DONALD L. HILL, Professor of English Language and Literature, has retired from active faculty status as of May 31, 1984, after a productive career as a teacher and scholar.

After receiving a Ph.D. degree in English, concentrating in Victorian studies with a dissertation on Kipling and work on the editorial board of Accent, a literary magazine, granted by the University of Illinois in 1948, Professor Hill came to The University of Michigan as an instructor. He quickly established a reputation as a fine and patient teacher, particularly adept in courses in Victorian literature and in introduction to the fundamentals of the study of poetry. He was promoted in stages at The University of Michigan, becoming a professor in 1969.

Professor Hill's extraordinary patience and skill with students also led him to devote considerable time and energy to student counseling. A faculty counselor almost from the beginning of his career at Michigan, he became chairman of what was then the Office of Junior and Senior Counselors from 1957 through 1962, serving as well on many committees connected with admissions, student counseling and student activities, bringing to them his combination of high academic standards and sympathy toward student perspectives.

At the same time, Professor Hill continued his commitment to scholarship. His interest in contemporary poetry led to publication of the first critical book on the poetry of Richard Wilbur in 1967. His interest in Victorian studies, maturing slowly and carefully, after some further work on Kipling, began to concentrate on Walter Pater. He published articles on Pater, beginning in 1968, and his work eventually, in 1980, led to a complete edition of Pater's The Renaissance, a scholarly complication with full textual and explanatory notes, the only complete edition of the twentieth century. This edition has received considerable praise throughout the scholarly world for the knowledge and sensitivity of its accurate commentary.

In his later years as teacher, Professor Hill worked closely with numerous able graduate students, continuing to demonstrate the qualities of patience, knowledge and insight that had always distinguished his teaching. His energy and dedication to scholarship continue unabated, for he has recently assumed the position of general editor for what is to be a new collected edition, in eight to ten volumes, of all of Pater's works. Editing some of the volumes himself and supervising the work of others on other volumes, Professor Hill remains actively and meticulously involved in this ambitious scholarly task.

The Regents now honor this skillful and thoughtful teacher and scholar by naming him Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature.