Obituary: Ernest H. Hofer, former English professor, founder of the Oxford Summer Seminar
Ernest Harrison Hofer, 84, of Sunderland and Lewes Crescent, Brighton, England, a former professor of English and founder of the Oxford Summer Seminar, died July 15 at Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton.
Born in Morristown, N.J., he spent most of his early years on Staten Island, N.Y. He attended Brown University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and earned an A.B. and M.A. in English. He received a B. Litt. from Oxford Univeristy, where he was a Fulbright Scholar in 1952 and earned a Ph.D from Cornell University in 1960.
His long career included a number of years as an account executive with the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather in London. His academic career began in Heidelberg, Germany, where he was an administrator for the University of Maryland’s overseas program for American service men and women in Europe and North Africa. In 1964, He joined the English Department, where he served as associate head and taught courses on Henry James and modern British fiction. He also served as associate dean of Humanities and Fine Arts.
Hofer founded the Oxford Summer Seminar, a program that for more than 40 years has given American students the opportunity to study with Oxford faculty in the traditional tutorial format. Since its founding, the program has offered about 4,000 American undergraduates an experience that many described as “life changing.” He retired in 1986.
Frank Hugus, associate provost and director of the International Programs Office, says Hofer was always very supportive of the university’s international programs. “He helped this campus become much more internationalized,” Hugus says.
Hofer was a member of the Boston Athenaeum and the Royal Automobile Club in London.
Donations in his honor may be made to the UMass Oxford Summer Seminar, Department of English, Bartlett Hall, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 01003.
Plans for a memorial service in the fall are incomplete.
July 21, 2008.
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