We are sad to share that former OWU faculty member Dr. Charles McCullough Weis passed away Nov. 30 in Santa Barbara, California. He was 101. As his family shares, “He lived a remarkably complete and rich life to the very end, displaying a fierce determination to live life to the fullest.”
Charles taught English and Film for 28 years at Ohio Wesleyan, retiring in 1986. He taught courses in areas including 18th Century British Literature, freshman writing, and film studies. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees at Yale University, teaching there and at the University of Virginia before joining the OWU family in 1958.
Charles also served in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of sergeant and serving as a cryptographer responsible for enciphering and deciphering classified messages before his discharge in 1945.
In recognition of his impact as an educator, a former student created an endowed professorship in his name in 2010. Per the donor’s wishes, The Charles M. Weis Professorship in English is bestowed upon a “scholar of the highest academic distinction” and a tenured full professor in Ohio Wesleyan’s Department of English.
His wife of 31 years, Elizabeth (Munce), passed in 1989. No services were announced. Complete obituary information is available online.
Please join us in offering our sincere condolences to Charles’s children, Karl and Virginia, and all of his family members and friends.
–The Offices of Academic Affairs and Human Resources