Like Albus Dumbledore — one of the “Harry Potter” characters he loved — William Glavin is remembered by students as more than someone behind a desk.

“He’s almost like a father figure to his students — he’s more than just a professor,” said Leah Goldman, a senior magazine journalism major.

Glavin, a magazine journalism professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications for nearly 40 years, died the morning of May 7 after suffering from lung cancer. He was the first professor awarded the Syracuse University Meredith Award for Teaching Excellence. He is also the co-author of “The Art of Writing Nonfiction,” published in March 1991.

“He was considered the heart and soul of the magazine department, the conscience of Newhouse,” said Melissa Chessher, chair of the magazine journalism department and a close friend of Glavin’s.

 

In 2008, the William Glavin Magazine Lab opened in Newhouse I after it was funded and named in Glavin’s honor by Stacy Mindich, an SU alumna. David Remnick, the editor in chief of The New Yorker, dedicated the new room.

Before coming to Newhouse, Glavin worked for The Boston Globe and the CBS news affiliate Channel 5 WHTH in Boston. He was also an associate editor at Good Housekeeping, where he was offered the position of managing editor but began his teaching career at Newhouse instead.

Glavin’s students were his top priority both in and out of the classroom. If either the faculty or university proposed changes, he was always the first to ask how it could affect students, Chessher said. He always made himself available and dedicated much of his time to students in case they needed help or just wanted to talk.

“The one thing I never heard him say or do was complain about a student. Never. He loved his students so much,” said Mark Obbie, a magazine journalism professor whose office was next to Glavin’s. “You could tell the world in Bill’s mind was divided between his students on the one hand and everything else on the other.”

Glavin was proud of his students’ accomplishments as if they were his own children, Chessher said.

“He really had support for all of us,” said Jessica Shelcusky, a magazine journalism and history major who graduated in 2006. “He just wanted us all to succeed in all that we did.”

When Shelcusky was a senior, she realized she would be focusing on history rather than writing for magazines and felt Newhouse had been a waste of her time, she said. Glavin reassured her it had not been a waste when he told his students that even if they did not become journalists, they would know how to write and communicate clearly.

 

In addition to his passion and dedication to students, Glavin was known for his love of the Harry Potter series.

“It doesn’t surprise me that he attached himself to the whole “Harry Potter” phenomenon because there was something magical about him in the classroom and how he treated students as equals,” Chessher said.

There were times when he would incorporate “Harry Potter” in his lessons. Goldman recalled a time when the students had to review one of the series’ books. Glavin thought Harry Potter would die at the end of the series, she said.

Shelcusky has similar memories of Glavin.

“He would tell me Harry Potter is going to die, and I would argue with him about it,” she said. He was sure that the book could not end any other way and she would argue that children read the book too, so he would not, she said.

When he was not in the office with students or discussing Harry Potter, he spent time pursuing his fly-fishing hobby. He would spend his Saturdays at Troutfitter, a fly-fishing shop in Syracuse, Chessher said.

Glavin made 14 trips to Montana to fish and refered to fly-fishing as the only sport you can win without having to kill something, Chessher said.

“He loved the Delaware River,” she said. “A couple of his fly-fishing friends this past weekend took two or three of his favorite trees — red buds — and took them down to the Delaware River and planted them.”

Glavin will be remembered for his dedication to students, the inspiration he has provided them and his passion for writing, Harry Potter and fly-fishing among other things.

Chesser said, “Nobody gave as much or was a passionate about the profession of teaching.”

Published on May 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Laurence: lgleveil@syr.edu | @lgleveille