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April 2, 2008

Advice From an Angel

Professor Ülle Lewes

Byron Pitts ’82, CBS national news correspondent, called her an angel—“someone who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself,” he recalled, as 400 members of OWU’s 2006 graduating class listened intently to their prestigious Commencement speaker. Pitts’ angel, a.k.a. Ülle Lewes, English professor and director of OWU’s Writing Resource Center, remains to this day one of his mentors, one who not only helped to enrich Pitts’ academic skills and confidence levels, but also his passion for learning. Lewes will retire next month from teaching at Ohio Wesleyan, after 30 years of devotion to elucidating so well the art and science of good writing, the beauty of literature, and the long-term impact of powerfully effective teaching.

“I have two claims to fame, one being that I created the Writing Center Association, with over 3,000 members,” says Lewes. The second is her helping to establish the Writing Across the Curriculum (“W”) requirement for students. Completion of a freshman English course is not, in Lewes’ mind, enough training for writing competency. Continuous coaching and practice in all majors are equally important.

A native of Estonia and a naturalized U.S. citizen, Lewes received her undergraduate training in English at Cornell University and then was awarded her master’s and Ph.D. degrees in comparative literature from Harvard University. Her literary focus is on the Middle Ages and English Renaissance, especially Shakespeare. At Ohio Wesleyan, she teaches Style and Rhetoric, Non-Fiction Writing Workshop, Literary Perspectives on Women, as well as courses on Shakespeare and drama. Lewes has written many publications, including The Life in the Forest: the Influence of Saints’ Lives on the Tristan Myth (University of Tennessee Press, 1979). She even has a prize named in her honor: The Ülle Lewes Prize for Non-Fiction Writing at Ohio Wesleyan, established by the father of one of her former students.

Lewes began her teaching career at Temple University, where she taught English from 1971 to 1978 and was assistant director of the remedial writing clinic—contrasting with OWU’s non-remedial resource approach. During the 2006-07 academic year, for example, 25 percent of OWU’s Phi Beta Kappa students visited the center, and 75 percent of the general student population without a “U” (unsatisfactory) grade came for help with papers, graduate school personal statements, resumes, and the like.

“Their professors advise them to take advantage of our professional tutoring, especially with revisions,” says Lewes, who has given national presentations focusing on the how-to’s of setting up writing centers within organizations and college environments. Lewes also has presented numerous seminars for OWU faculty on how to use writing as a teaching and learning tool in courses across the curriculum. It all comes down to practice and process.

“Writing is a process involving multiple steps,” she says. The first is idea generation, followed by information gathering, and then a rough draft. “Then, there is a second draft, paying attention to structure and content, followed by a revision that corrects surface errors of grammar and mechanics,” explains Lewes, pointing out the logic of this approach and noting the different brain locations we use for generating content versus perfecting grammar and mechanics.

“I’ve loved teaching,” says Lewes, whose plans after May could include travel, and teaching women at the Marysville Correctional Institution for Women basic writing skills they need so that they can, as she says, make productive lives for themselves. That is, after all, a teacher’s purpose.

Former students of Ülle Lewes can contact her at uelewes@owu.edu.

– Pam Besel