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‘DePauw Master English Professor’ Walker Gilmer dies Sunday at age 82
F. Walker Gilmer, professor emeritus of English at DePauw University, died Sunday night. A member of the DePauw faculty from 1963 until his retirement in 1997, Gilmer remained a visible and vibrant personality on campus and throughout the community until his death. He was 82.
Born July 11, 1935, Gilmer grew up in Libertyville, Ill. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English with Phi Beta Kappa honors from the University of Virginia.
The son of two lawyers, Gilmer briefly attended Harvard Law School, but the lure of literature was too strong, and he left after one semester and enrolled in graduate school in English. He received both an M.A. in literature and Ph.D. in American literature from Northwestern University.
Gilmer joined the DePauw faculty in 1963 as assistant professor of English, and his DPU career included service as chairman of the department.
In 1977 he was named the KTK-Panhellenic Professor of the Year. Gilmer was awarded the Gold Key in 1987 and three years later was the recipient of the Fred C. Tucker Distinguished Career Award, which recognizes the achievements faculty members who have made notable contributions to DePauw by their commitments to students, teaching excellence, their chosen disciplines and service.
Among other things, Gilmer was the first professor at DePauw to teach a course in African-American literature and one of the first to shift from a lecture to a discussion-centered classroom. As a leader, he insisted upon democratic principles of governance as opposed to privilege and hierarchy. He believed that the classroom is a place for interchange of ideas and never a forum for a professor’s opinions on politics, religion or morals.
In 1970, Gilmer published “Horace Liveright, Publisher of the Twenties,” which led to television appearances and a New York Times book review. Van Allen Bradley, literary editor of the Chicago Daily News, called the book “a superb portrait of a long-neglected literary figure.”
In 1989, members of the DePauw community were asked to state what the university’s overriding goal should be by the year 2000. Gilmer offered, “To create a community of administrators, faculty, students and alumni dedicated to the goals of the liberal arts: that is, to questioning received ideas, to tolerance, and to morality in the classroom, on the campus, and in the larger world.”
Gilmer and his wife, Peggy, who died in June 2010 and also taught at DePauw, were longtime contributors to the university. The Peggy and Walker Gilmer Scholarship was established to thank the students and university that brought much meaning and pleasure to their lives. The scholarship allows promising students of greatest need, especially first-generation students, to enjoy the full richness of the DePauw education that the Gilmers contributed to and enjoyed for so many years. It also challenges his former students, colleagues and friends to match him in this gift to future Gilmer Scholars.
News of Professor Gilmer’s death led to an outpouring of affection on social media from those who knew and loved him.
Ellen Morrison Townsend ‘94 offered, “He was a master English professor. So many good books on the syllabus, such great delivery/lectures in class. I loved his voice, and his clear love of his work and dedication to his students.
Jim Cerone ‘86, stated, “A rarified teacher, I picture him sharing his enthusiasm with a smile and a twinkle. Leading us not to his interpretation, but cajoling us to think more deeply. Walker Gilmer launched thousands of imaginations.”
Says author Lisa Belcher Hamilton ‘80, “Dr. Gilmer taught me how to write. I still hear his voice saying, ‘You need to unpack this a bit more before you move onto your next thought.’”
Tom Chiarella, a former colleague of Gilmer’s in the English department at DePauw, recalled, “He was a teacher, writer, bon vivant and theater enthusiast. He lived a heck of a life. I’ll miss him.”
Dennis Southerland ‘72 wrote, “Professor Gilmer’s lectures on Gatsby are legendary. It was standing room only on those days.”
Gilmer himself said that at DePauw, he had “the chance to see and talk to students in class and on campus -- an opportunity I would never have had in a larger and more impersonal school. To know students and be with them and teach them -- that was the career I wished for most.”
The professor’s legacy will continue via the Peggy and Walker Gilmer Scholarship and the Walker Gilmer Prize, which is awarded to the junior or senior English major at DePauw who is most outstanding in literature.
Arrangements have not been announced.