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Lecturer Emerita in Writing Joyce H. Seligman died June 7, 2020, at age 75.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Joyce graduated from Erasmus Hall High School and City University of New York. She earned a master’s degree from the University of Maine and taught writing at the University of Southern Maine and the University of Wisconsin before joining Bates in 1981 as the founding director of the Writing Workshop, now Writing at Bates. She retired in 2008 as lecturer emerita in writing.

In her time at Bates, Joyce and her team worked with more than 13,000 students. Along the way, she created a comprehensive program of undergraduate writing instruction and designed faculty development programs to improve the teaching of writing across the curriculum. Her legacy is seen in how Bates prioritizes writing as a curricular focus throughout a student’s career.

When Joyce retired in 2008, Jill Reich, now dean emerita of the faculty and professor emerita of psychology, offered the faculty tribute. She described Joyce’s “tireless advocacy of writing as an essential skill of an educated person” and her “celebration of the sheer joy of writing.”

Reich also praised Joyce as “a teacher of teachers. From workshops to teaching tips to guidebooks to websites, Joyce has helped us all become more effective teachers. She has cultivated a generation of teachers who teach writing well — not only at Bates but nationally through her workshops at professional meetings, her publications, and her consultations.”

Our colleague Jane Costlow, in a Bates News story, recalled Joyce’s support for young female faculty members just beginning their careers while raising children. “It wasn’t that Joyce was mentoring or necessarily teaching us, although she had materials and insights about how to teach writing in the classroom,” Jane recalled. “But she consistently gathered people together and created frameworks in which people could just share their experiences. Those were mentoring situations that for me were really, really helpful.”

Joyce is survived by brothers Claude Seligman of 41 Carmine St., Apt. 3, New York NY  10014 and Jeffrey Seligman; cousins; and their families. A celebration of life will be held at a later time.

To view the complete obituary for Joyce Seligman, please visit: https://bit.ly/joyce-seligman
To view the Bates faculty retirement citation, please visit: https://www.bates.edu/news/2008/06/01/retiring-faculty-citation-joyce-seligman