Dr. Barbara Snedecor Receives Emeritus Status

During the Quarry Farm Symposium on October 11, Dr. Joseph Lemak, Director of the Center for Mark Twain Studies and History Instructor, presented Dr. Barbara Snedecor, former Director of the Center for Mark Twain Studies and Assistant Professor of American Literature, with Emeritus Status.

Emeritus Status is conferred to retirees by the Elmira College Board of Trustees in recognition of their dedication to Elmira College and their outstanding contributions to their discipline.

Snedecor worked for Elmira College for over 17 years. She held supervisory positions including Director of the Center for Mark Twain Studies, Assistant Director of the Freshman Writing Program, and Supervisor of the English as a Second Language Program. Prior to that she received a bachelor of arts from Barnard College, a master of arts from Brigham Young University, and a doctorate in American Literature from Binghamton University.

As Director of CMTS, she expanded the Mark Twain international quadrennial conference, initiated the Quarry Farm annual symposium series, initiated the Mark Twain Summer Teachers Institute, and hosted a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar. She was also responsible for preservation projects at Quarry Farm and the Mark Twain Study that earned her the Living Heritage Award in 2015 from the Chemung County Chamber of Commerce.

“The Center for Mark Twain Studies has made significant progress in the preservation of Quarry Farm and the Mark Twain Studies in recent years,” said Lemak during the ceremony. “Furthermore, CMTS has expanded its service to scholars and the general public with more lectures, the annual symposium series, and the formalization of the fellowship program. None of this would have been possible without the essential groundwork laid down by Barbara Snedecor. She has been an invaluable resource to CMTS and Elmira College. I’m very glad to see that Professor Senedecor is receiving the recognition she has fully earned.”

Since retiring, Snedecor has remained active as a scholar in the field of Mark Twain Studies, editing the second edition of Mark Twain in Elmira, contributing pieces to the Mark Twain Annual and American Literary Realism, and was editor of Gravity: Selected Letters of Olivia Langdon Clemens (2024).

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