Ph.D., Cambridge University
Professor
(Retired July 2006)
E-mail:
leighton.r.scott@gmail.com
Scott remains Scott: brilliant, absent-minded, irascible, stingy, amazingly popular, urbane, individualistic. He's lost almost no hair and looks younger than when I first met him in 1975. As a writer, he has no peer in the department or perhaps the entire university. He's written lots of fiction recently and some of it has appeared in such publications as The North American Review.
About his kids, he's justly very proud -- without ever saying so. Laura, now married to Eric Benson, is studying law at New York University. Bruce Scott -- an amazingly hip and very cool Brad Pitt type -- is poised to enter Officer Candidate School for the Coast Guard. His recently-awarded BA is from Sewanee, where he failed to enter a fraternity or convert to the Episcopal faith. Amy Scott is at Carolina, studying languages and business. Last summer, as a door-to-door booksales-person, she hauled in $25,000!
As you might expect, Becky Scott (now Dr. Rebecca Scott) is doing just amazing things. Last year she was at the Medical School at the University of Toledo. This year she's training Physicians Assistants in Roanoke, Virginia -- and who know what the future will bring. I'm heartened by the fact that she keeps getting closer to home.
Leighton still teaches The New Yorker course, as well as Artists and Cultures, and American Stories (our latest ordeal for freshmen in the fall semester). Not too long ago he spent the fall inspecting parts of the former Yugoslavia in relation to his historical novel. I'd love to be able to say that he didn't notice there was a war on -- but actually some of us think that's why he went.
He's closer to the action than you may suspect.
