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Gordon R. Silber, professor emeritus of romance languages
Gordon R. Silber, professor emeritus of romance languages, died Jan. 1 in Beechwood Nursing Home, Getzville, where he had been a resident for the past five years. Silber, who had Alzheimer's disease, was 93.
He was recruited to UB in 1960 to head the modern languages department with a goal improving foreign language teaching, especially on the undergraduate level. When UB became part of the SUNY system in 1962, his responsibilities were expanded to include the graduate students, particularly those in the doctoral programs in French, German and Spanish.
As head of the new Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, he recruited some of America's leading foreign literature scholars and teachers. He retired in 1980.
Michael Metzger, professor emeritus of romance languages, remembers Silber as "a senior professor in the traditional, Ivy League/collegiate, gentlemanly American mold that was, even then (1963), becoming rarer. Tall and distinguished—like a sturdier Woodrow Wilson—patient, witty, kind and with exquisite manners and even more exquisite tact."
"He wore his great learning lightly, without pedantry. He took his administrative responsibilities seriously, but always had his mind on the educational purposes involved and the needs and interests of each member of the department," Metzger says.
Born in New York City, he was a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University, where he majored in classics. He received his doctorate in French language and literature from Princeton in 1935.
Silber taught French for a year at Princeton, then taught French and Italian at Union College in Schenectady. During World War II, he worked in Arlington, Va., for the Army Security Agency of the U.S. War Department, for which he received the Civilian Award for Meritorious Service.
He returned to Union College after the war and was a faculty member there—serving as chair of the college's Department of Modern Languages and chair of the Division of Humanities—until he came to UB.
While at UB, he took a leave of absence in 1963-64 to serve as professor-in-charge of the Sweet Briar Junior Year in France, supervising more than 100 American students in Tours and Paris.
He was honored twice by the French government, being designated Officier d'Academie in 1955 and receiving the highly prized rosette as Officier des Palmes Academiques in 1969.
In the 1950s, he also collaborated in pioneering work to use television to bring foreign languages into elementary school classrooms.
Silber was a member and leader of numerous professional societies. He served on the executive council of the American Association of Teachers of French and was secretary-treasurer of the New York State Federation of Foreign Language Teachers.
He was a 70-year member of the Modern Language Association and was a member of the American Council for Teaching Foreign Languages and the Dante Society.
He traveled to France frequently, visiting almost all of the French provinces, and he enjoyed living in Paris. He also loved Italy and in his later years enjoyed cruises to Greece and the Greek islands.