Obituary
Charles Edward Ruhl, Professor Emeritus at Old Dominion University, died on December 25, 2009 after a long illness. He received his B.A. in philosophy from Gettysburg College in 1960, his M.A. in English from Purdue University in 1965, and his PhD in linguistics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1972 and subsequently taught linguistics at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and North Carolina Central. From 1974 until his retirement in 1999, he taught at Old Dominion University, where he served as both Graduate Program Director and Department Chair of English. He was awarded an Academic Council of Learned Societies fellowship for the 1981-82 academic year for his work on monosemy, the principle that before assuming the polysemy of words with apparent multiple meanings, researchers should first examine extensive data that might reveal a single abstract meaning of a word such as take or break. In addition to numerous articles on semantics and pragmatics, he published his book, On Monosemy, in 1989 with SUNY Press. He was active in SECOL and was president of that organization in 1981-82, and subsequently a lifelong member. He was also a member of the Linguistic Society of America, the Modern Language Association, the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, and the Linguistic Association of Canada the United States. He remained professionally active nearly to the end, co-authoring work his colleague, Dr. Janet Bing. In addition to his academic credentials, Charles was a dedicated creative writer, able to produce small volumes of verse and a number of other works, including a semi-autobiographical novel. But because he was an inveterate tinkerer, never quite satisfied, he left several manuscripts behind, both creative and academic. He was also a great appreciator of others' work, and mentored and gave encouragement to many colleagues. In addition to linguistics, poetry and fiction, his passions were for the Giants (both teams) and the University of North Carolina's men's basketball team. He was a kind, modest, and gentle man.

Former SECOL member, Walburga Von Raffler Engle died a few weeks ago. She was a forceful, loyal, hardworking member of our organization during its struggling, formative years, co hosting our 1972 meeting with Reza Ordoubadian. Jointly they also edited the proceedings volume which was published in 1975 as Views on Language which is widely used in five continents.

Reza Ordoubadian's The Poems of Abu Sai'd Abol'kheyr came out January 2, with Ibex Publishers, who also published his previous book The Poems of Hafez in 2007. Both books deal with the notion of Sufiism and Persian mysticism in the 11th and 14th centuries, respectively.His next book, The Complete Poems of Forough Farrokhzad, arguably the first feminist Persian poet, is scheduled to be publish in the Spring of 1011.