Faculty
Jules Gazel
Jules Gazel, professor of French in Hamilton’s Junior Year in France program beginning in the 1970s and continuing until the early 1990s, passed away in Biarritz, France, on Oct. 27, 2012, at the age of 83. Jules Gazel will be remembered by generations of Hamilton students for his inspiring teaching, sense of humor and warm, personal charm. Hamilton directors will fondly recall his quick mind, his joie de vivre and his generosity of spirit. An innovator in the classrooms of the lycée in Biarritz for many years, he was recognized by the French government for his contributions to pedagogy at a time when France was moving away from its more traditional forms of teaching. He received one promotion after another in the prestigious Napoleonic Ordre des Palmes Académiques, finishing at the highest rank of commandeur. Jules is survived by his wife Hélène, his son, Jean, and his daughter, Florence, and a granddaughter, Lola.
— John C. O’Neal, Professor of French
Carol Schreier Rupprecht
Carol Schreier Rupprecht, professor of comparative literature emerita, died near her home in Keene Valley, NY, on November 14, 2012, at the age of 73. She had taught on College Hill for 33 years until her retirement at the end of 2007. Known for her wholehearted dedication to her students both in the classroom and as a mentor, she also played a significant role in the establishment of Hamilton’s comparative literature department as well as creating its program in English as a Second Language.
Born on June 30, 1939, to William J. and Caroline Comstock Schreier in Stafford Springs, CT, Carol Rupprecht received her B.S. degree from the University of Virginia in 1962 and her Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale University in 1977. She arrived on the Hill in 1974 as an assistant professor of literature at Kirkland College. After the merger with Kirkland in 1978, she joined Hamilton’s faculty and helped establish the College’s new department of comparative literature. She served as associate dean of students for academics in 1981-82 and chaired the comparative literature department for several terms through the years. In addition, she directed the English as a Second Language program from 1985 to 1993.
A widely recognized authority in the field of dreams and literature, Professor Rupprecht was a former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and a founding editor of its journal, Dreaming. A regular presenter at conferences in the U.S. and abroad, she was also editor of two major works in the field, Feminist Archetypal Theory: Interdisciplinary Re-Visions of Jungian Thought (1985) and The Dream and the Text: Essays in Literature and Language (1993).
In addition to a highly popular senior seminar on Dreams and Texts, Professor Rupprecht taught courses in Dante, Shakespeare, translation theory, and women writers of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In all of them, her students found her “lively, caring, provocative and demanding.” In 1996, she became the third occupant (after Professor of English Frederick R. Wagner and Professor of Anthropology Douglas A. Raybeck) of the prestigious Christian A. Johnson “Excellence in Teaching” chair. Awarded to a tenured faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional talent and dedication as a teacher, the chair represented well merited recognition of her passionate commitment to her students.
After her retirement, Carol Rupprecht moved to the Adirondacks, where she enjoyed bicycling, hiking, skiing, snow-shoeing, and canoeing with her husband, former Professor of Government Richard “Pete” Suttmeier, and friends. She also became active in the Ausable River Association. Tragically, it was at the base of the Ausable Chasm bridge where her body was found last November.
In addition to her husband, Carol S. Rupprecht is survived by her daughter, Jody Rupprecht, and two sisters and a brother. She was predeceased by her son, Whitney Rupprecht.
