Robert Thacker
Professor of Canadian Studies

Professor Thacker earned his degrees in English language and literature at Bowling Green State University (BA), the University of Waterloo, Ontario (MA), and the University of Manitoba (Ph.D.). He is in his twentieth year at St. Lawrence; he has stayed, he says, because “St. Lawrence is among the best places in the country to specialize in Canadian studies.”

“I enjoy the casual, yet quite serious, atmosphere here--St. Lawrence
students are great to be around and to teach,” Thacker says. “Speaking as a teacher, I enjoy the way faculty are able to teach courses connected to research and other interests.”

Thacker was elected Owen D. Young Outstanding Faculty Member by the class of 2002. “As a part of that award, I gave the inaugural Last Lecture to the graduating class,” he said. “I told them, ‘Enthusiasm must be yoked to some commitment to a greater striving.’

Thacker is also a member of the English department and has taught frequently in the First-Year Program. He is also a longtime member of the Professional Standards Committee, which makes tenure and promotion recommendations to the president.

Thacker has also been working at a critical biography of Alice Munro. “Munro, a Canadian writer whose work has appeared regularly in The New Yorker since 1977, is working with me,” he says. Thacker has been appointed a Molson Research Fellow, which will allow him to take a sabbatical leave during the 2002-03 academic year, conducting research in preparation for writing the biography of Canadian author Alice Munro. The fellowship is funded by a gift from Eric Molson, chairman of Molson Inc., and his wife, Jane Molson, of Montreal, through the Lincolnshire Foundation. will allow him to finish researching and write the book. He has also published on Willa Cather, prairie fiction and English-Canadian literature, and was editor of The American Review of Canadian Studies from 1994 to 2002.