Najam, Edward W

Edward Najam arrived at IU in 1954 and remained as a professor of French until his retirement in 1987.

Biographical information from statement written by Emanuel Mickel in honor of Najam’s retirement:

"A native of Connecticut, Professor Edward Najam received the A.B. degree with honors in 1938 from Bowdoin, where he deepened his knowledge of the languages he had acquired in early childhood and added others. He first worked until 1942 in Boston’s business community and later taught German, French and Latin at private schools in Groton and Marion, Massachusetts. The year after his marriage in 1946 to Agnes Parker, a native of North Carolina, he moved to Duke University, where he earned the M.A. degree in 1950, and then to the University of North Carolina, where in 1953 he was granted the Ph.D. degree in Romance Languages. He taught at the two universities as graduate student and as instructor, in French at Duke, and in French and Spanish at North Carolina, until he came to Indiana University in 1954."

"Professor Najam took an early lead in advancing foreign language study nationwide in the early sixties…He edited two volumes on the then newest methods of teaching foreign languages, and in 1961 directed the first and highly successful national conference on foreign language teaching, held at Indiana University…For more than thirty years he has been active in the honors program as teacher and advisor. He has served simultaneously on as many as eleven committees – university, state, and national – including the Rhodes Scholarship and Woodrow Wilson Fellowship selection committees….From 1958 to 1963 he was assistant dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, where he also served as acting dean…For seven years he was executive secretary of the University Committee on International Affairs under the chairmanship of Chancellor Herman B Wells. During that period he helped establish the new graduate University of Islamabad, Pakistan…Active first as secretary-treasurer for seven years and then nationally in 1966-67 as president of the Indiana University Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa…So much has he dedicated his life to the advancement of French culture in the United States that in 1972 he was honored by the French government with the designation 'Chevalier dans l' Ordre des Palmes Academiques.'"

Najam retired from IU in 1987 and died on May 9, 2005.

From the guide to the Edward W. Najam papers, 1937-2005, (Indiana University Office of University Archives and Records Management http://www.libraries.iub.edu/archives)