In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

126RMMLA BulletinSeptember 1969 RMMLA PAST PRESIDENTS, VII: COLLICE H. PORTNOFF: 1963-64 Collice H. Portnoff, a native CaIifornian , long ago acquired the cosmopolitan air which marks her brisk and affable mien today. A woman of many talents and many interests, she has synthesized the highly varied facets of a rich personality in achieving that apex of success, the unity of a true human being. Her colleagues and her students alike over the years have sensed that beyond the figure of the professor there functioned a dynamic complex informing the whole, from which they benefitted . Variety of interest characterized Mrs. Portnoff's academic career. After taking her B.A. and M.A. in Latin from Berkeley , she received the Ph.D from Stanford in classics. All her coordinate work was done in English and Spanish literature. She was granted a Carter Memorial Fellowship under which she studied at the American Academy in Rome, supplementing her knowledge of the classics with a master's degree in archaeology. She taught at Stanford and at Arizona State College at Flagstaff—now Northern Arizona University. Her teaching at Flagstaff was interrupted by a stint of work for the government during the war years. Mrs. Portnoff came to Arizona State University in Tempe as a Professor of English in 1945. From 1958 through 1963 she served as chairman of die department of English, thus taking part in administrative activity both in the department and on the university level during some of the institution's most difficult years of growth. Since 1963 she has been teaching such courses as Contemporary Comparative Literature, Contemporary Drama, and Classical Backgrounds in English Literature. She has served on the university Graduate Committee as well as on departmental committees for advanced degrees. Committee work in variety at the university level shows her to be dedicated to die humane advance of Arizona State, and to the advancement of die humane disciplines within the institution. On the wider scene, too, Mrs. Portnoff has been untiring in her service. She was consultant for the Comparative Literature section of N.C.T.E. in 1963. In the same year she gave generously of time and energy working on the Governor's Committee for Textbook Selection for the State of Arizona. In the two years following, she was Pacific states regional representative of the Classical Society of the American Academy in Rome. In 1967 she was one of the Executive Committee of the annual meeting of RMMLA. RMMLA Past Presidents127 In die area of cultural advance her taste and enthusiasm for drama came to the fore when she was consultant in connection with the filming of Chekhov for Desilu Studios in Hollywood. For some years she produced and directed the pageant of The Miracle of the Roses in Scottsdale, Arizona —a pageant based on the picturesque and miraculous story of Guadalupe in Old Mexico. Still another field of interest is indicated by her serving on the board of directors of the Phoenix Chamber Music Society and on the board of Centro Studi E. Scambi Internazionale, Rome. Her memberships in learned societies are many. It is not surprising that she is listed in die current Who's Who in America as well as in Who's Who of American Women. Mrs. Portnoff's publications include the translation, with Dr. Mary J. Escudero, of Leaders' Manual for Cursillos in Christianity by Juan Hervas (Madrid, Ultreya Press for Euramerica, S.A., 1965) which is now in its second edition. She also translated, widi Dr. Escudero, Eduardo Bonnin's Structure of Ideas (Phoenix, Ultreya Press, 1965). She has reviewed books for The Arizona Republic for years, and last October became the book editor for that publication. Her most recent honor was conferred on her by the Alumni Association of Arizona State University when in February of this year Mrs. Portnoff received the Distinguished Teacher Award for "her excellence in the classroom , her ability to inspire students to do their best." Perhaps those same students would be surprised to know diat during World War II, their smiling and urbane professor was a cryptanalyst in the Signal Corps—surely the most unusual post of all for this learned lady. —From Virginia Randall Arizona...

pdf

Share