Gary Hamilton Retires

On the unanimous recommendation of the faculty, Hamilton will be awarded the status of Associate Professor Emeritus when he retires at the end of the fall semester.

Hamilton has given 40-years of service to the English department. He has spent his entire career at the University of Maryland, having accepted an appointment as assistant professor after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. He is a noted expert on religious dissent in the Restoration; and his achievements include a now-canonical essay on the religious politics surrounding Marvell’s “Upon Appleton House.” 
  
Hamilton has also been a valued and admired teacher, having taught a range of courses, from Honors sections of British Literature, to Milton, to the graduate seminar in seventeenth-century literature. He served on major departmental committees, and chaired those on the departmental plan of organization, general education, and faculty-staff relations. Kent Cartwright, chair of the English Department, says that Hamilton served "brilliantly" as associate chair from 2001-2005, and as acting chair and director of Comparative Literature in 2006-2007.

In his year as acting chair, among other things, he oversaw seven APT cases, effected a significant and well-conceived reorganization of the staff, was crucially instrumental in retaining key faculty, and reduced teaching loads and raised stipends for doctoral students.