ROBERT H. WHITMAN

ROBERT H. WHITMAN, professor of Russian, emeritus, died May 1, 2008, in Berkeley, Calif. He was 78. Whitman was trained as a linguist. He earned a BA from Hamilton College and a PhD from Harvard University, and he joined the Wesleyan faculty in 1959. He left Wesleyan in 1963 and spent a year in the USSR, then at Cornell, the University of Indiana, and the University of California at Berkeley, before returning to Wesleyan in 1971. He was a visiting professor at Yale for one semester, served as chair of the Educational Policy Committee, and taught courses in Old Russian literature and the history of the Russian language. Whitman founded a program in linguistics, with the participation of members of the anthropology, philosophy, English and psychology departments, and for many years taught popular courses in general linguistics, directing numerous honors theses written by students who went on to become professional linguists. He retired from the Wesleyan faculty in 1997. His former colleague, Professor of Russian Priscilla Meyer recalls that “Bob had an extraordinary ability to inspire students to do sophisticated work, both in tutorials and in class, giving students confidence in their insights by exploring the most fruitful dimensions of what they had to say. He enlivened department meetings with his love of linguistic play, and was enormously generous with his time to colleagues as well as students.” She adds that in 1975 he took over a five-days-a-week Russian language class for a month to replace an incapacitated colleague. Professor Whitman is survived by his wife, Fran, of Berkeley, Calif., his daughter, Julie Zai, and two grandchildren.