During Commencement Week activities May 9-12 at Saint Michael’s College, Dr. Will Marquess of Burlington, English instructor and adviser to The Onion River Review, SMC literary journal, was presented the 2013 Class Appreciation Award.
In presenting the award, senior class Vice President Caroline Ward spoke of the impact of Professor Marquess on her education and on that of so many others. “This professor is remarkable; I know he has touched the lives of each and every one of his students in a profound way,” she said.
Professor Marquess, on the faculty of Saint Michael’s since 1984, has won a class appreciation award twice before, in 1988 and 2006, and the top teaching award in 2007. He earned his bachelor’s degree with Distinction in English from Duke University in 1976, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his PhD from Harvard in 1983 and was awarded the Howard Mumford Jones Award for the best dissertation in English literature, Harvard University, 1983. He is a fiction writer and teacher, and the author of Lives of the Poet: The First Hundred Years of Keats Biography, Penn State University Press, 1985.
“His passion for teaching and mentoring and his dedication to his students are truly inspiring…he taught me so much about literature, writing and life…. I left his classroom a better student and a better person,” Ms. Ward said.