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By Phil Williams
Judith Ortiz Cofer, a critically acclaimed poet, novelist and essayist in the department of English,  has been named to a Franklin Professorship in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.
“Writing and teaching literature are the only vocations I have known, my true calling to the work of my life,” says Cofer. “Receiving a Franklin Professorship is an affirmation of what I have worked to achieve for more than 20 years and of what of I hope to do in the future. I am honored by this distinguished appointment.”
Cofer becomes the seventh current Franklin Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. Others are Levon Ambartsumian, music; Raymond Damian, cellular biology; Leon Dure III, biochemistry and molecular biology; Charles Hudson, anthropology; John Morrow, history; and Richard LaFleur, classics. Retired Franklin Professors are Robert Ellis in sociology and Hugh Kenner in English.
Franklin Professorships, approved by the board of regents in 1980, were established to honor selected faculty for their length of service, administrative efforts and record of teaching and research.
“The main purpose in establishing this professorship is to honor versatile and long-term contributors to the success of the Franklin College, faculty members who serve as exemplars and leaders for their younger colleagues,” says Wyatt Anderson, dean of the college.
Departments may nominate candidates, the dean’s office may solicit nominations or the honor may be used as part of a recruitment effort at the senior-faculty level. Franklin Professors receive a support account that is currently $5,000 per year, provided by the college. The length of appointment is indefinite.
“Judith Ortiz Cofer is a distinguished presence in contemporary American letters,” says Rita Dove, former U.S. Poet Laureate and Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia. “She is a treasure.”
Cofer has been a faculty member at UGA since 1984 and is now professor of English and creative writing. A widely published novelist, poet and essayist, she has received numerous honors during her writing career, including a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Italy this fall, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for her book The Latin Deli: Prose and Poetry, and a nomination for a National Book Award.
More than 150 of her poems, essays, short stories and novel excerpts have been selected for reprinting in anthologies, textbooks and collections.
Among her many books are novels such as The Line of the Sun and memoirs such as Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood.
She has published poetry and prose in many of America’s most distinguished literary journals.
She has taught many courses at UGA over the years, including an Honors course in composition and literature that introduces students to the diversity of writers in American literature today, and courses on multicultural American literature and the literature of women.
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