This summer turned a page for William Rewak, S.J.: He stepped down as Chancellor of SCU, a post he had held since 2011. We’re blessed to still have him as part of our community as Chancellor Emeritus—and we’re glad that he has more time to write poetry. In fact, our Christmas feature was a new poem by him, “Bethlehem.” Read it here.
Fr. Rewak came to Santa Clara in 1970 to teach English. He served as president of the University for a dozen years (1976–88) and as president of Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. He founded this magazine, charting the course so: “We are here for that human interchange where wisdom is born, to serve intellect and to touch the human heart.” He has a new collection of verse, Harmony: New and Selected Poems—which draws from the collections The Right Taxi and The Orphan Bear.
In an interview a couple years ago, he spoke of how “the creation of a poem is itself a prayer, an acknowledgment and praise of something, or someone, lying at the heart of our experience.” In his honor, the Jesuit community has named an endowed chair for him. Its first recipient: Professor Shannon Vallor of the Department of Philosophy.