RMMLA Past Presidents, IV: Thomas Bond Burnam, 1953-1954

Versatility and a keen intellectual curiosity are the outstanding characteristics of Professor Thomas Bond Burnam who was president of the RMMLA in 1953-54. Indeed, these are probably the outstanding characteristics of most fine scholars, creative writers, and teachers. Dr. Burnam was born in Swan Lake, Montana, and was reared in the Northwest, taking his A.B. and M.A. degrees from the University of Idaho, and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1950. During his last year of graduate work at the University in Seattle, he advanced from part-time acting associate instructor to instructor, teaching composition and elementary creative writing, and later teaching courses in advanced creative writing, the structure of fiction, and introduction to literature. He also served as secretary of the Advanced Writing Staff under Porter Perrin at the University of Washington in 1949-50. His major fields were American literature and creative writing; his special interests, Shakespeare, linguistics, and the drama since Ibsen. He came to Colorado State College in 1950 as assistant professor of English, was advanced to associate professor in 1953, and to professor of English in 1956. In 1963 he returned to the Northwest, where he has remained as professor of English at Portland State College. Professor Burnam had an especially fruitful year in 1961 when, on leave from Colorado State College, he served as Fulbright Professor of American literature at the University of Helsinki. While in Scandinavia he also lectured at the American Studies Seminar for Teachers of English and at the American Scandinavian Seminar at Leangkollen, Norway. During the same year, at the invitation of the U.S. Educational Commission for France and the Faculté des Lettres at the University of Caen, he lectured on the American short story. The first scholarly appearance of Dr. Burnam in the Rocky Mountain region was his presentation, in May of 1951, of a paper entitled "Hemingway's 'Primitive Men' " before the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Letters, the forerunner of the RMMLA. His first published short story, appropriately entitled "First Sale," appeared in the Empire Magazine of The Denver Post in November, 1951. Since this first appearance in print, Professor Burnam