Daniel Sundahl, professor of English and director of the American Studies Program, is retiring in December after 30 years of teaching at Hillsdale. During his long and distinguished career at Hillsdale, Sundahl played a key part in forming many Hillsdale College institutions, including the American Studies Program, the Dow Journalism Program, and the Visiting Writers Program.
When asked if he had anything to say to the Collegian about his retirement, Sundahl said, “No.”
Sundahl was born and raised in Minnesota. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 1982. An accomplished poet and writer, his articles, book reviews, and poems have appeared in publications including the Southern Poetry Review, First Things, Commonwealth, and Image Journal.
He has published three books of poetry, which are all out of print: “Loss of Habitat,” “Hiroshima Maidens: Imaginary Translations from the Japanese,” and “The Small Logics.”
Earlier this semester he introduced Gregory Wolfe `80 during the Visiting Writers Program celebration of Image Journal, which has published Sundahl’s work.
Provost David Whalen, who Sundahl helped hire decades ago, recalled his interview with the English department and many subsequent memories with fondness and respect. He said that when receiving candidates, Sundahl focused not just on qualifications, but on how they fit the institutional character of Hillsdale. He also mentioned Sundahl’s “rigorous, intelligent and energetic mentorship” of students.
“He is not only dedicated to his field, but to his students and to the college,” Whalen said in an email. “And that means students and colleagues who do not even know him are indebted along with the rest of us. Dr. Sundahl would eschew the cliché, but it is true: he will be sorely missed.”
Kevin Portteus, associate professor of politics, will be the new director of the American Studies Program for the spring semester.
Students like junior Jacqueline Frenkel said they will miss Sundahl’s unique approach in the classroom and his ability to teach “how to learn not only from literature but from life, that our time here is a time of sanctuary.”
“He taught me to see poetry in the miracles of dandelions, wooly worms, and Milk Duds, which (I learned) are not to be shared,” Frenkel said in an email. “What I will miss most is a professor who showed me what it means to encounter each day as a student, humble, and hungry, and paying attention, the Internationally Unknown Poet who taught me how to live.”
