mentor, and devoted teacher, he believed that art can show us how to pay attention, both to the world and to ourselves. He enriched the lives of family, friends, and students by bestowing on them his own spirited, gracious attention.
James Reiss has established a new term scholarship in loving honor and memory of his father, who was tragically killed in September 2008. With a generous annual gift of $10,000, to be made for the life of the donor, this scholarship will provide financial support to a gifted Saint Michael’s English major who maintains a GPA of 3.5 or higher, and is in their junior year. The scholarship will be renewable for a second year, as long as the student maintains these requirements. Selection of scholarship recipients will be made by the English Department, in consultation with the Director of Financial Aid.
John Reiss published articles on Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Robert Frost. In 1973, he created the course that was to become his favorite, American Naturalism, in which he established a background for understanding Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner. During his tenure as chair of the English Department from 1975 to 1978, the Writing Center was founded, and the department introduced the college’s first honors program. In 1977, he participated in a National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar at Yale, taking a course with the prominent literary critic Harold Bloom. Later, John brought Bloom to Saint Michael’s twice to present lectures, once to receive an honorary degree. Over the years he also sponsored degrees for the Frost scholar Reginald Cook, the novelist Isaac Bashevis Singer, and the man of letters Roger Shattuck. In 1996, when Saint Michael’s committed itself to an ambitious First-Year Seminar program, John’s combination of intelligence, warmth, and reliability made him a natural as the program’s first coordinator.
The range of John Reiss’s interests went far beyond his professional specialization in 19th- and 20th-century American literature. He also taught courses on Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, Victorian sages like Ruskin, Carlyle, and Pater, and more recent social critics like James Baldwin, V.S. Naipaul, and Joan Didion. He read deeply in world literature, with special admiration for Montaigne, Cervantes, and Dostoevsky. He loved the Chicago Bears, Marlene Dietrich, and Woody Allen. And he somehow found time to write fiction and personal essays that strengthened his understanding of the craft and heightened the quality of his concentration on other writers.
Above all, John was a devoted family man and teacher. Asked for a maxim that would describe his approach to teaching, he said simply, “Teachers should serve students.” He took great pains to welcome younger faculty members to Saint Michael’s, inviting them into his home and writing them letters of encouragement. He was funny, smart, and deeply caring. When things looked dark, he reminded himself of a favorite line from Dante: “Go not sullen in the gladsome air.”
The John P. Reiss Memorial Scholarship aims to help a deserving English major learn to pay attention as he always did. James also welcomes further support of this scholarship by alumni, parents, faculty, staff and friends of Saint Michael’s College and Professor John P. Reiss. For more information about the scholarship, contact Terri Selby, Senior Major Gifts Officer, at tselby@smcvt.edu or 802-654-2462.
–William Marquess
