Walter Jackson Bate '39

After a distinguished Harvard career spanning more than 50 years, Porter University Professor of English Emeritus Walter Jackson Bate '39 died of a heart attack July 26 in Boston. He was 81.

Bate was a two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, gaining recognition for his biographical writings on John Keats in 1964 and Samuel Johnson in 1978. The Johnson biography also won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Bate was well-known at Harvard for his exceptional lecturing, especially in his popular course, entitled the "Age of Johnson."

He taught English at the College for 40 years and also served as chair of the Department of English and the History and Literature concentration.

Even after retiring, Bate maintained close ties with the University and spent many days in the office he retained in Widener Library.

Gary Bellow

Brandeis Professor of Law Gary Bellow died of a heart attack April 13 in Cambridge, closing a life of progressive legal advocacy and education. He was 64.

Before joining the Harvard Law School faculty in 1971, he worked as a defense attorney and activist for the poor and underprivileged. Groups he defended include the United Farm Workers and its founder, civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, and the radical Black Panther Party.

At Harvard, Bellow was one of the first practitioners of clinical legal education, teaching students in the classroom and sending them into the field to practice what they learned.

With his wife, Lecturer on Law Jeanne Charn, Bellow founded the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center in Jamaica Plains. The center enables law school students to practice real cases and provides legal services to the poor.

Jeanne S. Chall

An influential researcher and emerita professor at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) who for decades was at the forefront of the debate over how people learn to read, Jeanne S. Chall died Nov. 27 of heart failure at her Cambridge home. She was 78.

Chall, who retired in 1991, was one of the first psychologists to talk of reading as a learning process with developmental stages. She started teaching at the GSE in 1965.

Colleagues said one of Chall's chief contributions to her field was to urge reading teachers to give elementary school students the most challenging literature possible.

Until about a year ago, Chall continued to visit campus regularly to research, teach and write. About two weeks before her death, she finished editing her final work, a retrospective on trends in reading education.