Dr. Alvin Dust PhD of Waterloo

Born: March 20, 1922 in Chicago

Died: Dec. 27, 2009 of stroke

He was there from the beginning: an eager, young academic with a PhD under his belt, hired for a teaching position in the English department of the newly forming University of Waterloo. It was 1959 and Alvin Dust was about to launch what became an illustrious career, as a teacher, mentor and community leader, particularly as an active member of the Catholic school board.

Alvin’s daughter, Ayr veterinarian Dr. Andrea Dust, talks about her father with great love and even greater admiration. He supported his three children in their endeavours, expected the best but never pushed, never foisted his own ideas or ambitions. His encouragement succeeded: Andrea’s brothers are also career-oriented. Julian is associate professor of chemistry at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Cornerbrook, N.L., and Evan is a transportation consultant on the West Coast.

Andrea has little information about her father’s childhood. It wasn’t something he talked about. Other than one sister, she didn’t meet any family. “He had several siblings but I knew of only one aunt,” said Andrea. She knew his parents died young and that they had been a blue-collar family. “He was the only one in his family who went on to higher education.”

Alvin served with distinction during the Second World War, then took advantage of a government program that partly paid veterans’ education. “The rest, he put himself through school,” said Andrea, noting her father worked as waiter at a yacht club where he learned the finer things in life, such as a formal table setting, which he carried on into his family’s life.

As an academic, Alvin’s particular interest was in literature of the Restoration period, a lively period of writing in the 1660s, though he was well versed on many topics and loved nothing better than a rousing discussion.

In a 1980 Record article, after Alvin was elected chair of what was then known as the K-W Catholic high school board, reporter Gary Nyp noted that conversations with the professor always delved into “a myriad of topics … from the best methods of preserving leather book covers to the inadequacies of some of Canada’s libraries.” Alvin had a keen mind and a good heart.

Prof. Paul Beam, a longtime friend, former student and later a colleague, recalled starting in arts at UW in the fall of 1960, “one of 60 students who made the total enrolment of arts and science in its first year.”

“Prof. Dust and Jim Stone were the two original English profs at the university, starting two years earlier to teach a required course to the engineers. As the graduate program developed in the latter ’70s, Al’s course took its place in our specialties and he taught it with verve and humour until his retirement.”

Paul had a deep appreciation for his colleague’s teaching skills. “Al’s strengths were his enthusiasm for his subject matter, no one ever doubted that, and his attention to what students actually wrote. I had opportunity to read a number of the marked essays he returned, done in detail, with compassion and encouragement.”

Paul recalled how the professor took time assessing essays, always giving students an opportunity to revise and resubmit their work, “believing that this was the real path to understanding.”

Alvin was raised in Chicago and attended the University of Illinois, where he met his wife Verne, a French major. Verne graduated with a master’s degree, stayed home to raise the couple’s three children, then worked for 18 years as an administrative assistant in the math department at the University of Waterloo. Alvin had become immersed in Catholic education, first serving as the bishop’s appointee, then later as chair of the board of governors, overseeing St. Jerome’s and St. Mary’s Catholic high schools in Kitchener.

His faith had come to Alvin in adulthood through his Catholic wife, explained Andrea, adding he embraced the tenets of Catholicism. Paul said his friend never pushed his views on others. “He kept his values clear and did not insist on them in our daily teaching and program development. We were, after all, a secular institution and he respected that.”

Andrea said her father “had a profound love of English literature, drama, fine arts and music. My parents were opera aficionados … he was active in the drama department: he directed and acted.”

Julian Dust noted his father was “devoted to the delivery of good theatre productions and an expansion of theatre performance in the K-W area.” A consummate showman, his father, dressed in top hat and frock coat, was once “suspended from the ceiling of the theatre over the stage and proceeded to comment on the goings on down below from this vantage point.”

After retiring from the university in 1990, Alvin continued to teach distance education until 2001. His wife died of cancer in 2000, a loss that deeply shook Alvin. “My father was never really the same after that,” said Andrea. “My mother probably was the rock. She was equally brilliant, and encouraged us.”

She remembers her father as “wonderful” a man full of ideals, a gentle man who adored cats, lived his faith and loved his family.

vhill@therecord.com