His teaching was most recently recognized in 1997 when he was a granted a Levenson award for teaching excellence, an award which he holds in higher esteem than the Lifetime Achievement Award he received from the Modern Literature Association in 1995.

Heimert was born in Oak Park, III. and soon moved to Chicago and finally to Elmhurst, III. where he attended York Community High School. Neither his mother nor his father received a college degree although his father completed two years of school before his father's death forced him to earn a living for his family.

Heimert was far from groomed to attend Harvard's fair grounds. He discovered Harvard's existence only with the encouragement of teachers.

"The only thing I had known about Harvard was that it had been founded earlier than any other college," he says.

"I came here not only as a wide-eyed lad, but as a wide-tied lad," Heimert says, referring to the difference in Eastern and Midwestern tie size that branded him a stranger to Cambridge.

Heimert quickly discovered his affinity for American history, but even as he completed his senior thesis on Abraham Lincoln he had not yet decided to enter the world of academia.

Intent on attending law school, Heimert applied and was accepted to Harvard Law School in the December of his senior year. After completing his thesis, he hopped over to the law school to see what lay ahead for him.

"Well, I discovered what was coming next, and I immediately started seeing if I could still apply to other law schools. There was less intellectual content-it was a trade school, not an intellectual enterprise."

Ulimately, however, Heimert's pessisism about the state of academic affairs moves beyond mere rhetorical gestures. He says now if he was faced with the same choice upon graduation, he would have attended the law school. And while he cannot retrace his steps, his daughter, Larisa, who attended Yale Law School for the "intellectual enterprise" it offered ultimately rejected the world of academia because it lacked the same freedom.

"She was responding to the entry of mere cleverness [into academia] that had taken over," Heimert says

Heimert feels that the lack of respect for the past was epitomized in the September, 1997 dedication of the Barker Center for the Humanities, which unified disparate humanities departments but divided the Great Hall of the Freshman Union.

Heimert says his fellow colleagues celebrated the dedication not only because of its unifying purpose, but rather because it relegated the Freshman Union, a Harvard institution, to the history books.

"It got rid of the symbol of the old Harvard. The old Harvard was not a bad place-it was very good to me," he said.

Heimert would also find his future wife through his love of academics. He met Arline I. Grimes '59 when she was still an undergraduate and they started dating after she graduated.

After a three-year romance, they were married in Harvard's Appleton Chapel on Oct. 20, 1962. Of Heimert's four groomsmen, three were Harvard graduates and one was the son of a Harvard graduate. Even in love, Heimert found that Harvard shaped his life.