In a tucked-away corner of Eliot House, Cabot Professor of American Literature Alan E. Heimert '49 still holds court in his office, which-like the great scholar himself-hearkens back to an earlier era.

The great scholars with whom he studied-Perry Miller, Kenneth B. Murdock-have long since died, and many of his fellow colleagues have retired. And while Donald H. Fleming, Trumbull professor of American history, is older, Heimert has spent more years at Harvard.

In 1964, Heimert recalls a classmate referring to him as a "fixture" at their fifteenth reunion.

A fixture in 1964, an institution today, Heimert will be retiring at the end of the next academic year, after a life tied to Harvard where he mastered a House, a department and a scholarly life.

Heimert, who has devoted the majority of his academic career to the study of American religion and Puritanism, has seen the academic world transform itself. The "learned" individuals have been replaced by to "clever" men which he abhors.

"The clever ones have a gambit, a piece of theory that they can apply to everything as opposed to knowing everything," he says.

And Heimert has increasingly found himself in the minority as the generations shift and his colleagues become more distant.

"It's at the point that I only recognize the ones who are the faculty emeritii. Everybody is younger than I am," he says.

Yet, instead of merely fading into retirement, Heimert has reaffirmed his love for undergraduate teaching, describing the last five years as some of the most rewarding.

"I think the teaching has shown me really engaged students, more than at any other period in my teaching career," Heimert says.

He feels today's students are "serious," but in a different way than the career-minded students of the late '70s and early '80s.

"I think today's students are much more serious, much more intellectual than the late '70s and early '80s where they were serious about getting into medical and law school," he says.

"They're quite serious to understand the American past and do not say that history is bunk," he says.

And while Heimert has gained so much out of the last five years, a family legacy of diabetes has cast a shadow. Unable to work for two years for health reasons, he had surgery in an attempt to clear up his arteries in the February of 1997. He suffered a stroke and ultimately had to have his leg partially amputated.

Yet, as Heimert comes to the end of his academic odyssey through Harvard as he plans to retire at the end of the next academic year, he says his final stint at the University has perhaps been his most rewarding of his teaching experiences.