Professor, Department of English
2004
Bio:
Dr. Edward Wolff joined the University of Detroit in 1947 as a Graduate Assistant and part-time Instructor; in 1951 he moved into a full-time Instructor position; in 1960 he became an Assistant Professor, 1967 Associate Professor, and in 1981/82 academic year he earned the rank of full Professor. He has an earned Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph.B.1947) and a Master of English (M.A.1952) from the University of Detroit and a Ph.D. in English (1966) from Michigan State University.
Through his connections at Oxford University, England, Dr. Wolff created the British Studies at Oxford Program at a time when interest in foreign study by American students had barely begun. Drs. John Freeman and Edwin DeWindt, Professors of English, nomination letter spoke to the British Studies program. They wrote “As Director of the British Studies at Oxford Program, Dr. Wolff has given countless students an opportunity over the years to travel beyond their own localities and neighborhoods, to return to the University changed in a positive and lasting way. They have been able to leave this “shallow plash,” where “small experience grows,” to live and study in a city renowned for its scholarship and history. Perhaps the first program of its kind in the university, his Studies at Oxford program has not only enriched these students, but it has also enlarged the University’s own reputation and scope.”
The nomination went on to address Dr. Wolff’s teaching abilities. “A medievalist by training and avocation, he is equally at home in modern English literature and contemporary drama. Anyone who has been in his class – or in Oxford – when he discusses Pinter or the whole range of modern British theatre has had a genuine and distinctive education. No mere pedant, Ed Wolff has always been a gifted teaching scholar. His knowledge of medieval English literature is profound and vast. As one of his former students in that area, Dr. DeWindt stands deeply impressed by his constant re-thinking and re-shaping of what he teaches. His scholarship has always emerged in the classroom, so that anyone who studies with him comes away not only with a real sense and understanding of particular works of literature and drama but with a grasp of the ongoing scholarly debates surrounding them. That rare talent – to convey excitement for a field, knowledge of its contents, and understanding of the shifting sands of criticism all in one fell swoop. Few of us can do that at all, and even fewer can do it well. Ed has always done it – and done it well.”
Dr. Wolff’s commitment to teaching, to students, has been well known and his effectiveness in the classroom and as a counselor and advisor is well documented by his evaluations. He has a wide range of teaching as he has taught all lower level courses of the English Department. He has been one of the best teachers of freshman writing, creative writing and introducing students to the forms and methodologies of basic literary study. At the upper level his greatest strength was the courses in Medieval and Renaissance Literature but he also taught courses in linguistics, Shakespeare, British Drama and 18th Century Literature.
According to Dr. Wolff’s Curriculum Vitae he was “instrumental in creating a mandatory undergraduate seminar for senior English majors to help prepare them not only for the graduate record exam and graduate school, but also for careers after graduation; he strongly supported a two-semester college-level freshman writing program, exclusive of a remedial course, as basic requirements for all undergraduates; he formed the U. of D. Honors group and became its Director; he created the post of Student Dean of honors, the first such position in the U.S.; and, supported by a unanimous vote of the Graduate Committee, launched a successful Ph.D. program.
Dr. Wolff served on the English Department’s Committee on Graduate Studies as Chairman, Status and Promotion Committee, Curriculum & Instruction Committee, and Undergraduate Committee as Chairman. For the university he was an Insignis interviewer, and advised graduate and undergraduate students.
Over the decades he represented the University at hundreds of professional and academic conferences; spoke at many high schools, colleges and universities about the value of the university’s programs including the Oxford Program; and as a member of the International Congress on Medieval Studies he gave a dozen papers on medieval figures. He presented papers on British Television SitComs and Cultural Differences, Writing Discourse and the Underclass, Innovation in Business Writing, Global Writing in the 21st Century, Poetics of Creation: Comparative Literature, Gawain and the Green Knight, Othello: the Rhetoric of Racism, The Canterbury Tales: Sacred and Profane, and Christine de pizan and the Debate Tradition.
Dr. Edward Wolff’s nomination for Professor Emeritus was approved and conferred by Sr. Maureen A. Fay, O.P., Ph.D., President, University of Detroit Mercy on April 13, 2004. Dr. Wolff entered eternal life on September 24, 2021.