Richard S. Hauser, 77, a retired 33-year member of the Department of Biological Sciences, died Dec. 29 at St. Peter's Hospital after being stricken in his Albany home.

Hauser was the recipient of the first President's Award for Excellence in Advising, presented to him upon his retirement by President Vincent O'Leary in April of 1981. He received numerous letters of support at the time from past and current students and colleagues. He joined the faculty in 1948 after receiving his master's degree in botany from Michigan State University.

His bachelor's degree in botany was earned from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1941. During World War II, he was a second lieutenant with the U.S. Army' Medical Service Corps. He served in the Army reserves until retiring as a major in 1964.

Born in Concepcion, Chile, he attended schools in Chile, Argentina and Peru as a boy. A lover of international travel, he toured the Galapagos Islands with fellow department member Richard Kelly, studying rare species of animals and birds. Since 1986, he was a frequent, featured lecturer for numerous cruise lines throughout South America, Europe, Antarctica and Africa.

Alan Carroll Purves

Alan Carroll Purves, Professor Emeritus of Education and Humanities, died suddenly at his Melrose home on Dec. 31. He was 65.

An internationally known and respected expert in the study of academic assessment and the teaching of English literature, Purves was a member of the University faculty from 1986-96, and was director of the School of Education�s Center for Writing and Literacy, and later co-director of its Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature.

A former chairman of the International Studies in Educational Achievement, Purves developed in the early 1970s the concept of �response-centered curriculum in literature, which subsequently influenced the curricula of this country and New Zealand and Finland as well. His best known work on the topic, How Porcupines Make Love (1973), has been a popular guide used by teachers of high school literature ever since its first publication.

�He gave a new rigor and complexity to the study of student response to literature,� said Arthur Applebee, a co-director with Purves and Judith Langer in the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature, which received several multi-million dollar grants in this decade to support its research.

Purves graduated from Harvard University in 1953, and received his master�s and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia university. Twice a Fulbright scholar, he was also a professor emeritus of English and education at the University of Illinois, and past president of the National Council of Teachers of English.

His edited works on literature, composition and assessment include Educational Policy and International Assessment (1976), Writing Across Languages and Cultures (1988), Internationa Comparisons and Educational Reform (1989), and, in 1996, the two-volume Encyclopedia of English Studies and Language Arts.

�Alan was truly a man of letters,� said James Fleming, interim dean in the School of Education, in noting Purves first career as a specialist in English literature and theory, and then his later scholarship in the learning of literature and literary criticism. �He was an individual who had a very lively life of the mind, and he thrived on that.�

Vinny Reda