The Robert L. Walker Memorial Scholarship

Criteria: ($250 Annual Award) The Robert L. Walker Memorial Scholarship will be awarded to a full-time student who is majoring in English with a concentration in writing and who demonstrates financial need.

While he loved teaching his favorite topics, perhaps the greatest impact of the career of the late Robert Walker, Ph.D., chair of the Languages and Literature Department at WSU, was as a teacher of writing. In tribute to his passion for narrative, his department colleagues began the Robert L. Walker Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Robert’s legacy includes a love of narrative in many forms, a deep curiosity about the world and its cultures, great kindness, a dry wit, and a profound sense of humor. He developed journalism courses, was an advisor to the Student Voice, and helped found the Central Massachusetts Writing Project.

“Dr. Walker had a passion for great writing, especially great newspaper writing, that still stays with me today,” wrote former Student Voice Editor Lawrence Annucci ’86 in his tribute titled “Goodbye to the Best Professor I Ever Had.” “It’s why I became a journalist, worked on a dictionary for four years, and even moonlighted as a disc jockey.”