Obituary

Albert S. Cook, 72: 'redrew map of literary studies' at UB
Funeral services were held July 10 at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Providence, R. I., for Albert S. Cook, a poet and literary scholar who brought the UB English department into national prominence in the 1960s. Cook, 72, died July 7 in Miriam Hospital in Providence. He was an emeritus professor of comparative literature, classics and English at Brown University at his death.

Cook was chairman of the English department when the University of Buffalo, a private university, became part of the State University of New York in 1963. During his term as chair, from 1963 to 1966, 25 literary luminaries were hired.

"The English department's growth in those years was breathtaking," noted Mark Shechner, current chair of the department, in The Buffalo News.

"Al broke all the molds, hiring poets, writers, and intellectuals with what seemed like raw energy and chutzpah and lots of money. He was chairman for one term and he hired 25 people," Shechner said. Among them were Lionel Abel, John Barth, Robert Creeley, Carl Dennis, Irving Feldman, Leslie Fiedler, Dorothy Van Ghent, Mac Hammond, Norman Holland, Bruce Jackson, John Logan, Charles Olson and Bill Sylvester.

"When Al was done in just three years, SUNY Buffalo's English department was on the map. It virtually redrew the map of literary studies," said Shechner. While Cook was chair, visiting writers included Alan Ginsberg, Robert Duncan, Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones)and Gregory Corso.

A graduate of Harvard University with bachelor's and master's degrees in classics, Cook came to UB in 1963. He had been an assistant professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley from 1953-56, and a professor of comparative literature at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Cook, who spoke four languages and read 10, was a former senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif.

After stepping down as chair in 1966, Cook remained at UB as a professor of English and comparative literature for 12 years.

He moved to Providence in 1978 to join the faculty at Brown University, and was appointed Ford Foundation professor there in 1986, holding that title until his retirement in 1988. He continued his connection with UB, presenting a lecture in the Wednesdays at Four Plus series here in 1996.

During his career, Cook published more than 20 books, plays and textbooks, as well as criticism and poems in about 80 periodicals.

A graduate of Canisius College and the UB dental school, Buffomante established a dental practice on Elmwood Avenue in 1944, practicing there until 1990. He was a member of the American Dental Association, Eighth District Dental Society, Erie County Dental Association and the Omicron Kappa Upsilon Honor Society.

Nichols, a 1947 graduate of the UB medical school, was an associate cancer research gynecologist at Roswell Park Cancer Institute from 1953 -60. He maintained a private practice, and from 1971-79, served as a professor in the medical school and as chief of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Sisters Hospital.

In 1980, he left Buffalo to become chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Brown, and was obstetrician-gynecologist-in-chief at Women and Infants' Hospital of Rhode Island. He built Brown's academic department into a nationally recognized program and created an integrated center for women's health care throughout Rhode Island and surrounding states. In 1990, Nichols received the Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award from the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

From 1991-97, he was a visiting professor of obstetrics-gynecology at Harvard Medical School and chief of pelvic reconstructive surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, returning to Brown in 1997 as professor of obstetrics and gynecology.