September 3, 2002

James Butler, Scholar, Teacher and Advisor, is Recipient Of La Salle University's Provost Distinguished Faculty Award

As a nervous, first-year La Salle University student in 1985, Terri Burke Borusiewicz met with her advisor, English professor James Butler, to go over her schedule. "When I rostered for second semester, he asked me if I had enough time for lunch!" she recalled. Now a high school English teacher, she says, "I will be forever grateful to him for the care he took in guiding me as a freshman."

Advising and guiding students is as important to Butler as teaching them. It was this dedication, in and out of the classroom, that earned him the 2002 Provost Distinguished Faculty Award, an honor presented to a teacher who embodies the spirit of the University.

"Jim Butler is an inspiring teacher, a dedicated advisor and established scholar. For more than 30 years he has selflessly given time and effort to working with and teaching our students, and I can think of no better example for the award," said Richard Nigro, Provost of La Salle.

He received the award at a recent ceremony, which was attended by La Salle's incoming freshmen class, their parents and members of the University's faculty and administration.

"Four decades ago, I came to La Salle as a freshman. I had done reasonably well in high school and was excited about my new life to come. But I was a bit apprehensive and with good reason: I knew very few of my fellow students and none of my future professors; I was shy; I didn't write very well," he said in his acceptance speech.

"If there is any difference between past and present for me, I owe it to La Salle's faculty members, who from the start treated me (and all of us) as valuable and unique, who took the time to help me--individually and personally, who became my mentors and inspirations. Some of these people, four decades later, are still associated with La Salle, and it pleases me more than I can say to thank them. To you, members of the Class of 2006, I want to say that your time at La Salle is amply populated by the same kind of faculty members who taught me."

A Pittsburgh native, Butler attended a high school school run by the Christian Brothers, the order that operates La Salle. While in high school, Butler came to La Salle as a member of his school's debate team. "It seemed a natural fit," he recalled.

After graduating from La Salle as Valedictorian, with a degree in English, one of his English professors said to him, "I'll hope you'll be coming back."

Butler planned to study the romantic 19th century poet John Keats at Cornell University, where he heard Keats' papers and manuscripts were housed. "I was told his papers were at Harvard, but that Cornell had some of Wordsworth's later papers, so I studied Wordsworth," an earlier romantic poet of the 18th century.

After obtaining his Ph.D., Butler joined the La Salle faculty in 1971. "I was very happy to come back," he says. "I didn't want to go to a big graduate school where they prepare people for academia." He says that having some many good English teachers at La Salle inspired him to seek a career as a teacher. And advisor.

"That's something I really enjoy," he says. "As an advisor (for courses, careers, etc). You can play a meaningful part in a student's life."

He's also a creative teacher, offering courses such as "Yo! Phillywrite Now," which deals with stories by local authors, or "Frankenstein's Children," a course using several media to discuss the Frankenstein myth.

He's also taught courses on the history of the Germantown section of Philadelphia (near the La Salle campus), which was a separate and important city on its own in the 18th century before being annexed by Philadelphia. Many Revolutionary war figures and events are associated in the region, and Butler offers guided tours in the area.

Now considered one of the leading scholars on Wordsworth, Butler has edited several volumes and written many articles about the poet. He is also associate editor of the Cornell Wordsworth Series, which has been called "one of the great scholarly enterprises of our time."

He also became an authority on Philadelphia writer Owen Wister, who wrote the first western novel, The Virginian, in 1902. Butler became interested in Wister because the writer grew up near La Salle's campus. (He met his wife in a building that is now the University's fine arts studio.) Butler has collected some of Wister's papers at La Salle, including a first edition of the novel, and about sixty original Wister letters, many to George Horace Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post; several letters deal explicitly with The Virginian.

A few years ago, Butler found a long-lost Wister manuscript in The Library of Congress.

While discussing some ideas with Teddy Roosevelt, Wister said he was considering a novel about Philadelphia's upper crust society in the gilded age, and the changes in America as the 19th century gave way to the 20th. Roosevelt insisted he write the book and Wister began it. He had it half completed, but then his wife died in 1913 giving birth to their sixth child, and Wister lost interest in the project.

Looking into several folders, Butler found half of it in one section, and the other half of the manuscript in another. Butler edited the manuscript, and last year Wister's book was published by Penn State University Press as Romney, and other New Works About Philadelphia.

Butler is the fourth La Salle faculty member to receive the award, following John Reardon, a now-retired accounting teacher, Samuel Wiley, who teaches math and computer science, and Preston Feden, a faculty member in La Salle's Education Department.