Robert Self Retires

After 35 years of service to the university and the Department of English, Professor Robert Self has retired. He began his NIU career in 1969, a period when the anti-war movement was sweeping across college campuses.

“The revolution was on,” he says. “There were radical elements all over the campus. It was an exciting time to be here.” Self notes that during those turbulent times, teachers didn’t do anything in the classroom without thinking about the political implications. Self says that as the anti-war movement gained momentum, it had a direct impact on many classes, transforming first-year writing classes into forums for exploring political debate, and literature classes, especially American literature, into classes that explored the tradition of resistance. “It was hard not to be involved,” he explains, “because a lot of the students in the classroom had been radicalized.”

Self adds that the turbulence of the era was not confined to the national political climate. University politics were also undergoing changes. Enrollment had soared and with it so had faculty ranks. “There was definitely a schism in the department between what was perceived as the old guard and the new guard,” he says. As a member of the new guard, he enjoyed a sense of camaraderie with the other new faculty members and emerged unscathed from some of the more difficult political moments as the department moved in a new direction. He says that “even though my first decade here was difficult politically, the students were great.”

During the 1980s, Self became involved in the department’s administration. Since then, he has twice served as the Director of Graduate Studies and the Director of First-Year Composition. He also served as Interim Chair during his last year at NIU.

In addition to his administrative work, Self made many significant and lasting contributions to our department—contributions that have helped to define his legacy as a teacher, an administrator, and a friend to many. He was instrumental in the development of our department’s course offerings in Film and Literature; he organized and taught in one of our popular overseas programs, Media and Culture in Ireland; he helped to initiate our computer-mediated program in First-Year Composition; he supported our First-Year Composition instructors as they struggled to be accepted as professionals within the university hierarchy.

Looking back at his years with the Department of English, Self says, “I hope to be remembered as a professor who has inspired students—who gave them a sense of excitement—a sense of critical appreciation—an excitement that helps them to understand the way in which texts impact our lives and culture beyond mere entertainment.”