Hope Glidden’s kind and approachable nature left a positive impact on everyone she met.

“She was an unfailingly kind and pleasant individual,” said Catherine Nock, a senior Spanish lecturer and interim French language coordinator at Syracuse University. “For Hope, being a kind person came before everything else.”

Glidden, a French professor at SU, died at Crouse Hospital on Sept. 17. She was 72.

Valentin Duquet, a teaching assistant in the same department, only took a class with Glidden for one semester, but he said he still saw how passionate she was about teaching.

“Her face would always light up when she saw a student or talked to them,” Duquet said.

Even outside of the classroom, Glidden kept her students in mind.

Duquet said Glidden once brought a snippet of a New York Times article to class, all marked up, that she thought would have been useful for his final paper.

Glidden instilled a love of the French language and culture in all her students, Nock said. She was particularly passionate about French literature, especially the works of scholars Michel de Montaigne and François Rabelais.

“You couldn’t not love it because her own passion for the culture was contagious,” Nock added. Glidden would spend almost every summer in her apartment in Paris, writing and doing research.

Nock also worked with Glidden during the 2014-15 school year, reviewing applications for incoming master’s students.

Glidden didn’t rush through the process, Nock said — she read every letter of recommendation and essay. Even when it was clear someone wasn’t a good fit for the program, she would take the time to give them suggestions, feedback and career advice.

“That experience more than anything made me realize what a lovely person she was,” Nock said.

Students regarded Glidden as a cornerstone of the French department, Duquet said. She was one of three tenured French professors and had been there the longest, he added, so her recommendations meant a lot to both students and colleagues.

Glidden taught seminars and courses on topics ranging from Renaissance lyric poetry to French feminisms, authored two books and wrote almost 30 articles.

“She seemed immortal; she seemed like a main part of what the spirit of the department was,” Duquet said.

Glidden was also an active member of SU’s Medieval Renaissance Studies group along with Albrecht Diem, associate professor of history at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

A few years ago, Diem asked Glidden if she could teach a class on the scholar Montaigne in the Middle Ages. He said despite much of the material coming from long, complicated sources, Glidden looked at the texts in a “beautiful, playful manner,” and the students loved it.

That same playful, open and elegant way of looking at things also translated to the way Glidden interacted with people, Diem added, and it really distinguished her from other colleagues.

Glidden was also known for the collection of books in her office, Duquet said. After she moved out of her office, she personally handed books to students she thought would appreciate them. The rest of the books were left available for anyone to take, and people across departments kept them.

“It was somewhat sad to see that collection of books lying on the table, but it was also a beautiful thing,” Duquet said. “It was like passing on who she was and who she had been.”

Published on October 1, 2017 at 9:29 pm

Contact Sandhya: ssiyer@syr.edu