Harpur College Pays Tribute To
Saul Levin, Distinguished Professor of Ancient Languages, Emeritus

Professor Saul Levin is unforgettable. He is now back at home after undergoing therapy at Hilltop Retirement Community in Johnson City, New York, following a mild stroke earlier this year. He is recovering steadily and remains his usual enthusiastic, brilliant, and spirited self.

As a child, Levin taught himself both French and Latin out of other people's textbooks. At his mother's insistence, he took French in high school. Although he was already proficient in the language, he wasn't bored in class. "I kept observing what difficulties other students had, and how the teachers would address them," he recalls. That experience probably laid the foundation for his lifelong career in teaching languages.

Levin's fascination with languages followed him to the University of Chicago, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He majored in Greek and minored in Linguistics, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1942. Levin continued his education at the University of Chicago and spent three years at Harvard studying Classics as Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows. In 1949 he earned a Ph.D. in Greek with an emphasis on Latin also.

As an undergraduate, Levin originally intended to major in Romance Languages. He chose Greek over Latin as an elective after looking at a friend's Greek textbook. His instructor, David Grene, taught The Iliad and the Odyssey, and the Socratic Dialogues of Plato in their original Greek. "He had a way of pushing. There was an initial enrollment of 25 [in Greek], but Grene had decided that he would cover the essentials of Greek grammar in less than a quarter of the time. He didn't care how many dropped! It was the few remaining in the class that he cared about. By the end of the semester, we were on the Death of Socrates. Early the next year, he took me aside and urged me to make Greek my major. He assured me I could teach it at a university."

After earning his Ph.D., Levin taught for 1 1/2 years at his alma mater. Next was an assistant professorship at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Shortly thereafter, Levin received a Faculty Fellowship from the Fund for the Advancement of Education through the Ford Foundation. He returned to Chicago for a year and began the research to which he would dedicate the rest of his life: the inflections in Hebrew and other Semitic languages, and in Indo-European languages in Europe and Asia.

Levin's former University of Chicago instructor, S. Stewart Gordon, recruited him to Harpur College in 1961. Levin was a perfect fit. "I liked it very much! The students, the faculty, the support of the administration, the growth of the library, the encouragement for everyone to make the broadest contributions." His recollections of Harpur reflect the college as it is today, a place where scholarship is strongly encouraged.

"Being at Harpur College brought out the best in me." Levin fondly remembers giving Humanities lectures in the Fine Arts building. He never attempted to publish them, but the thought still occurs to him.

Not surprisingly, Professor Levin's publications are too numerous to list. A selective bibliography, "Linguistic Publications of Saul Levin," compiled by J.P. Brown, appears in the 1997 edition of General Linguistics. He considers among his most significant works a Hebrew Grammar book that he wrote for his own students at Washington University, The Linear B Decipherment Controversy Re-examined (1964) and the Indo-European and Semitic languages: An Exploration of Structural Similarities Related to Accent, Chiefly in Greek, Sanskrit, and Hebrew (1971).

General Linguistics dedicated its 1997 edition to Levin. It includes articles by Levin himself, his daughter Eve, a professor at Ohio State University, and Harpur College Distinguished Professor Emeritus Wilhelm Nicolaisen, and Professor Daniel Williman.

Levin enjoyed following his students' progress as he taught. He often thinks about the late Harpur College alumnus, Jordan Greenwald '82. Levin said, "He was the very best of all; he had it in him to go further than I'd done." After Greenwald's death in 1990, a memorial lounge was created in the library tower to hold his vast book collection. Greenwald's family also established the Jordan M. Greenwald Memorial Scholarship, which assists a junior or senior student of the classics and rotates between a Greek and Latin major in the department.

His academic life is well balanced by a large family. Levin and his wife Ruth recently celebrated their 50th anniversary. They have six children and six grandchildren.

Levin retired in 2000, concluding half a century in academia. Looking back on his career at Harpur College, Levin said, "I have so many sweet memories." His longtime colleague and friend, Aldo Bernardo, Distinguished Service Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, Emeritus, summarized, "Professor Levin is the most dedicated scholar our campus has ever had. He was instrumental in developing not only a solid Classics Program, but in expanding the scope of the Department to include Arabic and Hebrew. His grasp of universal knowledge was such that he was able to work with various colleagues in a variety of areas. His help contributed immeasurably to my completion of all of Petrarch's Latin letters of his old age. He was also instrumental in developing our Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, as well as our original and award-winning Humanities Program, which put Harpur College on the map by the mid-seventies. His contributions have been literally immeasurable."

Professor Levin would enjoy hearing from his former students. He can be reached by e-mail at slevin@binghamton.edu

In Memoriam: Professor George Wellwarth

George E. Wellwarth, professor emeritus of Theater, died on June 11, 2001.

Born in Vienna, Austria on June 6, 1932, Wellwarth earned a B.A. from New York University in 1953, an M.A. from Columbia University in 1954, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1957. He began his academic career at Harpur College in 1970, following a teaching position at Penn State University.

Wellwarth was a prolific author, known widely among theater enthusiasts as the co-founder and co-editor of Modern International Drama. His writing included Spanish Underground Drama (1972) and Modern Drama and the Death of God (1986). He also edited numerous books about theater, including Modern Spanish Theater: An Anthology of Plays (1969) and German Drama Between the Wars: An Anthology of Plays (1974).

Wellwarth retired from Harpur College in 1996. "George was a very good friend and colleague and he will be missed," said John Vestal, chair of the Theater department, "He taught Intro to Theater and the class was always full. He was always an entertaining lecturer."

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