The head of the Department of Languages and Literature will retire in June after 33 years with the University. David Middleton, who received his baccalaureate degree in English from Louisiana Technical College in 1971 and his Master of Arts degree from Louisiana State University in 1973, first joined the Nicholls faculty in 1977 as a temporary staff member while his wife Fran worked in the University library.

“I was not going to have any relations to Nicholls,” Middleton, a Shreveport native, said. “My wife was going to work in the library while I stayed home and wrote my Ph.D dissertation, and then when I finished we would go into the job market nationally.”

But Marie Fletcher, one of the original members of the English faculty and then-retiring department head, offered him a one-year instructorship for the 1977-1978 academic year.

“Teacher and writing poetry go together,” Middleton said. “So if you want to have a life where you can teach poetry and have time to write it, I can’t think of a better job than being a college teacher.”

After taking on another instructorship the following year and finishing his dissertation, Middleton earned his Ph.D and accepted a tenure track assistant professorship. He has been at the University ever since.

“This is the only place I have ever taught, though I’ve had the opportunity to take a job elsewhere,” Middleton said. “They say you’re going to change jobs five, six, seven times in your life, but I go back to an earlier time when if you take a job and you’re happy, you stay.”

During his time at the University, Middleton has aided in forming the English society, a club for undergraduates interested in reading and writing, served as committee chair for the Fletcher Lecture Series for nine years and helped revive the campus literary magazine “Mosaic,” which had temporarily died away in the 1960s.

Since 2005, during his time as department head, Middleton has worked to hire new quality faculty members, institute new courses and maintain the department’s reputation as “a traditional English department with high standards.”

Middleton also developed a course catering to public school teachers on how to teach 11th and 12th graders how to write. In addition, he is working to create a new master’s program in English at Nicholls.

“It’s a special kind of master’s degree aimed at area teachers who cannot quit teaching and leave their families behind and move to Baton Rouge or New Orleans for two years to earn a master’s degree,” Middleton said.

In addition to working at the University, Middleton has published nine chapbooks, or small books, of verse, since 1991-three of them with LSU Press. Of the books he has published, Middleton’s favorite is “The Burning Fields,” his first full-length collection.

“Your first book is your first love,” Middleton said. “You never forget it.”

Middleton, who has been writing poetry since he was 15 years old, uses family, religion and fatherhood as muses for his work.

“I don’t put poetry first, I put family, church and, as long as I’m working, work first. And then poetry right after that,” Middleton said. “And because I do it that way, the poetry I write reflects the values of someone who considers other people important.”

Middleton has won several awards for his writing, including the “Professional Artist of the Year” award for a lifetime of writing poetry in 2006 and the Allen Tate award at the University of the South’s “Sewanne Review” in Tennessee for the best poetry in the journal for 2006. He has also earned various honors at the University, including the titles of distinguished service professor, Alcee Fortier professor and poet in residence.

“I’ve done about all I can do for Nicholls. I’d like to make way for young faculty with new ideas or someone who may need a job,” Middleton said. “And I’d like more time to get back to writing.”

Middleton plans to spend more time with his wife, working at his church and taking care of his elder family members. And although he said he will “miss the interaction with students and faculty,” he is excited about the next phase in his life.

“There will be a sense of nostalgia and loss and missing a routine of a lifetime, but at the same time, as we go through life, we give up things and we get things,” Middleton said. “I think we do that when we take our first step onto the bus in kindergarten, on our first day of high school, on our first day of (college), on our first day at graduate school, on our first day to walk into the class as a teacher and on our first day to walk out the door retired.