Katie Witek Retires

Katie Witek retired this past spring after almost 20 years of teaching at Saint Xavier University, and I've known her as a friend and teacher almost as long. (Others of you will have to provide the stories from her undergraduate years at Saint Xavier--she graduated in 1979.) I first met Katie almost when I began my academic career at SXU--or rather continued it. At that point I was enrolled in the speech pathology program but because my husband Norm was teaching in the English department I knew a number of English department faculty members socially. Norm encouraged me to meet a "wonderful teacher," and his enthusiastic recommendation led to my standing outside the door of a third floor classroom, listening to the voice of a woman who would become my friend as well as mentor and chief encourager. I remember the response of the students in that classroom and I also remember saying to myself, "that's what I want to do!" We did indeed meet face to face and enjoyed talking about the difficulties and joys of being women returning to school "at our age." It was not long after that that our lively conversation and laughter was interrupted by a librarian--asking us to "please take [our] conversation outside the library" because we were disturbing others who were "trying to work."

At that time Katie had a Thunderbird--a long, wide Thunderbird, so long and wide, in fact, that she once told Norm it had gotten wedged into the garage and she couldn't get it out. My only experience with this infamous vehicle was the time I remember her backing out of a parking space, trying not to ram a tree, or another car, or doing away with a student or two who dared walk behind her while she worked her way out of the spot and into the driveway.

During my years as an undergraduate at SXU, first in the speech program (in which I got my BA in 1983) and then, about four years later as an English major, Katie was consistent in her encouragement and in nudging me to pursue a graduate degree, at a time when I could not even acknowledge the idea as a possibility. Her response to my likewise insistent "No, I can't do that" was always a gentle, "Keep it in mind; it's something to consider."

When SXU instituted its masters program in English, I enrolled in Spring 1990 in Rhetoric, with Katie as the instructor--and my first question was "What is rhetoric, anyway?" The capstone of the course to me was the infamous dialogues we wrote, bringing together at least three voices from varying time periods and varying viewpoints for their own discussion of the same question. To know that Katie herself had suffered the same torture a short time before in one of the classes she took as she was pursuing her doctorate degree at UIC somewhat alleviated my fears. My fellow students and I moaned and groaned under the weight of this seemingly impossible task. At one point, she introduced a remarkably new concept to me--"Have fun with it." This was a phrase I still tell myself as I continue my graduate work--and one I often repeat to my own students.

In Fall 1992 I took Katie's Teaching of College Writing while I observed her English 102 section. Seeing her teach and watching her students' responses while simultaneously learning theoretical concepts was an invaluable experience. It is one of the main reasons I enjoy teaching the research writing course at UIC so much; a great deal of my course is directly dependent on her methodology and manner in the classroom (with more input from Carol Poston). I will always remember--and it is a story I frequently tell new TAs--about Mary Testa and I sitting at Katie's kitchen table, a pot of Irish Cream coffee nearby, composing our very first syllabuses.

It was during that semester that my mother died, and Katie recognized my need to work very hard the rest of that semester, even as she understood the necessity of my completing the project for the class with the appropriate intellectual rigor and quality. She allowed me an extension on the paper that would become one of my masters papers, encouraging me to include a legacy from my mother even as I wrote about Kenneth Burke's remarkable ideas, always remembering Katie's comment, "Have fun with this, Margaret."

I did receive my MA in 1993, and I stayed at SXU to teach one year as Katie was finishing up her doctoral work. Because of her encouragement, prodding, and gentle but firm, persistent nudging, I applied for admission to the doctoral program at UIC. She still encourages me, and I tell friends at school that the two people I count as responsible for my being there are my husband and Katie Witek.